The Top 10 enemies of single-payer: AARP, AMA, Barack Obama, Business Roundtable etc.

[Karmadillo]

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/22062

Most people, when they arrive in Washington, D.C., see it for what it is - a cesspool of corruption.

Two reasonable reactions to the cesspool.

One, run away screaming in fear. Two, stay and fight back and bring to justice those who have corrupted our democracy. Unfortunately, many choose a third way - stay and be transformed.

Instead of seeing a cesspool, they begin seeing a hot tub. The result - profits and wealth for the corporate elite - death, disease and destruction for the American people. Nowhere does this corrupt, calculating transformation do more damage than in the area of health care.

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Barack Obama: He was for it when he was a state Senator in Illinois. Now, ensconced in the corporate prison that is the White House, he says single payer is off the table. To get off the list, Obama needs to put single payer back on the table.

Business Roundtable: Dr. David Himmelstein, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), was at a health care forum a couple of years ago sponsored by the Business Roundtable. And the moderator asked the audience - made up primarily of representatives of big business - to indicate their preference of health care reforms. And the majority came out in favor of single payer. Why then is the Business Roundtable opposed? Himmelstein put it this way: "In private, they support single payer, but they're also thinking - if you can take away someone else's business - the insurance companies' business - you can take away mine. Also, if workers go on strike, I want them to lose their health insurance. And it's also a cultural thing - we don't do that kind of thing in this country."

Families USA.: A major inside the beltway liberal foundation and long-time foe of single payer. It's chief executive, Ron Pollack, was once an advocate for single payer. But no more. In November 1991, Pollack was at a Washington hotel debating Yale University professor Ted Marmor in front of then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. Marmor was making the argument for single payer. Pollack against. A November 1994 article in the Washington Monthly, co-authored by Marmor, reported the result this way: "After the two advocates finished, Clinton looked thoughtful, pointed to Marmor and said, ‘Ted, you win the argument.' But gesturing to Pollack, Marmor recalls, the governor quickly added, ‘But we're going to do what he says.' Even considering the Canadian system, everyone in the room agreed, would prompt GOP cries of ‘socialized medicine' - cries that the press would faithfully report."

Health Care for American Now: The largest coalition of liberal groups promoting a choice between a public plan and private insurance companies. "They are saying - we can't do single payer because Americans don't want it," said Kip Sullivan of the Minnesota chapter of PNHP. "That's based on junk research conducted by Celinda Lake for the Herndon Alliance. It is bad enough to say we can't do single payer because the insurance industry is too powerful to beat. But it is just plain insidious to say we can't do single payer because the American people don't want it. In fact, polling data indicates that two-thirds of Americans support a single payer system. And that level of support exists despite the fact that there is little public discussion about it."

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[OHdem10]

1. We always face the same problem:

I support and firmly believe Single Payer is the only system which
will lower costs and provide Health Care to everyone.

However, I have been thinking--just what is the problem Here???

If we are honest, a single payer system does mean some Insurance
Companies would be put out of business. It takes lots of courage
to take on these forces. This doomed Hillary's Single Payer.
We can blame many things but the real problem was what it would
do to Insurance Companies and other Health Entities. The Insurance
Companies amass their allies( you have named them) and the block
is on.

I do not know the answer. Sometimes, I think things just have
to get so bad, the Insurance Companies are losing ground anyway.
With the changeover in our economy and the 40 million job dislocations,
this may not be too far away.

[Romulox]

3. Look at what the logic of the insurance companies being more powerful than the people says about

our so-called "democracy"...

It's impossible to just "swallow" this latest sell out in return for the promise of "more affordable" health insurance These same insurance companies who are more powerful than the entire American electorate make money by denying people health care--they are forcing us to buy insurance from them, not care.

What percentage of my income does the US Congress think should be sent to insurance companies? Perhaps they could save of all a bit of trouble and send 5 or 6% of my pay to the private insurers to just get the hell out of the way, and then we can try to implement Single Payer with whatever we have left.

But just giving the same vampires that have sucked us dry a little more blood is obviously not going to solve the problem. Again. Insurance companies profit by denying people care.

[OHdem10]

4. I agree with you wholeheartedly, but no change in how our country

is run. Wall Street Rules with the Elites(Ruling Class) driving
Wall Street. As long as Business has complete power in this
country, we will continue to be frustrated. Pretty much WS gets
the final word.

[Echo In Light]

2. "stay and be transformed" = why voting doesn't resolve these major issues at all

Just allows some to keep jerkin' themselves off.

[MadBadger]

5. The Senate should be first on the list, but lets just blame Obama for everything.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

6. I would say the Republican members of congress and half the Dems are bigger obstacles to single

payer than Obama is.