Can individual states organize single payer collectives

[Juche]

California supposedly could get single payer passed if they had a democratic governor. Would it be feasable, perhaps 5-10 years from now for California to be joined by several other liberal states (Vermont, MA, Maine, etc) and all of them not only have single payer, but use their collective bargaining power to negotiate lower prices by amassing their populations into one bargaining unit? I don't know if adding a place like Vermont with 650k people would make much of a difference, but several northeast states with heavy democratic majorities in the state assembly like MA or NY could.

So would it be possible for a half dozen or more states to all pass single payer (VT, DE, CA, NY, MA, etc), then all combine their populations of 70 million or more to get bulk purchasing power?

With gay marriage, leadership is coming from the states and not the federal gov. Same with Kyoto, since the federal gov rejected it the states have taken up the issue, which will hopefully open up the door for a federal bill later.

Can single payer be passed on a citywide level? Can San Francisco pass single payer healthcare?

[Cleita]

1. San Francisco already has. Mayor Gavin Newsome was on TV yesterday and

said it's two-thirds implemented. When it's done everyone in SF will be covered. I suspect the Federal Gov. is going to blow this and the way we will eventually get it is state by state.

[WCGreen]

2. When Jerry Springer was toying with the idea of running for Ohio Gov....

I went to a luncheon to see what he had to say. He talked about setting up Ohio as a one payer system by having the insurance companies bidding to get the right to service all Ohioans regardless of health or income or employment. He said there would have to be the same pricing across the board no matter what circumstance you, as a consumer, brought to the table.

sounded interesting to me.

[Nay]

3. Canada did it province by province. nt