Single Payer

…“people would come into the public program because the public program would be substantially more efficient”.
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Please explain or ask how will a public insurance program be more efficient? Simply saying that it is so, does not make it so.
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And, you along with the other “single payer government run health insurance” proponents will need the working group of employees who have very good insurance coverage to help pay for the public one payer programs. Without that group, single payer is not viable.
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However I will agree, like in Cananda. For a single payer public government insurance program to work, you will also need to ration care to everyone to make it cost effective. So, if you have cancer or some other chronic debilitating disease, forget about getting the care you need. You simply just need to die and go away.

I think Sen Sanders is spot on. The entrenched interests in the Senate who love Big Pharma/Health/Insurance trifecta’s money will not play. Better to try it out in Vermont or some state where the vested interests are not heavily tilted against the interests of the less well off.

The Canadian resistance to govt run health ran along the same lines and a socialist government in Sasketchwan said” bugger the Feds, we will do it ourselves”. Now one can selectively point to three hard cases in Canada out of a population of 27 million to show how health care by govt is not working. But no one in Canada’s has declared bankruptcy because of the cost of health care. We in the US find that 70% of all bankruptcies arise out of health care costs. We are a great country, are we not?

I asked a Canadian friend about his own experience as he recovered from surgery. He told me his doctor has prescribed Biaxin for a chest condition and the pharmacist told him the health program allowed for a generic costing 60% less. The generic is produced by the same company marketing Biaxin. What gives??? How much more does giving a pill a fancy name cost?

Rusty: If you can point to evidence, not TV ads by a guy who was fined $1.7 billion for insurance fraud in his hospital empire, that Canada’s “rations” health care let us see it. If you really want to see how health care is delivered in Canada check out an isolated outpost like Iqaluit. You will be surprised by the quality. My cousin is the Administrator there; and she works under the most rigorous condition in respect of the climate. Yet the hospital is as good as any in the rest of Canada.

sevenoaks07 Says:
Friday, June 5, 2009 at 8:45 am
“But no one in Canada’s has declared bankruptcy because of the cost of health care. We in the US find that 70% of all bankruptcies arise out of health care costs”.
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So stated another way, “But no one in Canada has declared bankruptcy, but never-the-less died from inadequate care. Hmmm, let me see. I will die, but I will not go bankrupt. Brilliant! This solves all of our problems. My heirs will be very happy that is for sure.

KT:
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The House is not going to pass one; the Senate is not going to pass one; President Obama is not pushing for one.
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Why?
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(thanks for the link to the Sanders interview)

sevenoaks: it is SOP to distort health information by proponets. We choose the evidence that supports our thesis. I think Sanders has it right. Things get started is at the state level. Once people see a single payer system actually working then the one case of my relative dying because… whether in Canada, Britain or France.. becomes moot. It is unrealistic to have a national program in, even had our financial situtaion been better. Our govt is bought and paid for by special interests. And they have much of the Senate and a significant part of Congress sewn up.

sevenoaks07 Says:
Friday, June 5, 2009 at 8:56 am
Rusty: If you can point to evidence,

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001977834_cihak13.html
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“In 1999, Dr. Richard F. Davies described how delays affected Ontario heart patients scheduled for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. In a single year, just for this one operation, 71 Ontario patients died before surgery, “121 were removed from the list permanently because they had become medically unfit for surgery” and 44 left the province to have their CABG surgery elsewhere, often in the U.S.”
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http://www.americanissuesproject.org/blogs/columns/archive/2009/05/22/the-looming-fight-over-health-care-rationing.aspx
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So what would a government run health care system look like? Probably much like Medicare. That’s a chilling prospect since that system is now in serious financial trouble and facing a $34 trillion unfunded liability. That means it is going to have to find ways to make serious cuts in costs. How is that going to happen? The same way other countries with universal health care systems find cost savings: through rationing, waiting lists, and decreased quality of care.
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And then there is this:
http://www.civitas.org.uk/nhs/download/Canada.pdf
“Rationing : “Everything is Free but Nothing is Readily Available” (Frogue et al, 2001)
Like other nations experiencing limitless demand, an ageing population and the costly advance of medical technology, Canada has faced pressure to control health expenditure. It has done so through explicit rationing. Set up in 1989, the Canadian Co-ordinating Office for Health Technology Assessment is the Canadian predecessor to our NICE, charged with exactly the same brief and, it seems, carrying out its function in the same way. For example, in the case of new cancer treatment, the latest pharmaceuticals (such as visudyne for macular degeneration), and high-tech diagnostic tests, Canadian governments simply reduce their expenses by limiting the service. Such a method of rationing is only possible in a single-payer monopoly. Medicare also shares other defining characteristics of monopolies: limited information, little transparency and poor accountability.

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Should I stop or continue to cite the sources for you sevenoaks?

KT – thanks for the link to the Sanders interview. Bernie is a serious legislator, and being independent sometimes gives him a freer hand, perhaps, to pursue what he thinks is right. He is a relentless champion for the poor.
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A small state really could be a model for universal health care of the single payer sort. In Vermont every child is covered, and every woman receives care if she wants it during pregnancy. A stepped program makes health insurance available at relatively low cost for low income Vermonters.
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Bernie has championed local health clinics and especially dental clinics, recognizing that poor teeth can keep people from getting jobs and staying involved in their communities.
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This is another story that might interest you on Bernie’s views, from Politico this January:
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17704.html

The reason is that it is not going to pass.
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LOL. O’ course it’s not – thanks in large part to right-wing enablers like you who steadfastly keep it out of public debate!

And on a personal note, I also have family in Canada as well. British Columbia as a matter of fact which also imposes now a “premimum” or individual tax imposed to cover costs. Even with this “premimum” my 7 year old grand neice had to wait 42 weeks for a tonsillectomy. She suffered through multiple throat and ear infections due to the wait-time, and after I did an assessment on her recently, found that she now has a permanent hearing loss that could have been prevented had she had the surgery in a timely manner.

Rusty: you are engaging in the usual shell game. For every case or article you can point to I can quote one where prompt medical care saved lives. That is not the point. You are against a public health service and you find your reasons for it. I am for public health care and I find reasons to support my position.

But until you can find me 13 and a half million people who are having all kind of problems in Canada I see you for what you are: a partisan. And I am one too. Unfortunately your relatives all seem to be having a problem with their health provider. Perhaps you should bring them to the US so that they can get immediate treatment with your help.

sevenoaks07:
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Rusty doesn’t ascribe to the consensus. I saw an article linked to by a commenter a while back (maybe it was even you) about 10 myths of the single payer system in Canada.
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I can tell you from experience, being of the right age, the right surroundings (average Americans – not Rusty’s concept of “real” Americans) to be able to take no less than four cases I know of personally that have lead to bankruptcy or death, or impending death, due to the nature of our system.
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My guess is that Rusty takes his buttsnakes, gilds them, and sells them to unsuspecting libruls as gold.
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Funny there are no buyers…
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On the more serious side, I don’t see any projections as to who, of the uninsured (that 47 million number is now old) will get a shot at health care like the rest of us and what others of us, as payers into the corrupt system we have now (all joking about “efficiency” aside) will see.
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Amy, what will happen on the ground?.
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I do not care even for a second about whether is thought of as this or that or the other thing.

No sevenoaks it is very clear that you do not like to read the evidence I cited, and you want a government run program which is proven to not work. Not only in Canada, but in all of the European socialist-like countries and Japan.
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I agree that it is a crime that the once richest nation in the world is not able to provide a means for the less fortunate to afford or have health care. I also know that the socialist programs being offered up as the cure-all, end-all for the lack of our government to provide for its destitute citizens is to lump us all into one inefficient, ineffective and poorly managed government program. Why, because without the private insurance covered citizens, the government backed programs will never be viable. It will be an endless money pit like all the other social-welfare programs.
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Yes you may avoid bankruptcy which is the only legitimate opposition to private healthcare in my opinion, but what does that leave you with? I see many many people who will go without necessary treatment and tests due to government rationing of care in order to cut costs. I for one do not want to see us take that risk. When Obama gets his wish for universal healthcare, perhaps the justice of this new system will be when his own daughters go without needed care. Then maybe he will see first hand what universal healthcare really costs.

Rusty, there are lots of Americans who are told, essentially, “just die and go away.” Have you never seen those pathetic collection jars on the check-out counter at local stores: “Please help! My daughter (son, husband, father,etc.) needs a kidney (heart, lung, etc.) transplant, and our insurance will not cover it (or we have no insurance).” America might indeed have the best health care system in the world (I’m not convinced of that), but that quality means nothing to someone who can’t access it. Either/all sides can present horror stories, but I’m not sure that that’s the best way to craft public policy.

And as usual, “Phifty’s” contribution to a very serious topic of discussion is with “gilded butt-snakes”. But in reality his stupidity is only clearly shown with his total lack of knowledge which he attempts to represent with his funny 3rd grade name-calling tactics.
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Want a “butt-snake” Phifty? That is clearly all you know anyways, non-sensical child-like babble.

The reason is that it is not going to pass.
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Humbug!
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There is incessant coverage of any number of policies that are not only not going to get passed, but have also been covered so thoroughly that there is nothing new to be said. SS “privatization,” overturning Roe v Wade, a “flat tax,” deficit reduction, and on and on.
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The constant reprisal of these right wing issues has the effect of shifting the Overton Window. The refusal to air left wing policy issues like single payer health plans, dramatic reductions in military spending, termination of covert CIA operations that undermine governments, an end to warrantless wiretapping, anti-trust actions against telecom and other colluding oligopolies et alia means that these issues,and their merits, are never discussed in public spheres. Air and print is used to push President Gingrich’s positions, and for Cheney’s daughter to repeat her father’s lies.

Rusty, I don’t have anything but insults reserved for you. You’re a racist and a scumbag, and will never address you in any other manner.
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Such is my “gratitude”…
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As for the health care system:
“I see many many people who will go without necessary treatment and tests due to government rationing of care in order to cut costs.”
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You talk about a tonsillectomy. I talk about four cases, among average Americans, whom I know personally, who have run into calamity under the current system. One of them is ongoing.
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As for serious convesation, I’ll have one with you Rusty, when you specifically admit your racist connections and beliefs, and publically disavow them, and conduct conversations with others here based on respect, and not one minute before.

georgiac, I have stated on previous threads that our current system is flawed, and many under/un-insured go wanting for decent healthcare. I do not think any sane person will argue that point at all.
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As I have suggested before, create a government backed health insurance that people under the age of 62 can pay into with an affordable premium. I have no argument with that what-so-ever. The question is then what other social welfare programs do you want to give up in order to fund this type of “insurance”?
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Maybe it is as simple as passing a law that requires ALL employers to provide health insurance for their respective employees. Maybe, oh my God, maybe the Government could also give a tax break to those companies so that they can afford to give their employees health insurance under a good group plan. But in this world we have the lobbyists and such who will get this type of program voted down. The far left will vote it down for more big government spending programs. The right will vote it down because of the big business interests, and the need for bigger and higher profits. Hopefully there will be a happy medium that will provide for those in need, and we no longer need to see your “jars at the checkout counters” for a kidney transplant.

SZ (#5): Why?
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Well, there are probably as many reasons as there are congressmen and senators, and for many, it’s a mix of reasons. yes, the medical-industrial complex (krugman’s term) is hugely powerful, but that is far from the only reason single payer won’t pass. many conservatives also think it is a bad idea on ideological grounds. others (obama, for instance) think that while single payer is the system they would build if they were starting from scratch, switching to it in one fell swoop would be too disruptive. they also know from past experience that it is easy to scare people–which is why obama (and hillary, too, in last year’s campaign) insist that people who like what they have must be allowed to keep it. there are still others (waxman i’m assuming in this camp, though i haven’t asked him directly) who think that some kind of health care reform is better than none, so they’d rather go with what is doable than die for what isn’t.

I think the crooks are even now shifting to where they know they are going to have to include a public plan, but they are going to make it terrible by either forcing all the sickest and poorest Americans toward it, not letting it use its’ size to negotiate costs, etc. Then when it sucks they will say “see I told you so”. Meanwhile we will still be fighting through denials of service for routine treaments and figuring out what is “in” and “out” of network.

In reference to the above quote from Rusty’s “book of ignorance*” and point out that that is very common.
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In the one ongoing case, it has lead to an instance of terminal oates-cell carcinoma and a much, much higher medical bill to be borne by the taxpayer than would have happened had this individual been able to access health care from the git-go.
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THAT is the reality of our system. And yes, not only is this intelligent conversation, with real life cases which completely obliterate some of the more ignorant sentiments about health care, but it shows how life and death hangs in the balance.
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*we would call this “knowledge”, but Rusty don’t got none, neether.

@rustyreturns
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You cited a Seattle Times article, but that was written by one of those nuts at the Discovery Institute. That is the same group that wants to teach Creationism as scientifically viable alternative to creationism.
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The second article you cite is from a woman named Kim Priestap. She isn’t a health care expert. In fact, her bio lists her as a business owner.
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If you want us to buy what you are selling can you’ll need to cite some evidence and facts gathered from qualified, non-crazy people.
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The story of your niece, while tragic, isn’t evidence that Canada’s health care system is worse than the US. For every one story like that in Canada there are 10 more of those from the US. The reason we in the reality based world appreciate the Canadian system is that it provides a higher % of Canadians health care than the US “system” provides to US citizens. And it does it at a far lower per capita cost than what Canada pays.

Karen, you say you don’t include Single Payer in your stories because it won’t pass.
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So, does that mean you have NEVER covered an issue/policy position that wasn’t going to pass?
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If so, why did you cover it then but refuse to cover Single Payer now?

choska:
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Between me, my wife, and my best friend, we number 30 in our immediate families. I am 55, and the others are of similar age. The cross section includes everyone from moderately high income Americans to those who don’t have a lot – the working poor.
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The one case I just cited above concerns a diagnosis made only last week at Harborview Medical Center, right here. One last year, which I mentioned before on these threads, culminated in a $515,000 bill ($40,000 after all was done with charities, etc) for a guy who became unemployed from a job that paid $14 / hour w/ no benefits.
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The others I won’t elaborate on, but because of the number of us who are of the age where medical issues come to the fore, there is no question that there will be more cases of calamity just like the one I mentioned.
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This is why I asked Amy Sullivan (it’s actually Karen Tumulty) what is going on on the ground, because we are going to see a lot more of this…

KT
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In your response to Stuart, you left out the motivation behind Kristol’s famous memo–that a simple, single payer plan would be immensely popular, marginalizing Republicans in the same way FDR’s Social Security program did. That is, there is a significant number of Republicans who opposed effective health care reform because they think effective health care policies is bad for the GOP.
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We are also seeing this effect in Republicans refusing to participate in any kind of constructive way to come up with effective policies in any policy realm. Choosing obstruction, and sometimes deliberate malevolence, places party ahead of country, and ahead of their constituents.

Jayack:
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When exploring that particular issue, I find this:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/04/senate-health-care-talks-get-difficult/
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Of course, what else is to be expected. I think this will be yet another case where bipartisanship will be impossible, because only the moderates will side with reform.
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That’s not to say that the new rule that allows a 51 vote and not a 60 vote passage can’t be invoked.

jayack: thought kristol’s memo addressed the clinton plan, which wasn’t single payer.

yep, just looked at kristol memo again. wasn’t about single payer. it was about the clinton plan:
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http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/onprin/v2n1/kristol.html

KT
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IIRC, single payer at the state level was one option in the Clinton plan.
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But that is beside the point. It is nonetheless the case that there are GOP elected officials who oppose effective health care reform because it will help Democrats politically. They would prefer the US to continue to have the worst and most expensive health care system in the OECD because it is better for them politically than a well-run system would be.

So what ever happened to all those good ideas that Kristol floated as alternatives to the Clinton plan?
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They sure don’t sound familiar……..

My view about health care: Mrs. Tuck and I would sure like to have some. $400.00 a month (for, I might add, some really crappy, high-deductible low-ceiling coverage) may not sound like a whole lot, but right now we have two 15-hour-a-week part-time jobs between the two of us and, buddy, it ain’t happenin’. We had to drop it. This sucks, because Mrs. Tuck has health issues.
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The 47 million figure may be old, but suffice it to say that me and the missus are hardly alone in our predicament.
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We’d like to see a stop to posturing and a start to solving, if y’all don’t think that would be too much trouble.

jayack: that was not the thrust of the plan, though. and it was not the thrust of the kristol memo either.

also, Kristol does say “But passage of the Clinton health care plan in any form would be disastrous.” (emphasis in the original)
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That’s in the public version, you’ve linked. But, of course, I was talking about the internal Republican memo.
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Any republican urge to negotiate a “least bad” compromise with the Democrats and thereby gain momentary public credit for helping the president “do something” abou0t health care should also be resisted. Passage of the Clinton health care plan, in any form, woyuld guarantee and likely make permanent an unprecedented federal intrusion into and disruption of the American economy–and the establishment of the largest federal entitlement since Social Security. Its success would signal a rebirth of centalized welfare
-state policy at the very moment when we have begun rolling back that idea in other areas. And, not least, it woulddestroy the present breadth and quality of the American health care system, still the world’s finest. On grounds of national policy alone, the plan should not be amended. It should be erased.
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But the Clinton proposal is also a serious political threat to the Republican party. Republicans must therefore clearly understand the polticalstrategy implicit in the Clinton plan–and then adopt an aggressive and uncompromising counterstrategy design to delegitimize the proposal and defeat its partisan purpose.

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(Again, his emphasis.)
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In short, improving health care for a large number of Americans through any federal action is bad for republicans and must be implacably resisted. Obstruction without compromise, or else Republicans will be marginalized.

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/bill-kristols-1993-memo-calling-for-gop-to-block-health-care-reform/

jayack: that was not the thrust of the plan
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Heh.
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At the time,I thought it WAS the thrust of the plan. The alternative of an overlapping hierarchy of state regulators and overseers looked heinous compared to single payer at the state level. I thought, back then, that HRC was trying to sneak single payer in under the radar, with all that complex bureaucratic nonsense was cover.
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)I did download, print and read the plan, BTW.)

Jay: Absolutely incorrect to describe single payer as the thrust of the Clinton plan. Ira Magaziner memo (7/22/93) shows Clinton saw single payer as huge political liability, and sought to distinguish their plan from single payer. Can’t find link, but it’s quoted on p. 151 of broder/johnson book “The System.”:
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If we don’t release [the plan] and go all-out beginnning in September, we will fail at health care reform. If we have a half-hearted release of principles, with a couple of speeches and then postpone serious consideration of our bill until January, we risk being beaten so badly that it will be embarrassing. A Republican bill will contest the single-payer bill and we will be viewed as bumblers who are irrelevant.

“President Obama is not pushing for one” yet “single payer is the system they would build if they were starting from scratch”.
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If in the best of all worlds that’s what you wanted why toss it away BEFORE negotiations? Aim small and you end up with smaller. Every time.

Friar Tuck: You make a very good point. Even those who can pay get crappy coverage. In the current economic climate (your short working hours: the thought of it hurts!)the future looks bleak.

Our rhetoric about the promise of America is uplifting. Unfortunately insurance and healthcare providers’ need for profits trumps all.

FT, I’m with you, as of June 1st I officially increase the number of uninsured to 47, 000,001.
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It’s funny how whenever the conservatives talk about how bad a single-payer or government run option would be they fail to compare it to Medicare, a single-payer, government run health care program that works well despite the number of scam artists that try to bilk the system every year. In fact, senior citizens loved it so much that when Ronald Reagan managed to brainwash everyone into believing that everything the government touched turned into a disaster, senior citizens started to believe that Medicare must be a priviate company and to this day most seniors don’t believe tht Medicare is a government program.
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The other thing they fail to mention. Is that private insurance (real insurance not that fly by night crap advertised on tee vee at 3 AM) determines its minimum level of coverage based on what Medicare provides. It’s the reason that mental health parity in Medicare is so important, private insurance won’t give mental illness parity until the feds do. If the market is so much better, why don’t they the lead on what’s covered rather than following in the feds footsteps?

choska:
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So, does that mean you have NEVER covered an issue/policy position that wasn’t going to pass?
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The point of this story was to give my readers a sense of what is ACTUALLY under consideration in Congress at the moment. It was not a discussion of every option, because I think that train is out of the station. (Medical savings accounts are not discussed either.) You may disagree, but that is my best assessment, based on my reporting and my experience covering this issue. I wanted to do my readers a service by giving them a guide to the debate that is actually happening.

KT-
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That quote is not inconsistent with my view at the time. First, Magaziner is talking about a national single payer plan, not a state by state opt in. But even if he were talking about the single payer option that WAS in the HRC plan, it would be consistent with my view, at the time, that states would soon find that the cheapest, most easily administered option was to adopt single payer policies. In this nefarious scenario, of course the HRC folks would have talked down the single payer scenarios.
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But I was sitting by myself in my little office, just reading the document, with the context of some work I was doing for a Medicaid HMO monitoring quality compliance with state regs. I wasn’t, as you were, covering the story.
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But I still do not want my main point to be lost–that there is a significant number of republicans who oppose reform BECAUSE it would improve health care in the US.

jayack: i was covering the plan on capitol hill. the state-by-state single payer option was not a major focus. way down in the weeds, and pretty much a non-starter, due to the problems of making it work for multistate employers. (which, now that i think about it, could be a problem with sanders’ idea, too, though my employer does offer different plans to employees in different states–screwing the washington bureau, i might add.)
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and i understand your point about reform. my bone of contention was your suggestion that their opposition is to single payer. think it conflates two arguments.

Then I wrote poorly, because the point is not merely about single payer plans. As Kristol wrote, they are opposed to extension of care in any form.

I could live with a public option, but I’m sick of feeling like I must keep a job with a major employer because of health care. Unless we have a strong public option, a lot of people will be like me, trapped in the borg.

This subject depresses me.
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Our system is more about profits than it is about providing care.

The complete GOP incoherence on the public option (“It’ll suck!” “It’ll drive private insurers out of business!”) should guarantee passage. We will find out whether the insurance companies own as many Senators as the banksters do.

KT:
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RE[Why]:
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Thanks so much for responding, I truly appreciate it. Rather than argue the merits of that position with you (or anybody else), I’m going to try to understand it and its premises in more depth. But first, please let me try to clarify my reasons for asking this question by way of bringing to your mind something that I hope will be familiar: your televised participation in the public debate.
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Do you recall the panel you did at the end of March of this year with Begala and Norm Ornstein after Baucus’ remarks, KT?
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When I watched the discussion/Q&A segment, I saw a woman get up, identify herself as a doctor, and ask the panel the extraordinarily relevant elephant-in-the-room question that had been ignored up until that point: “If we all –especially us doctors and care providers– know that incremental reforms aren’t likely to truly solve the underlying problems with health care delivery in this country, and peoples’ lives are hanging in the balance, why is the solution prevalent throughout the Western world being loudly ignored by policy makers and the people tasked with discussing the policy makers at this panel?
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Do you remember that moment, KT?
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Can you bring to mind the short, embarrassed silence that followed her sincere question? Do you remember the awkwardness with which her totally reasonable, completely relevant inquiry –which boiled down to “Why not single-payer? Why is that forbidden even to discuss? We’re discussing it, so why not politicians and panelists?“, KT?
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I remember Begala then almost irritatedly, certainly curtly telling this person something along the lines of “Well, that’s a question for activists, and beyond the scope of any discussion that serious people are having about the issue.”
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The entirety of the answer she got from the panel assembled to discuss precisely what the current health care reform process is all about was (I’m paraphrasing, obviously) “Not going to happen. Stop asking why, because it doesn’t matter, and serious people know this. Next!”
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It was apparent to the viewer that this sort of question was actually offensive for the panelists to hear. It was if this serious, professional medical practitioner were a dreadlocked, drum-beating, giant-puppet holding, scrawled-sign waving demonstrator who was screaming “No blood for oil! No blood for oil! End the racist war! End the racist war!” through a bullhorn, instead of a serious person asking a clear, relevant question about the details of why and how certain policy options were being excluded from consideration. It was as if Code Pink stood up during a Petraeus hearing. It was incredible to watch, KT.
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It wasn’t merely that the panelists considered the question not worth their time to answer, it was one of the a clearest examples of which I can think of establishment actors –not politicians, mind you– demonstrating their normal reactions to being confronted by what Prof. Jay Rosen calls the sphere of deviance:

3.) In the sphere of deviance we find “political actors and views which journalists and the political mainstream of society reject as unworthy of being heard.” As in the sphere of consensus, neutrality isn’t the watchword here; journalists maintain order by either keeping the deviant out of the news entirely or identifying it within the news frame as unacceptable, radical, or just plain impossible. The press “plays the role of exposing, condemning, or excluding from the public agenda” the deviant view, says Hallin. It “marks out and defends the limits of acceptable political conduct.”
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Anyone whose views lie within the sphere of deviance—as defined by journalists—will experience the press as an opponent in the struggle for recognition. If you don’t think separation of church and state is such a good idea; if you do think a single payer system is the way to go; if you dissent from the “lockstep behavior of both major American political parties when it comes to Israel” (Glenn Greenwald) chances are you will never find your views reflected in the news. It’s not that there’s a one-sided debate; there’s no debate.

It was as if there was a little play that had been put on solely for the purpose of illustrating Rosen’s essay.
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It was exceedingly uncomfortable to witness, because this bright, knowledgeable, concerned person with the relevant question was treated –especially by Begala– as if she were a child pestering the adults with demands for a pony during a kitchen-table discussion of how to meet the mortgage. The arrogance and condescension with which Begala casually assigned this educated, engaged individual to “activist” irrelevance was breathtaking. He reacted as if he were an astro-physicist giving a presentation on the ranges of precision of current orbital calculation methodologies, and some cotton-candy holding idiot walked in off of the street and up to the microphone to ask in between mouthfuls “Why do they need to carry all that oxygen? Why can’t they just breathe the air outside when they get to the moon?“. It was incredible.
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To your credit, you did not participate in this. You at least remained silent, KT.
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When one of you says “Not going to happen.” and we ask “Why?“, we confront something quite alien that you professionals (and the professionals with whom you deal) virtually swim in, which is this ocean of the established order’s premises about current political conditions. Because we just elected a black President named Barack Hussein Obama who won his primary over the powerful Hillary Clinton largely due to his long-standing public opposition to the Iraq war, we out here swim in different waters of assumptions, KT. What is “Not going to happen” is not closed for debate.
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It may be child-like to ask you “But why?“, KT, but it is not childish. The reason why it reminds such panelists of a child’s question is because it is an honest question and not merely rhetorical. While I study your answer, I would request that you not mistake this honest question for a politically motivated one. It’s not a question designed for an answer that we’d like heard for an agenda’s sake, it’s intended to garner information about what can be done to legitimately influence policy in a representative democracy. If we don’t know in detail why certain things that seem obvious to us are inconceivable or impossible, then we don’t really understand anything important about the health care (or any) debate in DC, right, KT? Isn’t the role of political reporters to write pieces that make such understanding possible, even if the questions raised by a sharing of that knowledge are complex or raise uncomfortable realities?
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Please, take my word for it: the question of what specific factors in our current system prohibit the form of health care provision practiced by the developed world from being considered isn’t to trap you into a response worthy of an “activist”, KT.
We believe that, in the matter of the health care reform debate taking shape on the Hill, if the subject is important enough to write and read about, then it’s important enough to always ask “Why?“

Karen,

While I give you credit for at least mentioning the topic, I still don’t buy your reasoning about why it’s not being discussed – because “it’s not going to pass.”

People in your line of work are complicit in keeping single payer out of the discussion. Like John Meacham of Newsweek admitted, most of our elite media are interested in keeping the “status quo.” Thus, people who cover Washington are afraid to lose access
to those in power and will rarely rock the boat by moving the debate beyond what the establishment deems acceptable.

I would argue that what we are witnessing is not much different than what happened in our run up to the War with Iraq. The same Washington consensus that deemed war with Iraq was inevitable are the same people who are all too happy to keep single payer out of the debate.

I wish we could have an honest discussion about this and other issues. Rather than saying single payer is not ” politically viable” – Why not say the truth? The insurance/for-profit medical lobby have bought off our politicians.

Thanks for that, SZ.
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I hope America doesn’t have a tombstone in its future that reads “Serious People Killed Me”. Fruitful political discourse in this country is certainly dead and buried for the time being.

mccainfluffer: i am absolutely not interested in keeping the status quo, which is why i wrote a cover story for our magazine about the struggles of my own brother. it was the most difficult story i have ever written. this one is personal for me. i can’t speak for jon meacham.
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http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1883149,00.html

A small anecdote about the worth of private insurance:
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My 40-ish son broke his leg Sunday before last while riding his bicycle. A kind passer-by drove him to the nearest emergency room, where he was splinted, given a dose of morphine and some percacet pills, handed a pair of crutches, and told to come back the following Wednesday for surgery. (Monday was Memorial Day and the OR was booked solid for Tuesday.) A friend drove him home and left him there, alone. As the morphine wore off, the pain became intolerable, and eventually he called his mother and me and we drove overnight to his home to help.
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Monday morning we called his primary care physician and the ER orthopedist about the pain. They both told us to bring him back to the ER, so we did. They both then agreed that he had to be hospitalized so they could give him adequate pain medicine. He was admitted to the hospital that same Monday morning, but they couldn’t move up the date of his surgery. So he lay on his back for two days while an IV drip of the maximum safe dose of a powerful narcotic kept his pain barely manageable until they could operate. Which they did on Wednesday, as scheduled. The break was so bad they kept him until Saturday.
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His insurance is with a large, supposedly reputable carrier. He first got it through his previous employer, but he’s between jobs and is paying the full premium under COBRA. On Wednesday, the day he went home, he got a letter from his insurance company dated MONDAY, denying coverage for anything between his Sunday discharge from the ER and the date of surgery because his surgery had been “delayed” and they didn’t pay for delay. Need I elaborate on how outrageous this looks to us? I called, and they agreed to reconsider (not that they’ll necessarily change their minds), but in the meantime they’ve told him that the surgeon he used isn’t “within plan,” so he has to pay something like half the surgeon’s fee — and of course he won’t be reimbursed anything for going to that surgeon for any follow-up visits, as if any rational person would to go any other doctor.
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Transpose this to a time after the enactment of some health-care bill. It won’t matter what sort of plan he’s offered, or how many different ones, if they’re all going to invoke Catch-22 whenever something serious happens. He’s looking forward with trepidation to the long process of simply trying to get paid by his medical insurance for his medical expenses. Single-payor would end this fragmentation. I don’t think anything else would. That’s good enough for me.

Rusty,
Normally I’d use this opportunity to take a swipe at you, but in this case you have some valid points, as well as the background to back some of them up. So I guess here’s where I’m coming from on the issue (and this applies to single payer fans as well):
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A) The vast majority of Americans seem to agree that our health care system is broken or failing. It is cost-prohibitive, and segregates us into groups: the “wealthy, healthy” people who get bilked for not using the system, and the poor, sick, uninsured who get screwed out of a basic right in a developed nation, the right to be cured or treated. It’s lose-lose-lose across the board, unless you work for an insurance company.
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B) While our system is failing, single payer systems in other countries are not without flaws. Most of the evidence of these flaws is anecdotal, but a lot of it rings true and makes some logical sense. Their systems may be better than ours, but that doesn’t mean they’re GOOD.
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C) Most polls seem to indicate support for a universal/ single payer system in America.
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Z) Insurers and special interests don’t want these types of solutions, and are throwing spanners in the works.

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So here’s my question to Rusty and others: why can’t we “D,” find the solution? We accept A, B, and C as true, assume that A + B + C = D. We also put forward the theory that “Z” is not greater than or equal to “D.” And we build a single payer/ universal system THAT WORKS?

Commenters:
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I’d like to remind everyone that Karen Tumulty is the only mainstream political journalist I can think of that has actually asked Max Baucus personally about the consideration of single-payer proposals, and then blogged about it…

“If we all –especially us doctors and care providers– know that incremental reforms aren’t likely to truly solve the underlying problems with health care delivery in this country, and peoples’ lives are hanging in the balance, why is the solution prevalent throughout the Western world being loudly ignored by policy makers and the people tasked with discussing the policy makers at this panel?”
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SZ, what type of “why” question is this? It reads to me like a “bullhorn, pink wearing protester of any invasion of any country. Perhaps that is why she received a “curt” answer in return.
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If you are truly asking “why can’t we have a single payer system?”, I think I have given many reasons over the past few months as to WHY it will NOT work.
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Enjoy!

bobell: you should raise hell with the insurance company. it’s a soul-crushing exercise, but it sounds like you can win.

KT,

I have read your story previously and appreciate your candor. I also appreciate that you are one of the few people in the so-called “MSM” who actually talks about “Single Payer.” My post was not meant to complain about you personally, it was more a rant about the “Washington consensus.” I consider you one of the exceptions.

I think this is an emotional issue for a lot of people because we all have our stories and experiences with the current system. It’s frustrating that our elected representatives don’t want to listen to us.

you should raise hell with the insurance company. it’s a soul-crushing exercise, but it sounds like you can win.
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KT,
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Guess I’m on-board with the others – when these “soul-crushing” exercises become so widespread that they effectively become the “norm” when dealing with the insurance companies, it’s time for reform.
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You can help by continuing to ask the question “why not single pay” and then refusing to accept the pat answer “just because it won’t pass”.
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Once again – why won’t it pass?
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And you can ask those in Congress why something they benefit from personally is not acceptable for the rest of us out here in the hinterlands.

vastwaste,
I appreciate the thoughtful return of dicussion. Again I shall also repeat, that our current system is truly broken, but I also want to remind folks as to why the private system does have great benefit to everyone in the US. It is the same reason that those who can afford to pay out of pocket for healthcare in other countries, flock here in droves to get needed medical attention, especially for either life-threatening diseases or cures for complicated illnesses. It is called American ingenuity and free enterprise that not only supports new inventions and medical discoveries, but allows for them to be tested and processed before mass implementation. Under a single payer, government backed insurance program only, all of that will dry up and go away. Where will be the incentives? Just in the past 40 to 50 years we have seen an unprecedented transformation in healthcare. Polio was a common ailment not 50 or 60 years ago, leaving thousands upon thousands severely malformed the rest of their life. If you take private enterprise out of the equation, which in my opinion you are doing with single payer, then the next polio-like bug that surfaces will occur, and you will not have the researchers to discover the cure. Because all of the funding for research is gobbled up by the need to fund the public financed single payer program. In time you will also see single payer imploding upon itself because the government can no longer sustain it.
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I just hope that the “policy makers” that SZ states are not taking the “why” question seriously, examines everything before they succumb to special interst groups from either the left or the right.
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And bobell, heed Karen’s advice. COBRA is in business like most other types of insurances we encounter, “never pay fully for anything”. Unfortunately COBRA was initiated hastilly to somehow help those between jobs, when there should be a government pool of workers who can buy into a group policy, not backed by private insurers, but backed by the US of A.

Rustydog:
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If you are truly asking “why can’t we have a single payer system?”
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No we’re asking “Why isn’t the framework that the rest of the First World uses under consideration? What are the specific factors that contribute to a widely-adopted system being excluded from debate in the Senate?”
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Karen alluded to your claim “it will NOT work” when she mentioned in her answer “many conservatives also think it is a bad idea on ideological grounds“, but that did a certain unfairness to what practical considerations you offer.
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What I find truly interesting and worthy of further examination is her statement “they also know from past experience that it is easy to scare people“.
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In a free country with a free press, in the richest, most powerful nation on earth, where people live with a sense of entitlement to their rights in a nation unlike any other, why exactly would it be “easy to scare people”? Who would be doing the scaring, and why? How would that work? How did it work last time? Who benefited? Who lost? Why?
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Is this phenomenon a result of healthy systems functioning in the interests of citizens, or of corrupt, dysfunctional institutions?
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Should people be easily scared? Or shouldn’t they? Why?

Nice try with this post KT. It is appreciated. I guess we really shouldn’t hold it against you – after all the whole point of your job is to be a gatekeeper for acceptable opinion.
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Still, by keeping this out of public discussion you are *hurting America* and *carrying water* for corporate interests, whether you mean to or not.

I just want to say I really appreciate the discussion, KT and fellow commenters.
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I had great benefits and almost a decade long tenure at a leading chip making company. I recently left for a higher paying, more interesting job with a defense contractor. The position, as most are with this company, was contract to permanant. During my contract phase the bottom fell out of the economy and they went on a “hiring freeze.” So here I am, still a contractor. No health insurance.
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I’m not poor or destitute but I’m one accident or illness away from being so. There is simply no excuse, no anecdote, no horror story about Canada that should keep this from the forefront. People are making money hand over fist by denying healthcare to their fellow citizens.
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Like the run up to the war, the media is letting us down. SZ and others make a great point, the issue is shrugged off as if it was stupid to ask.
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At this point in history the media is trying to figure out a way to make money in this new era, and in the interim they are ignoring their duties to ask the tough questions and in the process they are worsening the situation for all of us. We deserve better.

BTW, didn’t you guys also not discuss the position that Iraq didn’t have WMD’s – because it just wasn’t part of the mainstream?

KT:
Just saw you on MSNBC. Did I misunderstand, or did Andrea Mitchell just completely confuse a public option and a coverage mandate? If so, I’m not surprised she admitted her inability to grasp the issue at the close of the interview.

bobell
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When I had something bad happen to me over a thanksgiving weekend, (not nearly as bad as your son’s accident), I called the insurance company before I did anything–the original ER visit, the return to the ER the next day because the doc had shot me up with novocaine before checking for nerve damage, the trip to hospital in LI to see a specialist…
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It’s ridiculous that you have to do that, but that is our system.
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One of the reasons it is so irksome to have single payer taken off the table without public debate is that it is certain to be very popular. ANYBODY who deals with the health care business has a horror story to tell. Everybody hates the system–the doctors, the patients, the businesses providing coverage. And yet the insurance companies still have veto power over actually fixing things.

After reading KT and the commenters I get the impression that healthcare is first and foremost a profit centre. Overtime we have read of horror stories of those who are insured, have insufficient insurance and none. Having had to use the French, British and Australian systems because of employment location I found the French and Australian systems very responsive to my needs. In Britain the aging buildings and some bureaucracy caused delays but emergency was always an option, and one did not pay ( but paid through taxes, of course). Stuart’s post ask the vital question: why is single pay off the table?

A lot of this has to do with the way our Senators are financed. It would be good to see a list of donors next to each Senator on the relevant committees dealing with this issue.

I think we should focus on a state whose governor and house are in favour of exploring the single payer option. We need to find a state which will give the system a honest trial. The opposition will be well financed, but the people get to vote and if they care enough it will happen.

The one thing I know is that Washington’s CW is neither conventional nor wise. KT is a rare exception because she has seen the problem first hand. Until doctors and nurses get a real say in the delivery of health care the status quo will endure.

atrios links to another incident: Cramdown critics were wrong. But no need to point that out before the legislation is defeated.
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http://mediamatters.org/research/200906050015

FO: Yes, she did get it confused, but I think she realized that after the words came out of her mouth.

bitterpill8:
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Here’s a list of Max Baucus’ top 20 donors fromthe 2008 cycle
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Number one on the list is the pharmaceutical giant Schering-Plough, with a total of $72,200, $64,200 from individuals within that firm, $8,000 from their Political Action Committee.
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Insurance fraudsters AIG are well represented at $46,750 total, with $37,000 coming from individuals within that firm, $9,750 from their PAC.
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Health insurance monstrosity Aetna Inc is similarly represented at $45,250, with $35,250 coming from individuals within that organization, $10,000 coming from their PAC.
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Another giant, health services provider Kindred Healthcare gets into the action at $28,400, with $18,400 from individuals at that corporation, $10,000 from its PAC.
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These are just some of the interesting donors in just the top 20 list of contributors to Max Baucus’ 2008 cycle. How this list fails to make it into a piece on the Baucus-led health care reform legislative process is puzzling, indeed.

Hi Karen. “The reason is that it is not going to pass” seems a little bit presumptuous; there’s been a good deal of activism on it outside of the Beltway, e.g.:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/01/baucus-battered-by-voters_n_209865.html

That can make things that appear impossible from inside the hothouse turn suddenly reasonable. I would hope any “guide to the debate that is actually happening” would include citizens’ participation when it looks like it might be having an effect. And in any event there are already enough reporters in D.C enamored of self fulfilling prophesies (or lazily passing along spin from anonymous sources as settled fact). Please don’t tell us how it’s going to be when it’s still very much up in the air.

What’s interesting to me is that it seems like we have a health care system one short step up from having a hunchback dragging a cart through the streets, yelling “Bring out your dead!”….and yet we see rusty and others insisting that everything is fine.

SZ: Many thanks. The information is out there. What I had in mind is a dedicated organisation that puts toger this kind of info and makes sure voters get to see it. I don’t believe we can rely on MSM types, with honorable exceptions of course (KT) to get the information out clearly and concisely. I am guessing here, but I don’t think our talking heads really think about the stuff they dole out from memorising sheets of info (propaganda). Also the MSM is dependent on ad revenue from these corporations.

Perhaps a MoveonHealth.org? Anyway it is good to see you back in the fray.

KT and others who commented: Thanks for the sympathy and the good advice. We aren’t going down without a fight. There are three law degrees in the family (Son Ben has one but doesn’t practice), and we will hound the insurer mercilessly. But I’ve already had one quick look at the policy, and it’s amazing what’s in the fine print.
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If the insurance companies wanted to show some good faith in their attempts to avoid extinction (which is what I wish for them), they could start by working out a universal basic policy that would apply to all who are insured except where they make specific provision to the contrary. That would at least give consumers a baseline and a description of how the company proposed to differ from that baseline. If they need help writing it in plain English, I’ll be pleased to volunteer. That’s one of my specialties. (And if they’re worried about antitrust violations, I’m sure they could get the necessary exemption as part of the legislation.) Or perhaps the statute itself, or the regulations adopted under it, could prescribe a baseline policy and permissible deviations. We need standardization.
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Thanks for all your good work on this, KT. Your combination of informed reporting and personal involvement highlights what’s wrong and what desperately needs doing.

Baucus sent his staff monkeys all around Montana last week for “listening sessions” (that’s where they ignore what you say) and they got an earful from people out here who are not happy there is no single payer plan even being considered. Max is lucky he’s not up for re-election next year because if he helps pass some sort of health insurance company enrichment bill he’d be out on his ass.

bobell: all the best to you and yours. You have made an important point. Thanks.

The incomparable Avedon has a post on this:

This post is a bit convoluted with the updates all appearing at the top, but what it’s about is the Obamites trying to get one of their posters to remove the content of one of her posts from their grass-rootsy, open-governmenty site because it doesn’t sing the party line on healthcare “reform”. (via)

From the above post where the individual was contacted in the hopes of talking them down from organizing around single-payer:

Well, it wasn’t HCAN that called me, it was Organizing for America. Yes, they actually called me, dialed my number and called me, personally. I have a hard time believing it myself. They wanted to “reason with me,” maybe not fully delete my event (although they made it clear they could–it’s their tool I used, right? right? uhhh?) They wanted me to at least take the part out where I said choice isn’t the issue. That was the key to my argument so I declined their offer. OK, I yelled at the guy.
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They hinted at banning me from the site, but came down to the comment that it would depend on what they say in DC as to what happens to my post, my event and to my existence on OFA. Here’s a little newsflash buster OFA isn’t all that important to me, kick me off, fine, but if you want to talk about who’s tool it is exactly here’s another newsflash: THERE WOULDN’T BE AN OFA if people like me, and exactly me as an early Obama supporter, didn’t come through for both Obama and the country last year and in 2004 when he ran for Senate. The Illinois Tenth Congressional District for Obama Group to which my event was posted was the group I started way back when there weren’t all that many groups up on that site. Also, Barack Obama said his campaign and his ultimate presidency was not about him, it was about us, me and people like me. Well here I am. I was there for you and now you want me gone because of a little friendly disagreement.
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I don’t really care if they forever ban me from OFA and you sure don’t, so what am I talking about here. The real problem isn’t whether some small health care event takes place or not or gets advertised or not (there are better places than OFA to advertise an event anyway). The real problem here is what’s going on.
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We’re constantly being told that single payer is “off the table” although it’s the only reform really on the table as in being part of actual bills actually filed in Congress as of this writing. It’s the only reform that has a chance to stick around a while because it’s sustainable; it can pay for itself with the savings it generates. Then, there are these groups dedicated to the proposition that discussion is over, single payer is off the table. I had a run in with HCAN a while ago because I only partially agreed with them and dared mention single payer in a post on my own blog. Now it’s OFA, unrelated organizationally to HCAN, but arguing the same point for the same administration. OFA, formerly MyBo, was the Obama campaign’s organizing tool on the web. They kept it supposedly to inspire Obama’s supporters to continue organizing. Now, it seems they don’t want anyone, not even for the smallest of events in the most obscure suburb of Chicago, mentioning that they don’t think choice is the issue in health care reform. It’s not MyBo anymore, it’s TheirBo, I guess. I thought the Democratic Party was the wide tent, so what’s this all about?
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Winning
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anything
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at all costs
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It’s the republican party play book: not grassroots, but astroturf, rule from above, top down management, win, doesn’t matter what exactly you win. This isn’t what President Obama campaigned on. Further, while there is some anecdotal evidence that it worked for the republican party for a while: it got them bankruptcy reform for credit card companies, a pharmaceutical benefit for pharmaceutical companies that leaves seniors in the dust, banking deregulation to help destroy the economy, a war, no two wars, a censorship and police state law called the Patriot Act, torture…. See where I’m going with this. They won, but look what they won, not such good stuff.

That’s what’s going on out here, folks.

Thank you stuart, that last post was truly enlightening.

@rusty, I think you are terminally confused. You say that you are against single payer. Yet in the same post your write:
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“Unfortunately COBRA was initiated hastilly to somehow help those between jobs, when there should be a government pool of workers who can buy into a group policy, not backed by private insurers, but backed by the US of A.”
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So, uh, buddy, how is letting workers buy into a group policy, backed by the US, any different from what the advocates of single payer are asking for?
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Are you saying that you would be okay with letting people choose to buy into an insurance policy, backed and run by the government? If so then pass the bottle opener because we all agree. Let it be noted that the commentators on Swampland agree that the government should extend the option to let people buy into a program like, say, Medicare, and get our insurance from there. No one would be forced to buy public insurance. People can spend as much money as they want for private insurance. This way everyone gets what they claim they want.
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The upside of this is that Medicare’s overhead is 2%. Private insurance’s overhead is 15% and up. Over time, as more and more people paid into the Medicare system the level of risk would be spread over a far larger base of people. As that happened Medicare’s low overhead would allow it to pay health care providers more and more for delivering higher quality, more extensive services. We would then have a system where health care providers are paid to provide health care, while individuals pay to receive that health care.
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A government oversight panel, akin to the Federal Reserve, would be put in place to oversee key issues such as the impact and price of new drugs on the system. We could even put in place a website that would allow people to closely scrutinize the data in regards to money spent and health outcomes.
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BTW, you also say in your post that you fear that public health care would result in fewer innovations because the private sector wouldn’t have an incentive to research them. You seem to be unaware of the fact that the government, along with foundations, underwrites a huge chunk of basic research in the US.
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In fact, and I’m sure you’ll be delighted to know this, Jonas Salk’s research into the polio vaccine was funded by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. This organization, now called the March of Dimes, was established in 1938 by your favorite president of all time: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Foundation_for_Infantile_Paralysis

Can you imagine. FDR not only dug us out of the Great Depression and fought and won WWII, despite the objection and obstruction of the GOP which wanted to do nothing to stop either the Depression or the Nazis, but he used government power and leadership to cure polio.
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It is amazing what the people of the US can do when we band together to solve a problem, rather than dividing up into camps based on which insurance company we belong to.

I never thought I would say this but…what Rusty said at 4:21.
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Also, Choska, good post.

Excellent thread that this groggy, 1st-cup-a-jah bloke is wading into.
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SZ says: “I’d like to remind everyone that Karen Tumulty is the only mainstream political journalist I can think of that has actually asked Max Baucus personally about the consideration of single-payer proposals, and then blogged about it…”
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Aside from the wonderful Paul Begala, aside from the fearmongers and misinformation specialists, aside from the sphere of deviance and Durbin’s “the bankers [big oil/MIC/drug co's] own this place,” aside from all that, what I would have to say is that KT’s polite ? to Baucus is simply not enough. Not merely b/c she’s, as Stuart says, alone in daring to utter such heresy, but given all of the above, perhaps we need journalists who are, I dunno, activists. Maybe our system of “democracy” is insufficient, maybe the people’s voices & needs, despite this most recent historic election, are still being ignored. Maybe if the rubric that defines the media role changes (a la blogs), then change will come to society. Until then, the well-meaning KT, her brother, and millions of others will probably look on with despair at the faux-change we get.
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Meanwhile, we can continue to observe our thoroughly corrupt apparatus of “leadership” and what KT tells us are their many b-s reasons not to give Americans (who pay these f@ckers’ salaries) what so many of us in the rest of the world have, but we also have the likes of Begala and co. (i.e. shills and courtiers untouched by the struggles of 10s of millions of Americans) dropping smokebombs into the middle of the debate. But, no, let’s not have media criticism either.
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Finally, as the above reference of the Obamites makes crystal clear, it comes down to how much pressure dems are willing to put on the president. I maintain, Cairo as a vivid ex, that if he chose, he could marshal his Kennedy-esque popularity, capital and capacity for teaching moments to cut through all the media spin & b-s, take his message to the people who would apply requisite pressure to their congress critters and suddenly their tune would change.

choska,
I have said on many previous threads that KT has posted here that I agreed the current system needs much overhaul. I have also said that for those without insurance or under insured that there needs to be a government backed program that they can buy into, whether it be that they work for a small business that cannot afford health insurance for their workers, 50, 100 or even a 1000 employees or less.
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But, to simply destroy our private insured group of benefits just so you can fund a new universal, single payer insurance like Canada has is absolutely insane. Perhaps in time the government program will be so successful that everyone will want to be part of it, including me. But, I am not one to take that risk just so we can finally appease the democrat base so they can meet one of their campaign pledges.

Re: stuartzechman Says:
Friday, June 5, 2009 at 4:08 pm

That was my post from my blog:

http://www.ellenofthetenth.blogspot.com

Ebgill:
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Totally agree: “The mainstream media has abandoned its role as the fourth estate, should be replaced and lose the benefits given to it for being such.”

rusty,
No one is talking about destroying private insurance. Please, find any credible, non-crazy person out there who wants to do that.
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The concept of single-payer is that there should be what you ask for. A government-backed program that anyone can buy into if they can’t afford health insurance on their own, or if the company they work for doesn’t offer health insurance.
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Where is the risk?
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BTW, why cap the size of the company that can join the plan. If you work for GM and they decide to stop offering health insurance, aren’t you going to let the employees buy into the plan?
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Also, if employers want to put their employees into the plan as a cost-cutting measure, then why not let them? GM could decide to pay its employee’s premiums in the government-backed plan. Adding those several thousand people into the government’s risk pool would benefit the people already in that plan, while giving the plan more leverage for negotiating with health care providers.
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I think I hear what you are saying in your first paragraph. But your stated concerns in the second paragraph seem to be unfounded. No one wants to create a universal health care system. What even the most liberal people want is simply the option of a having a single-payer system along side private insurance.
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What is making my head explode is that the DEMOCRATS in Congress aren’t even giving me that. Instead they simply want to impose more government regulation on private insurance companies, which neither you nor I want.

KT:
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Thanks. I’d have a lot more respect for her (i.e., some) if she made the effort to correct herself when she screws up. I see few journalists (outside of the overt propagandists of FockSnooze) who make as many outright misstatements, usually by adopting an extreme oversimplification that sacrifices accuracy.

Why is it that every media outlet is ignoring the fact that Sen. Max Baucus is one of the single largest recipients of insurance and drug companies money within the Democratic Party. Surely this little “nugget” deserves greater scrutiny.

Here’s a question that I have for Rusty and all opponents to a national health care system.
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If it is true that universal government-sponsored single payer health care systems are so awful, then why is NO COUNTRY that has enacted them is moving to remove them? If they truly are terrible dysfunctional systems that produce no value to their citizens, shouldn’t there be a cry from these nations to abandon them? Instead, most coutries that have them seek to improve their services either by allowing private companies to offer services beyond what the national health program covers or by encouraging innovations within their systems. In other words singlular failures are nowhere near enough to convince those nations to abandon their systems. Shouldn’t there be some clamor if these health systems were such failures to radically alter or abandon them?

ebgill:
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Thank you so much for posting; I like your blog very much.
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Please, please accept my sincere apologies for not crediting you as I should have.
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Please, please blog more about your thoughts and experiences…

Echoes of the run up to the Iraq war:
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. As you are aware, the overwhelming majority of CPC Members would prefer a single-payer approach. If a single-payer plan is not enacted, we agree with President Obama that there must be a robust public health insurance option like Medicare offered alongside the private plans….
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There is a large number of US Reps who advocate a single payer plan. There is an actual bill in both the House and the Senate. If we are going to listen to Republicans say nonsensical things, I don’t see why the Progressive Caucus is not also being heard from.

wiki tells me there are 77 members of the progressive caucus. I count 51 Blue Dogs: http://www.house.gov/melancon/BlueDogs/Member%20Page.html
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Shouldn’t the CPC receive at least as much attention?

Come now Yuts–get ahold of yourself. Are you daring to compare the US to the rest of the developed world (i.e. as worthy models for “Americans” to emulate, to learn from!? Surely you jest sir. Our kabuki public discourse must remain in a bubble of isolation. The sphere of deviancy is not merely domestic–anything beyond US borders is wholly irrelevant, never to be mentioned in polite society by the serious villagers. F@ck, it’s enough to take up drink as a F-T occupation.
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As Ezra Klein once described Moore’s Sicko:
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“The film is more radical, and more troubling, than he’d even imagined. Moore’s movie is only superficially about health care. It uses the subject — and also sick days, and vacations, and child care, and maternal support policies — as a way to critique unthinking American exceptionalism, to challenge the tautology that states that the way we do things is the best way to do things because … it’s the way we do things. The particulars of the account all add up to the larger question: Is the America we live in the America we think we live in, and the America we want to live in?”

Are you daring to compare the US to the rest of the developed world (i.e. as worthy models for “Americans” to emulate, to learn from!?
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The scariest part of that statement is how much the rest of the world (Western Europe and Japan) were actually rebuilt and surpassed us with our funding. Who knew the fruition of the Marshall Plan would be to have the rest of the world leaving us in the dust?

As a chronically ill (needing morphine to be able to minally function through the deep arthritic pain)screwed over member of our culture–my “normal” medical bills are over $1000.00 a month (no new glasses for three years-needed surgeries put off because of my HMO hoping I’ll die first)I really don’t have the ability to take on and wrestle my HMO to get my needs taken care of.
I dare not drop any portion of my premium (the drugs alone would cost over $2500.00 a month)
I know people in other countries-France, Enland and Canada who are horrified at what I go through to be taken care of and my friends in England who suffer from the same ailment I have have sometimes sent me medication because it is so much more affordable there and they are taken better care of than I am—a pitiful commentary on this culture.
An a**hole drug addict like Limbaugh is listened to as if he knows anything, the Senate and Congress have the best medical care in the world, and are paid off for blocking drug legislation-forget one payer-raise my taxes and give me at least as good of care as my international friends. We are already rationed–who’s zooming whom?
Nothing goes away because we don’t address it–our system is a mess.
Years ago when the fist HMO’s came into effect they where lauded by local business men (the CEO’s making a million dollars a year) and several family friends who were doctors simply went out of businees (bankrupt) because of these usless greedy middlemen who produce nothing but horror stories renogiated payment after the fact (surgeries already performed) of as little as $.10 on the dollar– good business–if you weren’t the provider.
I would put the members of House and Senate at the back of the line for medical care–they should not get better care than the least of us –if they actually had to risk something maybe we would get some changes made.