Shame on Obama for Not Pushing Single Payer

[John Q. Citizen]

DeMoro: Shame on Obama for Not Pushing Single Payer
Filed under: News — russell @ 11:43 pm
http://singlepayeraction.org/index.php

(posted with permission)

Shame on President Obama for not pushing for single payer.

The Republicans have the courage of their convictions.

The Democrats don’t.

The AFL-CIO acts like Democrats in the Senate — their constituencies support single payer, but they don’t push for it.

And the SEIU is still an obstacle to single payer.

That’s the take of Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association.

In an interview with Single Payer Action on June 2, DeMoro (as usual) pulled no punches.

(See video of complete Interview with Rose Ann DeMoro here.)

“The Republicans actually have the courage of their convictions and the Democrats don’t,” DeMoro told Single Payer Action. “So (the Democrats) support single payer but they don’t act on it. In effect they act against it by virtue of the fact that won’t even demand a policy debate on it. There is a conspiracy of silence — no question about it. This isn’t by accident that single payer — that everyone supports it but it’s not on the agenda. They think they can ignore it.”

DeMoro and her California Nurses Association just buried the hatchet after a bitter feud with Andy Stern and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

Any agreement on single payer between the nurses and SEIU?

“Yes, they’ll support the fight for the state option on single payer,” DeMoro said. “They’ll acknowledge that single payer is the best option. In terms of day-to-day work, they don’t work with us on single payer and in fact we found the organization (SEIU) to be an obstacle in the fight for single payer.”

DeMoro said she’s disappointed in Obama, who once supported single payer, but now as President has backed away.

“The difference between Obama and a lot of these folks is that he actually deeply knows the difference,” DeMoro said. “He’s experienced the difference. A lot of these people here in this building (Congress) come from the upper middle class and have always had medical care. Obama had a different history. He’s felt the difference. And for him not to act on this and for him not to take leadership — this is just a lack of leadership. The Republicans are going to fight a public option as hard as single payer. . .The truth of the matter is, Obama should have led - we should have been following Obama on this issue instead of pushing him. So we’re horribly disappointed in the fact that he hasn’t done this. And we’re going to turn up the heat. Everywhere he goes there are single payer activists. There is no political action for keeping the insurance industry at the apex of power with an underfunded public option. I mean that’s ridiculous, it’s just ridiculous. So, you know — shame on him.”

[MarjorieG]

1. Just because he knows and can, doesn't mean it's possible. Should offer both public and private.

Glad we have prez with sensibilities, and he's about to go on tour explaining the differences.

[John Q. Citizen]

4. Obama doesn't have the courage of his convictions. He's afraid of a head to head debate.

His sensibilities are those of an insurance salesman.

Barack Obama, high priced insurance sales man.


you be glad

[On the Road]

6. I Think the Goal *is* to Offer Both Public and Private

as options. That's the most realistic path.

It's not clear whether it's politically possible. But it's more possible now than at any other point in recent memory, and it may be years before a similar window opens.

[John Q. Citizen]

7. It's a path doomed to fail because it's so much more expensive than single payer, and

it guarantees maximum confusion for the public.

The reason Obama and the health care industrial complex won't allow a debate that includes single payer is because everyone across the country would choose single payer. The insurance and drug companies don't want that. Thye want a law that makes you buy from them and that's what I predict you will get.

Since you are letting it happen and since you buy the bullshit that "It's not politically possible."

Why not? People want it even if the Democrsts are to timid to stand up to anybody on any issue any time.

Baucus might lose his 1.8 million subsidy?

The reason Max Baucus won't allow the GAO to do an analysis of single payer compared to his bill is because it would be obvious to everyone that his bill costs way more and the people get way less.

There is a reason that they won't allow single payer advocates to testify. Think about it.

[On the Road]

9. How is

"it's not clear whether it's politically possible" buying into the bullshit? Clinton's effort showed how politically difficult national health insurance is.

I support Howard Dean's effort and just contributed to it. Offering a government option might be a very effective bridge to universal single payer. And it is troubling that no such option is on the table right now.

[John Q. Citizen]

10. What are they going to compromise on to get it passed? The Blue Dogs

just came out and said that they favor a "Trigger" approach.

That would mean no public option if they vote with the Repos.


i went to my Obama Organizing for America meeting on Saturday and everyone there didn't want to keep there own private insurance, they wanted single payer. And they wondered why they weren't supposed to talk about that.

Who is going to fight for a mandate to buy private health insurance? Not me.

The only way possible to even maybe end up with a strong public pool, is to open up the debate to everyone, instead of having the Democrats shutting the door on single payer.

Think about it this way. Why would something that would be an effective bridge to single payer be more politically feasible than single payer?

The single payer people know what they wanr, and the people against single payer know what they don't want.

\
The public option is a trick, it's a red herring so the Dems don't have to have a policy debate on simngle payer.

[On the Road]

13. Howard Dean Doesn't Think

the public option is a trick. He thinks it's the road to full single payer.

[Auggie]

2. Maybe if a few million were marching in D.C. right now it might be different

Single payer starts with us. I can't expect the President to take on 525 members or Congress who are mostly owned by health care companies all by himself.

[John Q. Citizen]

8. He killed it in the crib, on purpose. Read the transition teams report on the

health care listening meetings held across the country. I went to mine. Everybody there was for single payer and said so.

But you won't find that in the report.

They said, "some people favored a single payer system" but they conveniently forgot to add up how many or what percentage. They wer edone to manufacture the result they wanted from the start, They were a sham a fraud.

Then in March when the White House held their big health care summit, they ignored the 60% of the American people that polls show favor a single payer system and we had to protest and beg and yell and scream and then at the last moment they let a couple of experts in, as an after thought.

Obama is moonlighting as an insurance salesman. I'm ashamed of him. He's chicken of open and honest debate.

[Auggie]

11. Count me among the very disappointed

My take is that if Obama went to the wall on this he knew he would lose to Congress. And then corporate-controlled media would start their propaganda spin over the political embarrassment and how single-payer is such a failed plan. So yes, he likely did kill it. And maybe he sold out as you suggest. My point is that we aren't doing as much as we could to visibly promote what we want or give those in government siding with us the support they need.

[John Q. Citizen]

12. He didn't have promote it, just demand an open and honest debate. If that had

happened, the chances of actually passing a decent public option would have been greatly enhanced.

My guess is that they really didn't want a strong public option and by cleaving off the very strong public support for single payer they are then able to make sure any public option passed is a joke.

If single payer were on the table along with every thing else, it would occupy the "left" location and the public option would be "center."

This wasn't a mistake. This was the plan all along.

Watch

[meowomon]

3. Shame on Obama for a lot of things

He has been a major disappointment and I am seriously thinking of changing my registration to independent. I am a gay American and he has failed on the DADT policy of the military. He has failed miserably on his campaign promise to stop it.

[John Q. Citizen]

5. He is a corporate shill. Look at his voting record in the Senate. He's a sell out.