Poll on health care show great support for Medicare for all!

[stevebreeze]

Who says Kucinich is not electable? Here is a poll that shows Aemricans overwelmingly support Kucinich's position on health care.


Oct. 20— Americans express broad, and in some cases growing, discontent with the U.S. health care system, based on its costs, structure and direction alike — fueling cautious support for a government-run, taxpayer-funded universal health system modeled on Medicare.


In an extensive ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll, Americans by a 2-1 margin, 62-32 percent, prefer a universal health insurance program over the current employer-based system.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/US/healthcare031020_poll.html#

:kick:

[Hieronymus]

1. About time

The cries of the "socialism and communism" from the far right are falling on deaf ears. The figures in favor of univesal healthcare would be even higher if a lot of cons could read and think.
They're good little slaves to the insurance and drug companies who pay for their own corporate welfare by contributing to campaigns.:kick:

[burr]

10. contributing to campaigns, slavery??

why not just look at our tax dollars which go to nonbid contracts, and employees who either must except paycuts and work overtime or else lose their health insurance.

If you want examples of slavery..once you lose your health coverage you may never get it back because of pre-existing conditions!

[Mairead]

2. Dennis seems to be quite good at 'the vision thing'

I can only hope that when he gets some time to think about it, he'll also think about how we're going to avoid being caught out by oil going away.

[Clete]

3. Back before Hillary's plan

polls were at 70% in favor of national health care. Infiltrators or Trojan horses, paid by the for profit health industries managed to propagandize those polls down to below 50% by the time Hillary's plan went before Congress. Watch for this to happen again. We need our own propagandizers to counter the attack.

[mlawson]

8. That's right. Support is soft.

The repukes will simlpy yell over and over that "We have the BEST health care system in the world now, why destroy it?", and audences will scream and wave their patriotic pompoms, and the bill will go down again. Should we try it, though?? Of course; we must. At some point, such bills will pass, tho I can't say when.

[Deja Q]

12. Right on!

We know what to expect this time. Having a good plan is one thing, but we must also win the verbal war they've been waging for decades.

[Mairead]

4. bump

[Nobody]

5. With the growing numbers of temps and part timers

the only way everyone can get covered is if the government sets up a program to cover everyone.

Too many companies are no longer hiring full time workers, instead they hire contractors for temporary assignments and part timers. None of these people are eligible for any benefits.

These are the lowest paid workers, but they are working. In the present system, they do not get any health coverage no matter how many hours they work and no matter how hard they work.

Are they less worthy of good health?

There are also many companies that have minimal benefits. One company I worked for had a sign up sheet that displayed several options. The least attractive and most expensive to the worker was the one available.

It may be that companies are less able to afford health care for their workers.

Considering how many working people are uninsured (I'm one of them) and not likely to be insured in the near future and considering how insurance companies love to come up with reasons not to cover you - their favorite is the pre-existing condition clause, better not lose your job if you have diabetes or some other chronic condition - it's going to cost us all in the long run a lot more not to make sure we all stay healthy.

[union_maid]

6. We should make it happen

Afer we get finished electing the next president, no matter who it is, we should start forming a grassroots coalition to lobby for this. Seriously - it's the only way it's ever going to happen. Popular demand has to be huge and organized. I think we should take a good look at any organizations that are already working for this and try to bring together a coalition of those and "the people". If we could do it, then that would be cyber-roots democracy in action.

[Nobody]

7. Yes, we should

And I'm starting to work on my fellow temps. So far, two people are in total agreement with us about health care.

[burr]

9. to bad it has become a forgotten issue for the "electable" candidates...

If you take the 43% who backed Clinton in 1992 and add this to the 19% won by Perot you have 62% of the vote. The math isn't that difficult. The people who are opposed to national healthcare are the hard core, neo-con zealots who would gladly swim in a leech pool naked..if they thought that doing this could destroy liberalism.

Wes Clark had promised to release the details of his healthcare plan yesterday as part of his "New Patriotism" campaign theme. I'm glad to see he plans to someday release a proposal, but where is it?

<http://www.clark04.com/press/release/014/>

I guess patience and politics go together like bread and butter. Just don't risk a heart attack until you're sure you will be covered!

[union_maid]

16. No, I'm suggesting we create a bipartisan demand.

This should come from the people, directly. Candidates can only do so much. One of the reasons that Democratic candidates so often disappoint is that when we do manage to elect them then we tend to sit back and wait for them to produce, but they can't always do it when half the country is against them. One of my gripes with the Greens was too much preaching to the choir and not enough organizing where it's hard. This is an issue that can have bipartisan support at the grassroots level. I've been inspired by this thread to learn that we do have an organization here that's lobbying for universal healthcare and my New Year's resolution is to look into it and see if I can do any work for it. What we need is for organizations like that to spread. If organizations stick to single issues and work for just that issue, you can build a coalition. If you have to agree on all kind of other issues it's probably not possible. I think that with Meet-Up and the internet, people can begin to take back their country one issue at a time and not wait for a politician to do it for them. Anyway, I'm going to try to get involved in an effort to make healthcare a safe issue for politicians, rather than the opposite.

[burr]

18. interesting you posted this..

when Clinton proposed his healthcare plan in 1993 I wrote both of my Senators, although the letter to Coverdell was obviously a waste of time. I also wrote Nathan Dean when he was still a Democrat in favor of Clinton's proposal, and spoke out at all of Deal's forums on this issue.

Unfortunately almost everyone attending these healthcare forums in North Georgia opposed "Hillarycare"..as it was intelligently labeled. Everytime a person with a health problem or a health situation in the family would share their experience, the primary reason announced for holding the forums, they would be screamed down by the mob! It made me sick to see in every "healthcare" forum, how self-described "christians" could find humor from the worst kind of personal hardships of other human beings.

It was the overwhelming opposition to healthcare reform at these forums..along with Democrats losing their majority status in Congress, which I believe led to Deal ultimately switching parties. My mistake was just not realizing he was a DINO to begin with.

[mlawson]

11. Modeled on Medicare?

How about a better model than that?? My mother was on Medicare, and it seemed almost random, predicting which costs would be covered and which not. For instance, some ambulance rides were covered, but most were not. Some tests, were, etc etc., regardless of the published rules, of which I had a copy. HUGE per visit copay for EACH hospital stay ($840).

What I am saying is that we need truly universal care, and no private alternatives, because if they exist, the gov't program will not keep its end up, in order to save money.

[burr]

13. medicare is always the fall guy...

it is the place every politician comes to steal money for a new weapons program handed to Lockheed Martin, for building that four-lane road to ease traffic down in ole Alabamay, and it is the best place to go if you want to slash taxes and stimulate "economic loathe."

The only way to make universal medicare work would be to place an 8-10% tax on employers, and execute every politician who attempted to dip into the Medicare trust fund for any purpose at all. If they will risk human lifes by cutting money from universal Medicare, then they must be ready to pay the price!!

[Mairead]

21. Kucinich's plan also includes filling in the gaps and simplifying things

He's well aware that the rightwingers have been picking at it for decades whenever they've had the least chance.

[qwertyMike]

14. I'm amazed that in the richest country

in the Cosmos, that BASICS like health Care and Education are not provided from the revenues (YOUR revenues). All due to some (inaccurate) ideology.

You are seen as a joke in the rest of the world.

It's not FREE medicine or Universities. You have paid for it with your taxes. You government's job is to be entrusted with those tax revenues and distribute them to the greatest benefit and efficiency.
What's the problem?
You should aske where your money is going. Not rocket science. And if it being spent wisely.

Duh!
'Free' medicine isn't socialism, it's grade 9 common sense and it's NOT free

[Oracle]

20. Iraqi's, proposed by Bush, are to get universal health care....

with our tax dollars...not from the republican rich, who received three huge tax cuts from Bush ...yes, Iraq deserves universaal health care the republicans won't even consider for us. Well, we did bomb the shit out of their country and Halliburton, Becthal, etc. etc. knows, where's the money...screw us.

[sandnsea]

15. Oregon voted last year

It didn't pass, the vote was 65 - 35 against. And the economy was as bad here, last year, as it is in the rest of the country now. If a single payer plan can't pass here, it doesn't have much of a chance anywhere. And this poll is Americans, not voters. So even though there may be this vast number of people wanting this, if they don't vote, they won't be heard. The voters will get the attention of their representatives, just like always.

[Mairead]

23. Sounds as though we should all get together and turn out the vote, then?

I mean, why would we not want this?

[Ardee]

24. But Oregon already has an excellent plan

Isnt Oregon Health one of the finest state run health plans in the nation? Perhaps the fact that every resident of that fine state can obtain health care regardless of their ability to pay makes the issue less important to them.......

[LWolf]

17. Health care is a crucial issue, IMO.

Our health care system is in worse shape now than it was when Bill and Hillary lost that battle. I think we could get this passed, if we made sure our voice was as loud and firm, if not as strident, as the opposition.

I cannot comprehend a mentality that thinks that health/life goes to those who can pay, and screw the rest of humanity. What is more pro-life than health care for all?

I think that Americans would overwhelmingly support Dennis Kucinich if they looked closely at his issues.

[canuckagainstBush]

19. Priorities.

I find it hard to fathom how the Christian right can be so up in arms about gay rights yet at the same time promoting a healthcare system that doesn't treat everyone as equals. Talk about morality. The Canadian healthcare system is even supported by conservatives.

[LWolf]

22. Good point.

Quality of life isn't the issue, as far as I can see. In the U.S., conservative support for life ends at birth.