Health care for all By Helen Thomas

[ipaint]

San Francisco Chronicle
Politics Blog
August 12, 2009
It’s all so sad. Well-organized conservatives have launched a full-scale attack on health care reform. And they appear to be winning — for now.

I covered the battle to create the Medicare system back in the 1960s. The cries of “socialized medicine” worked for years until President Johnson rammed Medicare through Congress in 1965.
What kind of a nation are we if we do not provide everyone with the excellent medical care that only some of us now receive?

I continue to think the so-called single-payer system is the only answer to the nation’s obligation to make sure that no one lacks health care. Yes, single payer means a government-run health insurance program for all — the prevailing system in Canada and in many nations in Europe.

President Obama is making a big mistake by ignoring the single-payer proposal.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=45426

[nightrain]

1. knr. wonderful perspective from a woman who has such a sense of history! Thanks.

[rainy]

2. Helen, keep on fighting the good fight! nt

[potone]

3. As usual, Helen Thomas is right.

That woman in a national treasure.

[ProSense]

4. "President Obama is making a big mistake by ignoring the single-payer proposal." Yes, because those

vigorously opposing the public option would have come around to the idea?

Isn't it going to be voted on in the House?

[ipaint]

6. As Helen said:

Because the words "single payer" have been subjected to such pervasive demagoguery and misrepresentation, its polling numbers do not reflect how popular it really is.

In a Kaiser Family Foundation poll last month, 58 percent of Americans either strongly or somewhat favored a program to provide insurance "through an expanded, universal form of Medicare-for-all."

That's basically the same as single payer. But once the same poll actually used the words "single payer" to describe the program, support dropped to 51 percent.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=45426


Until we (politicians and the left) take responsibility for guaranteeing the right to health care for all of us and start seriously endorsing single payer for real, educating people as to what it is and what it will save us all we will not get any kind of meaningful health care reform. Incremental steps is a fairy tale. If it worked we would be expanding medicare today, instead even though expanding medicare is quite popular with a majority of americans, we are putting a seriously threatened (mass customer loss due to boomers going onto medicare), abusive, private industry in charge of access to healthcare and that is considered reform.

The same people behind the rabid fringe right at the town halls will be the gatekeepers in charge of our health care decisions. Considering we have a government that abhors regulating large corporations good luck going after the insurance industry once it puts it's resources into figuring out all kinds of sneaky ways not to insure folks.

[ProSense]

8. "Because the words "single payer" have been subjected to such pervasive demagoguery "

So isn't it single payer advocates responsibility to change that perception? Or, is it Obama's responsibility?

Maybe, instead of lamenting that Obama isn't busy advocating something he didn't campaign on, single-payer advocates should be changing that perception.


edited for clarity

[ipaint]

10. We are trying. Unfortunately we not only need to break

through the usual and expected propaganda from the right and it's powerful corporate backers but we also have to convince centrists who fancy themselves left leaning that their repeated attacks on the only system that works in the world by labeling it pie in the sky perfection and it's advocates foot stomping babies is also being a tool of the corporations.
The "single payer is impossible" meme is 40 odd years old and corporate created.

Plus we have not a single mainstream politician either not on the take or with the balls and ethics to do what's right and advocate publicly and forcefully for a successful plan which will reach all the way down to the least of us with quality health care.

The whole left will need to push for it until it happens.

It needs to be seriously introduced, debated, discussed and rated next to all other considered plans. If the majority of americans want medicare for all, we can get single payer. The insurance companies know that.

[ProSense]

12. "The whole left will need to push for it until it happens." Let me get this straight

the whole left needs to push for this or single-payer advocates will continue whining about Obama?

[ipaint]

13. No.

But please you just asked isn't it up to single payer advocates to push for it.

Now that we are actively pushing for it loudly we are whining.

Let me save you a post:

"Single payer will never pass!!!!"
The phrase that has been shouted at every proponent of a goverment run health insurance or health care reform around the world. I'm sure the united health CEO with the 125 mil. salary thanks you.

[ProSense]

14. "Now that we are actively pushing for it loudly we are whining." Complaining about Obama isn't

actively pushing it. You say the entire left should be pushing it when many single-payer advocate are spending there energies criticizing Obama. Why should he and supporters of a public option spend time pushing single payer when its advocates spend their time distorting the public option plan and slamming Obama as a sell out?

[ipaint]

17. You keep claiming it's distortion and slamming but that happens

when people ignore the facts and push dogma. Not once have you or any of the other folks who complain about whining pointed to where single payer advocates are factually wrong about their claims. If anything single payer proponents have pointed to countless studies, statistics, history, experts and many other successful health care systems to back up their claims.

You are backing a public option that doesn't exist, an untested plan that no other country in the world in their right mind would attempt. No one can describe what a strong public option is or address concerns about the downsides of a non government tax mandate to private abusive companies. There are no significant cost controls and the private corps who we are putting in charge of access to health care are the companies behind the campaign to foment hate, racism and violence at the town halls.

I don't think it's the single payer supporters with a credibility problem.

[ProSense]

19. "You are backing a public option that doesn't exist" Really?

"I don't think it's the single payer supporters with a credibility problem."

Like I said, distortion is all you have.

[druidity33]

9. Pelosi says

she'll give HR676 an up or down vote. And Weiner says the CBO is scoring Single Payer during the recess. But i believe they'll send it through quick and with no fanfare so the powers that be can be assured us radical liberals won't have a chance to convince our Congresscritters.

Then they'll pass a Compromise option which involves a few minor Health Insurance regulation changes... with no actual systemic change involved.

My 2 pennies...

[Usrename]

5. Helen is on the money.

He should listen. He should veto anything that doesn't have single-payer.

[TxRider]

7. We should elect her... n/t

[AuntPatsy]

11. I wish more listened to her...as always she uses common sense..

that is so lacking these days amongst the rabble...

[bvar22]

15. K&R

Helen nails it again.

"The cries of “socialized medicine” worked for years until President Johnson rammed Medicare through Congress in 1965."

Obama should do more "ramming", and LESS appeasing of Republicans.

Will Obama be an LJB, or a Neville Chamberlain?

[Thrill]

16. Unless there is Strong Campaign Finance Reform FIRST!

Thats the reality of Single Payer

[nonsequitur]

18. Not everyone wants single payer. They'll never get the votes for it....

not now anyway. Maybe in 10-20 years. I really don't see why so many here want it. Nobody here has insurance and doctors they like? I want a public option, I'm happy with what I have now except for the costs that keep going up each year.

[ipaint]

21. Walk in someone elses shoes for a bit if you can.

This could very easily be you.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6276556

[Raster]

23. I'll say it. Go fuck yourself. Your inhumanity shames the rest of us.

Be gone. You have no power here. Oh, and enjoy your healthcare.

[dflprincess]

24. Anyone who has insurance they like hasn't had to use it for anything major

and hasn't found out just how much isn't covered.

Many people have doctors they like and with a single payer system they'd get to pick their doctor. Under the current system, if their employer changes health plans and the doctor they like isn't part of the new carrier's "network" they will have to find a new doctor or pay more out of pocket to keep the doctor they like.

If Obama and all the members of Congress who tell us "now is not the time" for single payer got behind it, they might get somewhere. At the very least they might be able to design a meaningful public option as compromise.

Remember "now" has never been the time for progressive change, it must be pushed. The bills we are currently hearing the most about only promise forced access to health insurance and coverage by a public option is 4-10 years away (per the CBO estimate of HR3200), we can't accept that and we can't wait another 10-20 years for everyone to have access to health care.

[Better Believe It]

25. You're far less likely to get the votes you need for a strong public option.

Going with a single payer Medicare for All proposal would have been much easier to rally support for, would be better understood and with aggressive LBJ style presidential leadership would have passed this Senate with 51 votes and a defeated Republican filibuster.

[IndianaGreen]

27. Yet none of them would want to get rid of Medicare, a single payer system

HR676 and S703 would expand Medicare for everyone.

[onestepforward]

20. K&R. Thank you Helen. n/t

[polichick]

22. Really - all this tippy-toeing around has gotten us nowhere! nt

[IndianaGreen]

28. Obama used to support single payer, until he got elected to Senate

In 2003 before he became a U.S. senator from Illinois, Obama actually called himself a single-payer “proponent.” But now that he is president, Obama has buckled to Republicans and conservative Blue Dog Democrats in pursuit of consensus. My question is if Congress passes a watered-down version of health care that doesn’t truly cover everyone, is the result worth it?

The president has given no hearing to the advocates of a single-payer system and neither has the media.

He also had worked out a deal with the drug manufacturers not to use the federal government’s massive bargaining power to negotiate lower drug prices — although now the White House appears to be having second thoughts.

Single payer works; it is not code for substandard medical care.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/august/health_care_for_all.php

[ipaint]

26. Privatized "medicare for all" public option in senate HELP bill

The Senate HELP Committee “public option” will be multiple “options,”

and these will be run by insurance companies

By Kip Sullivan, JD

When the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee passed a bill on July 15 creating an anemic “public option” program, Health Care for America Now (HCAN) and other “public option” proponents were ecstatic. They welcomed the “public option” in the HELP committee bill, proclaiming it “strong” or “robust.” But the actual provisions in the HELP Committee bill call for numerous “community health insurance options,” not the single “Medicare-like” plan promised by “public option” advocates. That means the individual “options” will probably be as small and weak as the co-ops now under discussion in the Senate Finance Committee. More importantly, these “community options” will almost certainly be run by insurance companies.

snip


...If my interpretation of Section 3106 is correct – if the Senate HELP Committee’s “option” program is going to be balkanized and run by the nonprofit wing of the insurance industry – then reasonable people have to conclude that the deck is really stacked against the Committee’s “option” program. Even if Section 3106 authorized public employees, not Blue Cross Blue Shield employees, to create the dozens or hundreds of “community health insurance options” called for by Section 3106, the program would fail to pose any challenge to the insurance industry and might even die in the cradle. The health insurance industry has been very difficult to break into since at least the 1980s, and has become more so in the wake of the merger madness that swept through the industry in the early 1990s. But if public employees are not going to be directly responsible for creating the “community options” – if the nonprofit wing of the insurance industry is going to be doing that – then the entire “community option” project of the Senate HELP Committee amounts to a cruel joke on the public. Should the public trust corporations like Blue Cross and Kaiser Permanente to make a good faith effort to build competing insurance companies?

Section 3106 is a mess, but its meaning becomes clear after several readings. Section 3106 does not create the “Medicare-like” program promised by Jacob Hacker, HCAN, Howard Dean, and other “option” advocates. Instead it proposes a program that authorizes DHHS to create numerous health insurance companies tied to geographic areas, and to contract with members of the existing insurance industry to create and possibly run those companies.

Leaders of the “public option” movement have an obligation to advertise the HELP Committee bill truthfully. It is not accurate to say the HELP Committee bill creates a “robust” or “strong” public option. It is not even accurate to say the HELP Committee bill creates one “option.” The truth is the “option” is balkanized and very weak. In fact, HCAN, Andy Stern, Howard Dean and other “option” advocates who have praised the HELP Committee bill should do more than cease to praise it. They should tell the Senate HELP Committee they oppose it.


http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/08/14/the-senate-help-committ... -“public-option”-will-be-multiple-“options”-and-these-will-be-run-by-insurance-companies/

[Dinger]

29. Kicked For Helen (nt)