Single payer and the Public Option
by Sheila Kuehl
This is my second health related essay of 2009. You have either received it because you signed onto my health essay list or because someone forwarded it to you. If you received it by forwarding, this essay is from former California State Senator Sheila Kuehl. If you want to subscribe to these essays, go to my website at www.SheilaKuehl.org. If you want to unsubscribe, the button is below.
As many of you may know, I was the author of a bill to establish a Medicare-like, single payer program in California. The bill passed both houses of our state legislature in 2006 and, again, in 2008, and was vetoed both times by the current Governor. Since I termed out of the Legislature at the end of last November, the bill is being carried this year by Sen. Mark Leno (SB 810).
In 2008, not-yet-President Obama proposed, as a part of his healthcare reform package, the establishment of a "public option"---an insurance plan offered by the federal government as an alternative to private health insurance, and against which the private companies, left in place, would compete.
I have been asked how those who support single payer should respond to this proposal and how those who want health reform for the country might express their opinions.
First: What Is Single Payer?
If you already know, feel free to skip this paragraph. If you want more information than that given in the short description below, please go to Senator Mark Leno's website at http://dist03.casen.govoffice.com/, and click on the left button related to SB 810. You can download a fact sheet, a list of supporters, bill language, etc.
A single payer system for California, as developed in my bills and, now, in SB 810, establishes a universal health insurance system that provides every California resident with comprehensive benefits for life; puts your premiums, based on a small percentage of your income and, for employers, a percentage of payroll, with no co-pays or deductibles, directly into healthcare spending; allows you to choose your own doctors, hospitals, dentists, eye care providers, and other medical services, without limiting you to a network; ensures the best use of your money by cutting the current 25% private companies now spend for overhead to just 5%; and, through rewarding excellence and sharing efficiencies and best practices, ensures patient-centered, good quality health care for all Californians. You can't lose the insurance if you lose or change your job. You won't be turned down. The plan is fully funded with the money we already spend on health care, which, last year, combining state, federal, local and all premiums, co-pays, deductibles and out of pocket expenses, totaled more than 200 billion dollars. The bill eliminates wasteful insurance overhead, invests in electronic infrastructure that improves quality while reducing cost, emphasizes prevention and primary health care, and utilizes California's purchasing power to realize savings on prescriptions and durable medical equipment.
What Does President Obama Want and What Is He Likely To Get?
In his campaign, and, again, since his election, President Obama has said he thinks, if you like your current insurance, you should be able to keep it. If you don't, there should be a "public option", that is, an insurance plan offered by the federal government, like Medicare, that you can choose as your insurance. The private plans would be required to compete with the federal plan for excellence and cost.
What the final plan will look like is far less certain, as powerful forces are gathering to oppose the establishment of a public option. The insurance companies have "offered" to accept that part of the President's plan that would require them to take everyone who applies. The cost of that, according to the companies, however, would be that the President would have to sign off on an "individual mandate" so that everyone would be required to buy insurance--a great business move for the companies. This can only work if the people have an affordable and adequate public option, which the insurance companies are trying so desperately to kill.
So Let's Say You Want Single Payer...What Should You Do?
I've thought a good deal about the right answer to this and have concluded that there will be a number of people who disagree no matter what I say.
That said: I'll simply set out my opinion.
1. California's work on Single Payer can inform those developing the Public Option.
I don't think it hurts the single payer movement in California to strongly push for a public option in the federal healthcare reform bill, so long as states are allowed, in the federal bill, to adopt their own approach if it's more comprehensive. The President has made it abundantly clear that he doesn't think a single payer program will pass Congress. Nor does he think the country is yet ready to embrace it after the right wing has demonized the idea for so many years.
Our work in California has already had at least two very positive effects:
---Our representatives who favor the inclusion of a public option in the federal legislation report that they are hearing every day from single payer advocates, which, they say, aids them in holding the line, as they can say the public option is the very least their constituents will accept.
---Our work in crafting a more than 100-page, fully mature, single payer bill in California helps to inform the federal work in identifying approaches that make healthcare less costly, make certain it is universal and affordable, set forth a rationale for a minimum benefits package in all plans, and establish a path to a central, electronic, database.
2. Single Payer Advocates Can Continue to Support SB 810 in California
This is critical. It was in California that single payer went from being a pie-in-the-sky communist plot to a widely accepted and sane alternative to the rapaciousness of the private insurance companies. Continuing to work this option here establishes the federal public option as a middle ground solution.
3. We Can Also Lend Strong Voices to Insist On The Public Option
To shore up those in Congress and in the White House who are trying to preserve a public option in the face of a tsunami of opposition from the insurance companies, I recommend, at least, going to http//www.barackobama.com and using the action center there to make calls, write letters to the editor, sign up for events, tell stories, etc. It works in our favor, as well, if, in every call and letter, you say that single payer makes much more sense for the country, however, if we don't get it this year, there must, at least, be a public option, etc. etc. This helps to ratify how many single payer supporters are out there as well as adding to the voices raised in support of the public option.
If you want to be a bit more aggressive, Venice For Change and The Courage Campaign are organizing phone banks for the week of July 6th to call the members of the House Committees who are marking up the healthcare bill in Congress. Their script includes single payer as an option and supports both single payer and the public option. If you are interested in contacting them, let me know on my email or let them know at Veniceforchange@gmail.com.
Get Involved!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Sheila Kuehl: "Single Payer & the Public Option"
Single-Payers Crashing the Gates
http://www.laprogressive.com/2009/06/30/single-payers-crashing-the-gates/
Single-Payers Crashing the Gates
by Marcy Winograd posted on Tuesday, 30 June 20090
One of the many frustrations for advocates of single-payer health care is the relentless drive to marginalize us, not only by conservatives but also by members of our own party.
Case in point: the accounting arm of Congress, the Congressional Budget Office, has yet to perform a financial analysis of the cost of implementing single payer, a system whereby taxpayers—businesses and individuals—pay into a single general fund which covers everyone’s health care for the rest of their lives, regardless of job or health status. Studies in California and Colorado have shown that a single payer system would save money for businesses, families, and government by eliminating private insurance overhead and creating enormous purchasing power that would drive down the costs of care.
I wanted to know why we don’t have federal government cost projections for single payer, so I called the Congressional Budget Office—and reached an answering machine.
Two days later, Melissa Merson, the Communications Director with the CBO, called me back and left a polite message, explaining that the CBO takes its orders from Congress, specifically the leadership, (House Speaker and Senate Majority Leader), as well as the chairs of various committees:
Finance (H-Barney Frank, D. Massachusetts; S-Max Baucus, D. Montana)
Health, Education, and Labor (S-Ted Kennedy, D. Massachusetts)
Budget (H-John Spratt, D. South Carolina; S-Kent Conrad, D. North Dakota)
Appropriations (H-David Obey, D. Wisconsin; S-Daniel Inouye, D. Hawaii)
Ways and Means (H-Charles Rangel, D. New York)
Energy and Commerce (H-Waxman, D. Los Angeles)
“We are fully aware there are members of the public who would like us to provide a cost estimate of single-payer,” said Merson, “but we are inundated with requests from committees of jurisdiction. The priorities are set for us by the Congress.”
Now, single-payer activists, rallying behind Progressive Democrats of America and the California Nurses Association, are demanding the congressional leadership request a CBO analysis of single-payer. Not projecting the costs is another way to marginalize the growing single-payer movement.
On the other hand, we do know the cost projections for the current proposal, the Affordable Choices Act, a hybrid concoction of private insurance and the so-called “public option” which funnels billions into private for-profit insurance companies. In a June 15th letter to Senator Kennedy, the primary sponsor of this legislative effort, Douglas Elmendorf, the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, estimated the proposal would result in a trillion-dollar federal deficit over a ten year period. And that amount could only be offset by increased taxes, payment penalties for the uninsured, and cuts in Medicaid—hardly the way toward health care for all.
Instead of taxpayer money paying for act ual health care under the public option, most of it, according to the CBO letter, would pay insurance companies to pay for health care. To make matters worse, this subsidy to the insurance industry requires dramatic cuts in Medicare, a program that should be expanded, not curtailed.
But here’s the real kicker. At the end of the decade, in 2019, under a private insurance/public option proposal, 36,000,000 Americans, as opposed to the current 45,000,000, would still be uninsured, according to the CBO. Because the draft legislation includes an “individual responsibility” clause, anyone who couldn’t afford to pay for coverage could face steep fines. Much like mandated drivers’ insurance, this system would be a boon to private insurers reaping the benefits of the new law requiring everyone to get health coverage.
On top of that there would be more marginalization. Cancer patients who couldn’t get private insurance coverage on their own would be pushed onto the public rolls, thereby saddling taxpayers with having to subsidize insurance policies for the seriously ill. In time, the public option, weighed down by this tax burden and unable to fully exercise bulk purchasing power, would collapse amidst a fiery congressional storm over the cost of the public option, thus legitimizing arguments that publicly-funded health care is a failed idea.
Which begs the question, why is the health insurance industry pus hing back if the public option would be such a bonanza? Is it because the insurance industry is scared of the unknown or is it because the industry would prefer to narrow the debate to two choices: the public option or business as usual? I would argue the industry’s biggest fear is a frank and open discussion about the merits of single payer – a system that would put health insurers out of business. Hence, the insurance industry, in Academy-award winning style, paints the public option as the false boogie man and bores in for the kill—the death of anything public.
HCAN (Health Care for America Now) television commercials pitching the public option urge Americans to embrace this hybrid solution–a moderate, reasoned approach—because others “would like the government to take over health care.” We know who those marginalized “others” are – the single payer advocates who can tell a snow job when they see one.
For those hoping the “public option” will be a vehicle for getting single payer, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently set us straight.
From National Public Radio: “Asked if the administration’s program will be drafted specifically to prevent it from evolving into a single-payer plan, Sebelius says, “I think that’s very much the case and again if you want anybody to convince people of that, talk to the single-payer proponents who are furious that the single-payer idea is not part of the discussion.”
Fox News, the Republican Party, and the insurance industry charge the public option is an attempt to “socialize” health care.
Please.
Last time I checked we had publicly funded the fire department, police department, national parks, libraries, universities, and the highways of America. Though the government pays the bills for these services, fire departments are still free to purchase equipment made by private vendors; libraries purchase books from for-profit publishing houses. The same would be true under a single-payer system, which though funded by taxpayers would allow for individual choice: choose any doctor, hospital, lab, or clinic you wish. Ironically, a free-market approach in the delivery of health care.
So, let us not adopt the Republican Party’s talking points to marginalize the oracles; instead, we must marginalize those who make a killing off of health care.
If politicians in Washington pass a bill that precludes single-payer on the federal level, so be it. If those same lawmakers, however, pass a bill that pre-empts the states from forming their own single payer systems or multi-state single-payer consortiums, then we’re in real trouble.
But we are not defeated. Losing patience with the congressional runaround, single-payer advocates are not just getting arrested in Washington, but also planning in-your-face actions in their districts. “Wear your hospital gown and bring your gurney” protests in front of the Los Angeles office of Congressman Henry Waxman are planned for July 11th. Waxman, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was a previous co-sponsor of HR 676, Conyers’ bill for single-payer, but has since reneged. A few weeks ago Waxman steadfastly refused to hold hearings on single-payer, but that changed when Conyers called out Waxman publicly and single-payer activists crashed Waxman’s Health Care for America Now (HCAN) forum at UCLA on the public option. Since then, Waxman’s Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health held hearings (www.energycommerce.house.gov–click on “Hearings” tab, Day II, Part II), with single-payer advocates, such as Congressman Conyers and representatives from Harvard Medical School and the Physicians for a National Health Program, testifying for a more comprehensive overhaul.
Politics, of course, is the art of compromise. So I call on Congressman Waxman—my former representative, Congresswoman Harman—my current representative and the one I am challenging in 2010, and Congressman Conyers—the sponsor of HR676, to join forces to introduce a new health care bill that immediately enrolls every American in Medicare while allowing for those who prefer private insurance to opt out, pay their taxes, and cough up the added cost of boutique health care20if they so choose.
One of the main reasons I am running for Congress is to get single-payer health care for all Americans. To push for it, I am running prime-time cable ads round-the-clock on CNN and MSNBC, including spots on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown and the Rachel Maddow show, challenging my opponent, long-time incumbent Jane Harman (D-CA), to sign on to Congressman John Conyers’ bill, HR 676, for single-payer.
Perhaps someone else, another primary candidate, will issue the same challenge in a different race, so that together, through district-targeted cable ads, we can amplify the message to not only put single-payer on the table, but to make it the main course.
Marcy Winograd
Marcy Winograd is a 2010 congressional candidate running to unseat Jane Harman in southern California’s 36th district, a 30-mile stretch that spans West Los Angeles to the harbor. Winograd is currently airing commercials on CNN and MSNBC that challenge Harman to sign on to Congressman Conyers’ bill for single-payer health care. For more on the campaign, visit www.winograd4congress.com or Marcy Winograd for Congress on Facebook.
Single-Payers Crashing the Gates
by Marcy Winograd posted on Tuesday, 30 June 20090
One of the many frustrations for advocates of single-payer health care is the relentless drive to marginalize us, not only by conservatives but also by members of our own party.
Case in point: the accounting arm of Congress, the Congressional Budget Office, has yet to perform a financial analysis of the cost of implementing single payer, a system whereby taxpayers—businesses and individuals—pay into a single general fund which covers everyone’s health care for the rest of their lives, regardless of job or health status. Studies in California and Colorado have shown that a single payer system would save money for businesses, families, and government by eliminating private insurance overhead and creating enormous purchasing power that would drive down the costs of care.
I wanted to know why we don’t have federal government cost projections for single payer, so I called the Congressional Budget Office—and reached an answering machine.
Two days later, Melissa Merson, the Communications Director with the CBO, called me back and left a polite message, explaining that the CBO takes its orders from Congress, specifically the leadership, (House Speaker and Senate Majority Leader), as well as the chairs of various committees:
Finance (H-Barney Frank, D. Massachusetts; S-Max Baucus, D. Montana)
Health, Education, and Labor (S-Ted Kennedy, D. Massachusetts)
Budget (H-John Spratt, D. South Carolina; S-Kent Conrad, D. North Dakota)
Appropriations (H-David Obey, D. Wisconsin; S-Daniel Inouye, D. Hawaii)
Ways and Means (H-Charles Rangel, D. New York)
Energy and Commerce (H-Waxman, D. Los Angeles)
“We are fully aware there are members of the public who would like us to provide a cost estimate of single-payer,” said Merson, “but we are inundated with requests from committees of jurisdiction. The priorities are set for us by the Congress.”
Now, single-payer activists, rallying behind Progressive Democrats of America and the California Nurses Association, are demanding the congressional leadership request a CBO analysis of single-payer. Not projecting the costs is another way to marginalize the growing single-payer movement.
On the other hand, we do know the cost projections for the current proposal, the Affordable Choices Act, a hybrid concoction of private insurance and the so-called “public option” which funnels billions into private for-profit insurance companies. In a June 15th letter to Senator Kennedy, the primary sponsor of this legislative effort, Douglas Elmendorf, the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, estimated the proposal would result in a trillion-dollar federal deficit over a ten year period. And that amount could only be offset by increased taxes, payment penalties for the uninsured, and cuts in Medicaid—hardly the way toward health care for all.
Instead of taxpayer money paying for act ual health care under the public option, most of it, according to the CBO letter, would pay insurance companies to pay for health care. To make matters worse, this subsidy to the insurance industry requires dramatic cuts in Medicare, a program that should be expanded, not curtailed.
But here’s the real kicker. At the end of the decade, in 2019, under a private insurance/public option proposal, 36,000,000 Americans, as opposed to the current 45,000,000, would still be uninsured, according to the CBO. Because the draft legislation includes an “individual responsibility” clause, anyone who couldn’t afford to pay for coverage could face steep fines. Much like mandated drivers’ insurance, this system would be a boon to private insurers reaping the benefits of the new law requiring everyone to get health coverage.
On top of that there would be more marginalization. Cancer patients who couldn’t get private insurance coverage on their own would be pushed onto the public rolls, thereby saddling taxpayers with having to subsidize insurance policies for the seriously ill. In time, the public option, weighed down by this tax burden and unable to fully exercise bulk purchasing power, would collapse amidst a fiery congressional storm over the cost of the public option, thus legitimizing arguments that publicly-funded health care is a failed idea.
Which begs the question, why is the health insurance industry pus hing back if the public option would be such a bonanza? Is it because the insurance industry is scared of the unknown or is it because the industry would prefer to narrow the debate to two choices: the public option or business as usual? I would argue the industry’s biggest fear is a frank and open discussion about the merits of single payer – a system that would put health insurers out of business. Hence, the insurance industry, in Academy-award winning style, paints the public option as the false boogie man and bores in for the kill—the death of anything public.
HCAN (Health Care for America Now) television commercials pitching the public option urge Americans to embrace this hybrid solution–a moderate, reasoned approach—because others “would like the government to take over health care.” We know who those marginalized “others” are – the single payer advocates who can tell a snow job when they see one.
For those hoping the “public option” will be a vehicle for getting single payer, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently set us straight.
From National Public Radio: “Asked if the administration’s program will be drafted specifically to prevent it from evolving into a single-payer plan, Sebelius says, “I think that’s very much the case and again if you want anybody to convince people of that, talk to the single-payer proponents who are furious that the single-payer idea is not part of the discussion.”
Fox News, the Republican Party, and the insurance industry charge the public option is an attempt to “socialize” health care.
Please.
Last time I checked we had publicly funded the fire department, police department, national parks, libraries, universities, and the highways of America. Though the government pays the bills for these services, fire departments are still free to purchase equipment made by private vendors; libraries purchase books from for-profit publishing houses. The same would be true under a single-payer system, which though funded by taxpayers would allow for individual choice: choose any doctor, hospital, lab, or clinic you wish. Ironically, a free-market approach in the delivery of health care.
So, let us not adopt the Republican Party’s talking points to marginalize the oracles; instead, we must marginalize those who make a killing off of health care.
If politicians in Washington pass a bill that precludes single-payer on the federal level, so be it. If those same lawmakers, however, pass a bill that pre-empts the states from forming their own single payer systems or multi-state single-payer consortiums, then we’re in real trouble.
But we are not defeated. Losing patience with the congressional runaround, single-payer advocates are not just getting arrested in Washington, but also planning in-your-face actions in their districts. “Wear your hospital gown and bring your gurney” protests in front of the Los Angeles office of Congressman Henry Waxman are planned for July 11th. Waxman, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was a previous co-sponsor of HR 676, Conyers’ bill for single-payer, but has since reneged. A few weeks ago Waxman steadfastly refused to hold hearings on single-payer, but that changed when Conyers called out Waxman publicly and single-payer activists crashed Waxman’s Health Care for America Now (HCAN) forum at UCLA on the public option. Since then, Waxman’s Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health held hearings (www.energycommerce.house.gov–click on “Hearings” tab, Day II, Part II), with single-payer advocates, such as Congressman Conyers and representatives from Harvard Medical School and the Physicians for a National Health Program, testifying for a more comprehensive overhaul.
Politics, of course, is the art of compromise. So I call on Congressman Waxman—my former representative, Congresswoman Harman—my current representative and the one I am challenging in 2010, and Congressman Conyers—the sponsor of HR676, to join forces to introduce a new health care bill that immediately enrolls every American in Medicare while allowing for those who prefer private insurance to opt out, pay their taxes, and cough up the added cost of boutique health care20if they so choose.
One of the main reasons I am running for Congress is to get single-payer health care for all Americans. To push for it, I am running prime-time cable ads round-the-clock on CNN and MSNBC, including spots on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown and the Rachel Maddow show, challenging my opponent, long-time incumbent Jane Harman (D-CA), to sign on to Congressman John Conyers’ bill, HR 676, for single-payer.
Perhaps someone else, another primary candidate, will issue the same challenge in a different race, so that together, through district-targeted cable ads, we can amplify the message to not only put single-payer on the table, but to make it the main course.
Marcy Winograd
Marcy Winograd is a 2010 congressional candidate running to unseat Jane Harman in southern California’s 36th district, a 30-mile stretch that spans West Los Angeles to the harbor. Winograd is currently airing commercials on CNN and MSNBC that challenge Harman to sign on to Congressman Conyers’ bill for single-payer health care. For more on the campaign, visit www.winograd4congress.com or Marcy Winograd for Congress on Facebook.
Single-Payers Crashing the Gates
http://www.laprogressive.com/2009/06/30/single-payers-crashing-the-gates/
Single-Payers Crashing the Gates
by Marcy Winograd posted on Tuesday, 30 June 20090
One of the many frustrations for advocates of single-payer health care is the relentless drive to marginalize us, not only by conservatives but also by members of our own party.
Case in point: the accounting arm of Congress, the Congressional Budget Office, has yet to perform a financial analysis of the cost of implementing single payer, a system whereby taxpayers—businesses and individuals—pay into a single general fund which covers everyone’s health care for the rest of their lives, regardless of job or health status. Studies in California and Colorado have shown that a single payer system would save money for businesses, families, and government by eliminating private insurance overhead and creating enormous purchasing power that would drive down the costs of care.
I wanted to know why we don’t have federal government cost projections for single payer, so I called the Congressional Budget Office—and reached an answering machine.
Two days later, Melissa Merson, the Communications Director with the CBO, called me back and left a polite message, explaining that the CBO takes its orders from Congress, specifically the leadership, (House Speaker and Senate Majority Leader), as well as the chairs of various committees:
Finance (H-Barney Frank, D. Massachusetts; S-Max Baucus, D. Montana)
Health, Education, and Labor (S-Ted Kennedy, D. Massachusetts)
Budget (H-John Spratt, D. South Carolina; S-Kent Conrad, D. North Dakota)
Appropriations (H-David Obey, D. Wisconsin; S-Daniel Inouye, D. Hawaii)
Ways and Means (H-Charles Rangel, D. New York)
Energy and Commerce (H-Waxman, D. Los Angeles)
“We are fully aware there are members of the public who would like us to provide a cost estimate of single-payer,” said Merson, “but we are inundated with requests from committees of jurisdiction. The priorities are set for us by the Congress.”
Now, single-payer activists, rallying behind Progressive Democrats of America and the California Nurses Association, are demanding the congressional leadership request a CBO analysis of single-payer. Not projecting the costs is another way to marginalize the growing single-payer movement.
On the other hand, we do know the cost projections for the current proposal, the Affordable Choices Act, a hybrid concoction of private insurance and the so-called “public option” which funnels billions into private for-profit insurance companies. In a June 15th letter to Senator Kennedy, the primary sponsor of this legislative effort, Douglas Elmendorf, the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, estimated the proposal would result in a trillion-dollar federal deficit over a ten year period. And that amount could only be offset by increased taxes, payment penalties for the uninsured, and cuts in Medicaid—hardly the way toward health care for all.
Instead of taxpayer money paying for act ual health care under the public option, most of it, according to the CBO letter, would pay insurance companies to pay for health care. To make matters worse, this subsidy to the insurance industry requires dramatic cuts in Medicare, a program that should be expanded, not curtailed.
But here’s the real kicker. At the end of the decade, in 2019, under a private insurance/public option proposal, 36,000,000 Americans, as opposed to the current 45,000,000, would still be uninsured, according to the CBO. Because the draft legislation includes an “individual responsibility” clause, anyone who couldn’t afford to pay for coverage could face steep fines. Much like mandated drivers’ insurance, this system would be a boon to private insurers reaping the benefits of the new law requiring everyone to get health coverage.
On top of that there would be more marginalization. Cancer patients who couldn’t get private insurance coverage on their own would be pushed onto the public rolls, thereby saddling taxpayers with having to subsidize insurance policies for the seriously ill. In time, the public option, weighed down by this tax burden and unable to fully exercise bulk purchasing power, would collapse amidst a fiery congressional storm over the cost of the public option, thus legitimizing arguments that publicly-funded health care is a failed idea.
Which begs the question, why is the health insurance industry pus hing back if the public option would be such a bonanza? Is it because the insurance industry is scared of the unknown or is it because the industry would prefer to narrow the debate to two choices: the public option or business as usual? I would argue the industry’s biggest fear is a frank and open discussion about the merits of single payer – a system that would put health insurers out of business. Hence, the insurance industry, in Academy-award winning style, paints the public option as the false boogie man and bores in for the kill—the death of anything public.
HCAN (Health Care for America Now) television commercials pitching the public option urge Americans to embrace this hybrid solution–a moderate, reasoned approach—because others “would like the government to take over health care.” We know who those marginalized “others” are – the single payer advocates who can tell a snow job when they see one.
For those hoping the “public option” will be a vehicle for getting single payer, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently set us straight.
From National Public Radio: “Asked if the administration’s program will be drafted specifically to prevent it from evolving into a single-payer plan, Sebelius says, “I think that’s very much the case and again if you want anybody to convince people of that, talk to the single-payer proponents who are furious that the single-payer idea is not part of the discussion.”
Fox News, the Republican Party, and the insurance industry charge the public option is an attempt to “socialize” health care.
Please.
Last time I checked we had publicly funded the fire department, police department, national parks, libraries, universities, and the highways of America. Though the government pays the bills for these services, fire departments are still free to purchase equipment made by private vendors; libraries purchase books from for-profit publishing houses. The same would be true under a single-payer system, which though funded by taxpayers would allow for individual choice: choose any doctor, hospital, lab, or clinic you wish. Ironically, a free-market approach in the delivery of health care.
So, let us not adopt the Republican Party’s talking points to marginalize the oracles; instead, we must marginalize those who make a killing off of health care.
If politicians in Washington pass a bill that precludes single-payer on the federal level, so be it. If those same lawmakers, however, pass a bill that pre-empts the states from forming their own single payer systems or multi-state single-payer consortiums, then we’re in real trouble.
But we are not defeated. Losing patience with the congressional runaround, single-payer advocates are not just getting arrested in Washington, but also planning in-your-face actions in their districts. “Wear your hospital gown and bring your gurney” protests in front of the Los Angeles office of Congressman Henry Waxman are planned for July 11th. Waxman, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was a previous co-sponsor of HR 676, Conyers’ bill for single-payer, but has since reneged. A few weeks ago Waxman steadfastly refused to hold hearings on single-payer, but that changed when Conyers called out Waxman publicly and single-payer activists crashed Waxman’s Health Care for America Now (HCAN) forum at UCLA on the public option. Since then, Waxman’s Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health held hearings (www.energycommerce.house.gov–click on “Hearings” tab, Day II, Part II), with single-payer advocates, such as Congressman Conyers and representatives from Harvard Medical School and the Physicians for a National Health Program, testifying for a more comprehensive overhaul.
Politics, of course, is the art of compromise. So I call on Congressman Waxman—my former representative, Congresswoman Harman—my current representative and the one I am challenging in 2010, and Congressman Conyers—the sponsor of HR676, to join forces to introduce a new health care bill that immediately enrolls every American in Medicare while allowing for those who prefer private insurance to opt out, pay their taxes, and cough up the added cost of boutique health care20if they so choose.
One of the main reasons I am running for Congress is to get single-payer health care for all Americans. To push for it, I am running prime-time cable ads round-the-clock on CNN and MSNBC, including spots on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown and the Rachel Maddow show, challenging my opponent, long-time incumbent Jane Harman (D-CA), to sign on to Congressman John Conyers’ bill, HR 676, for single-payer.
Perhaps someone else, another primary candidate, will issue the same challenge in a different race, so that together, through district-targeted cable ads, we can amplify the message to not only put single-payer on the table, but to make it the main course.
Marcy Winograd
Marcy Winograd is a 2010 congressional candidate running to unseat Jane Harman in southern California’s 36th district, a 30-mile stretch that spans West Los Angeles to the harbor. Winograd is currently airing commercials on CNN and MSNBC that challenge Harman to sign on to Congressman Conyers’ bill for single-payer health care. For more on the campaign, visit www.winograd4congress.com or Marcy Winograd for Congress on Facebook.
Single-Payers Crashing the Gates
by Marcy Winograd posted on Tuesday, 30 June 20090
One of the many frustrations for advocates of single-payer health care is the relentless drive to marginalize us, not only by conservatives but also by members of our own party.
Case in point: the accounting arm of Congress, the Congressional Budget Office, has yet to perform a financial analysis of the cost of implementing single payer, a system whereby taxpayers—businesses and individuals—pay into a single general fund which covers everyone’s health care for the rest of their lives, regardless of job or health status. Studies in California and Colorado have shown that a single payer system would save money for businesses, families, and government by eliminating private insurance overhead and creating enormous purchasing power that would drive down the costs of care.
I wanted to know why we don’t have federal government cost projections for single payer, so I called the Congressional Budget Office—and reached an answering machine.
Two days later, Melissa Merson, the Communications Director with the CBO, called me back and left a polite message, explaining that the CBO takes its orders from Congress, specifically the leadership, (House Speaker and Senate Majority Leader), as well as the chairs of various committees:
Finance (H-Barney Frank, D. Massachusetts; S-Max Baucus, D. Montana)
Health, Education, and Labor (S-Ted Kennedy, D. Massachusetts)
Budget (H-John Spratt, D. South Carolina; S-Kent Conrad, D. North Dakota)
Appropriations (H-David Obey, D. Wisconsin; S-Daniel Inouye, D. Hawaii)
Ways and Means (H-Charles Rangel, D. New York)
Energy and Commerce (H-Waxman, D. Los Angeles)
“We are fully aware there are members of the public who would like us to provide a cost estimate of single-payer,” said Merson, “but we are inundated with requests from committees of jurisdiction. The priorities are set for us by the Congress.”
Now, single-payer activists, rallying behind Progressive Democrats of America and the California Nurses Association, are demanding the congressional leadership request a CBO analysis of single-payer. Not projecting the costs is another way to marginalize the growing single-payer movement.
On the other hand, we do know the cost projections for the current proposal, the Affordable Choices Act, a hybrid concoction of private insurance and the so-called “public option” which funnels billions into private for-profit insurance companies. In a June 15th letter to Senator Kennedy, the primary sponsor of this legislative effort, Douglas Elmendorf, the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, estimated the proposal would result in a trillion-dollar federal deficit over a ten year period. And that amount could only be offset by increased taxes, payment penalties for the uninsured, and cuts in Medicaid—hardly the way toward health care for all.
Instead of taxpayer money paying for act ual health care under the public option, most of it, according to the CBO letter, would pay insurance companies to pay for health care. To make matters worse, this subsidy to the insurance industry requires dramatic cuts in Medicare, a program that should be expanded, not curtailed.
But here’s the real kicker. At the end of the decade, in 2019, under a private insurance/public option proposal, 36,000,000 Americans, as opposed to the current 45,000,000, would still be uninsured, according to the CBO. Because the draft legislation includes an “individual responsibility” clause, anyone who couldn’t afford to pay for coverage could face steep fines. Much like mandated drivers’ insurance, this system would be a boon to private insurers reaping the benefits of the new law requiring everyone to get health coverage.
On top of that there would be more marginalization. Cancer patients who couldn’t get private insurance coverage on their own would be pushed onto the public rolls, thereby saddling taxpayers with having to subsidize insurance policies for the seriously ill. In time, the public option, weighed down by this tax burden and unable to fully exercise bulk purchasing power, would collapse amidst a fiery congressional storm over the cost of the public option, thus legitimizing arguments that publicly-funded health care is a failed idea.
Which begs the question, why is the health insurance industry pus hing back if the public option would be such a bonanza? Is it because the insurance industry is scared of the unknown or is it because the industry would prefer to narrow the debate to two choices: the public option or business as usual? I would argue the industry’s biggest fear is a frank and open discussion about the merits of single payer – a system that would put health insurers out of business. Hence, the insurance industry, in Academy-award winning style, paints the public option as the false boogie man and bores in for the kill—the death of anything public.
HCAN (Health Care for America Now) television commercials pitching the public option urge Americans to embrace this hybrid solution–a moderate, reasoned approach—because others “would like the government to take over health care.” We know who those marginalized “others” are – the single payer advocates who can tell a snow job when they see one.
For those hoping the “public option” will be a vehicle for getting single payer, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently set us straight.
From National Public Radio: “Asked if the administration’s program will be drafted specifically to prevent it from evolving into a single-payer plan, Sebelius says, “I think that’s very much the case and again if you want anybody to convince people of that, talk to the single-payer proponents who are furious that the single-payer idea is not part of the discussion.”
Fox News, the Republican Party, and the insurance industry charge the public option is an attempt to “socialize” health care.
Please.
Last time I checked we had publicly funded the fire department, police department, national parks, libraries, universities, and the highways of America. Though the government pays the bills for these services, fire departments are still free to purchase equipment made by private vendors; libraries purchase books from for-profit publishing houses. The same would be true under a single-payer system, which though funded by taxpayers would allow for individual choice: choose any doctor, hospital, lab, or clinic you wish. Ironically, a free-market approach in the delivery of health care.
So, let us not adopt the Republican Party’s talking points to marginalize the oracles; instead, we must marginalize those who make a killing off of health care.
If politicians in Washington pass a bill that precludes single-payer on the federal level, so be it. If those same lawmakers, however, pass a bill that pre-empts the states from forming their own single payer systems or multi-state single-payer consortiums, then we’re in real trouble.
But we are not defeated. Losing patience with the congressional runaround, single-payer advocates are not just getting arrested in Washington, but also planning in-your-face actions in their districts. “Wear your hospital gown and bring your gurney” protests in front of the Los Angeles office of Congressman Henry Waxman are planned for July 11th. Waxman, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was a previous co-sponsor of HR 676, Conyers’ bill for single-payer, but has since reneged. A few weeks ago Waxman steadfastly refused to hold hearings on single-payer, but that changed when Conyers called out Waxman publicly and single-payer activists crashed Waxman’s Health Care for America Now (HCAN) forum at UCLA on the public option. Since then, Waxman’s Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health held hearings (www.energycommerce.house.gov–click on “Hearings” tab, Day II, Part II), with single-payer advocates, such as Congressman Conyers and representatives from Harvard Medical School and the Physicians for a National Health Program, testifying for a more comprehensive overhaul.
Politics, of course, is the art of compromise. So I call on Congressman Waxman—my former representative, Congresswoman Harman—my current representative and the one I am challenging in 2010, and Congressman Conyers—the sponsor of HR676, to join forces to introduce a new health care bill that immediately enrolls every American in Medicare while allowing for those who prefer private insurance to opt out, pay their taxes, and cough up the added cost of boutique health care20if they so choose.
One of the main reasons I am running for Congress is to get single-payer health care for all Americans. To push for it, I am running prime-time cable ads round-the-clock on CNN and MSNBC, including spots on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown and the Rachel Maddow show, challenging my opponent, long-time incumbent Jane Harman (D-CA), to sign on to Congressman John Conyers’ bill, HR 676, for single-payer.
Perhaps someone else, another primary candidate, will issue the same challenge in a different race, so that together, through district-targeted cable ads, we can amplify the message to not only put single-payer on the table, but to make it the main course.
Marcy Winograd
Marcy Winograd is a 2010 congressional candidate running to unseat Jane Harman in southern California’s 36th district, a 30-mile stretch that spans West Los Angeles to the harbor. Winograd is currently airing commercials on CNN and MSNBC that challenge Harman to sign on to Congressman Conyers’ bill for single-payer health care. For more on the campaign, visit www.winograd4congress.com or Marcy Winograd for Congress on Facebook.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sen Barbara Boxer -- not a single-payer advocate?
Short post -- Senator Barbara Boxer has had an incredible career, and has always seemed to be on the right side of just about every issue.
So why the silence on single-payer health care? Will Senator Boxer cosponsor Senate Bill S.703?
Ask her to do so, and if there's a "No" ask Why Not?
Senate office: Boxer.senate.gov
campaign office: barbaraboxer.com
So why the silence on single-payer health care? Will Senator Boxer cosponsor Senate Bill S.703?
Ask her to do so, and if there's a "No" ask Why Not?
Senate office: Boxer.senate.gov
campaign office: barbaraboxer.com
Your Turn: Join the National Online Discussion on Health Care Reform
More Here.
"While the White House has invited the nation to Join
the National Online Discussion on Health Care Reform, it is currently
only accepting 20-30 second YouTube video responses — text comments
have been disabled. Which raises a question: Should a video camera be
the price of admission for participating in an open government
discussion, especially when issues may hit those with lower incomes the
hardest? BTW, the response-to-date has been underwhelming —101 video
responses and counting — and is certainly a mixed-bag, including a
one-finger salute, a [6]talking butt, a woman "Showing my Apples",
and other off-topic rants and unrelated videos."
Bernie Sanders Video re Single-Payer
Subject: Bernie Sanders interviewed by Ed Shultz re Single-Payer and Insurance Cos: good watch.
Please email your Senators to co-sponsor S 703, the single payer bill (Bernie Sanders VT) in the Senate.
July 11 L.A. Single Payer Coalition March
From: Matt Hendrickson <hendrickson1965@yahoo.com>
Date: Jun 18, 2009 2:34 PM
Subject: Single Payer March Is July 11
15 members of the LA Single Payer Coalition (including our newest member Rev. Ann Hayman, Board of Directors of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice) met last night and voted unanimously to sponsor a single payer march/rally/canvassing action on July 11.The goal is a newsworthy, fun and positive public action for single payer that focuses on the district of Henry Waxman and the next 60 days but also intends to grow our movement outside of our current organizations and beyond the summer of 2009.9:30 a.m. At least 500 single-payer activists from all of our organizations but more importantly from outside of our organizations will assemble at 8339 3rd St (3.5blks east of La Cienega) for coffee/croissants, a short rally, orientation and to pick up materials/costumes.10-10:45 a.m. Activists will march to Rep. Waxman's office. We will wear Dr's white coats, nurses uniforms, hospital gowns with plastic butts. Once at his office we will form a line going West to La Cienega and then to all four corners, and more if we're able. We'll stand 3 or so feet apart with signs and remain in a line until approximately 10:45 a.m. Signs need to be creative-more on that to come10:15 am A brief Press Conference will be held in front of Rep. Waxman's office.10:45 a.m-12 p.m. Walk and talk: Activists in costume and in teams will fan out across the district to shopping centers, busy parks, etc., and houses to talk with residents, distribute a one page piece, and ask residents to call their Rep. with a simple nonconfrontational message supporting single payer.12 noon Reconvene back to the starting assembly point toturn in materials, gowns etc., briefly share experiences, and celebratethe action.12:30 p.m. Disband
In order to draw a large crowd multiple strategies will be employed, and more that each of you will think of!1) Professional, eye-catching flyer. Attached are the first two (both legal for posting and letter for handout), more to follow. Please print out (consider emailing to kinkos to print on glossy paper) and post- cafes, work bulletin boards, telephone poles, pass out at upcoming educational events.2) Organizing For America Events. I have posted one but feel free to post your own (my.barackobama.org) with a different title directing people to the same spot.3) Evite. I will send you mine soon to which you can add your own contacts and forward to others or create your own if you think your contacts might be more likely to respond with a different title/description.4) We will ask the national organizations to announce immediately and send reminders. Ask you local newspapers to announce the march.5) Email any other organizations you can think of to spread the word.6) Create a website (www.LASinglePayer.org) which people can use to send links to friends with all the information. We purchased the site today, we hope to have it active tomorrow.
Please feel free to email with feedback!
Matt
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER ROAD SHOW
MAKES APPEARANCE IN LA JOLLA
JULY 3, 2009, 2PM – 5PM (call for location)
La Jolla, CA (June 22) -- As the debate on how to resolve the nation’s health care crisis continues, one singular answer has been widely ignored in the public debate, despite its popular appeal: a progressively financed, comprehensive, universal health care system – otherwise known as single-payer. The San Diego Single Payer Healthcare Coalition (La Jolla Democratic Club, Progressive Democrats of America, HealthcareForAll-CA, Physicians for National Health Program, California Nurses Assn, California Teachers Assn, League of Women Voters, Activist San Diego, Green Party-San Diego County, First Unitarian Universalist Church of SD, and others) is proud to host a “Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show” featuring Pittsburgh activist and labor singer Anne Feeney. Feeney and almost four dozen professional musicians decided to launch the Sing Out after their frustration with the single payer model was excluded from the reform discussions. Modeled after the traveling chautauquas of the 1930s, these concerts will take place nightly and run from San Diego, CA to Bellingham, WA.
“This is a pivotal moment in our nation’s history. It’s a great opportunity for Americans to improve the health of the nation and bring quality health care to everyone in the United States. We’re on the road – entertaining, mobilizing, educating, inspiring and energizing folks on this chance of our lifetime,” says Feeney. Some musicians will sing at one location – others, like David Rovics, Brian QTN, Green Mountain Grass and Citizens’ Band will do several shows. Jason Luckett, a Los Angeles based singer-songwriter who has been described as “Billy Bragg meets Stevie Wonder” will do the entire tour with Feeney. Also appearing in San Diego will be Dave Crossland, Eric Schwartz and Joyce Woodson.
The La Jolla event will also feature a reading of Ladies for Single Payer, a new play by award-winning La Jolla playwright Anita Simons. Also donating their acting talent are some of San Diego’s finest actresses: Jill Drexler, Dana Hooley, Linda Libby, Veronica Murphy, and Mary Relator.
Jady Montgomery: 858-554-0482
asimonsays@gmail.com
JULY 3, 2009, 2PM – 5PM (call for location)
La Jolla, CA (June 22) -- As the debate on how to resolve the nation’s health care crisis continues, one singular answer has been widely ignored in the public debate, despite its popular appeal: a progressively financed, comprehensive, universal health care system – otherwise known as single-payer. The San Diego Single Payer Healthcare Coalition (La Jolla Democratic Club, Progressive Democrats of America, HealthcareForAll-CA, Physicians for National Health Program, California Nurses Assn, California Teachers Assn, League of Women Voters, Activist San Diego, Green Party-San Diego County, First Unitarian Universalist Church of SD, and others) is proud to host a “Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show” featuring Pittsburgh activist and labor singer Anne Feeney. Feeney and almost four dozen professional musicians decided to launch the Sing Out after their frustration with the single payer model was excluded from the reform discussions. Modeled after the traveling chautauquas of the 1930s, these concerts will take place nightly and run from San Diego, CA to Bellingham, WA.
“This is a pivotal moment in our nation’s history. It’s a great opportunity for Americans to improve the health of the nation and bring quality health care to everyone in the United States. We’re on the road – entertaining, mobilizing, educating, inspiring and energizing folks on this chance of our lifetime,” says Feeney. Some musicians will sing at one location – others, like David Rovics, Brian QTN, Green Mountain Grass and Citizens’ Band will do several shows. Jason Luckett, a Los Angeles based singer-songwriter who has been described as “Billy Bragg meets Stevie Wonder” will do the entire tour with Feeney. Also appearing in San Diego will be Dave Crossland, Eric Schwartz and Joyce Woodson.
The La Jolla event will also feature a reading of Ladies for Single Payer, a new play by award-winning La Jolla playwright Anita Simons. Also donating their acting talent are some of San Diego’s finest actresses: Jill Drexler, Dana Hooley, Linda Libby, Veronica Murphy, and Mary Relator.
Jady Montgomery: 858-554-0482
asimonsays@gmail.com
Dear HCIG (Health Care Interest Group) member:
See the following which I have chttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifulled from emails and list serves in the past few days. If you are cc'd on this note and would like to be included in emails that go to the LWVNCSD HCIG group, please let me [Vicki] know and I will add you to our list.
1. From MoveOn.org:
If we act immediately, we have a good shot at defeating ploys like the "co-op." The key is to make it clear that we support astrong public health insurance option and lay out exactly what that means.
Click below and we'll fax a flier in your name (for free!) to Sens. Feinstein and Boxer that sets the bar for a strong public health insurance option. Faxes come directly into the office, so staffers are guaranteed to see them. And if enough of us send faxes, staffers will pass the flier on to their senator.
http://pol.moveon.org/fax?tg=FSCA_1.FSCA_2&cp_id=967&id=16426-13794431-Ibhi1Kx&t=3
Additional sources on national bills:
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
House Tri-Committee bill plus great fact sheets:
http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/06/health-care-reform-house-dems.shtml
Kennedy Letter About Bill:
2. See NY Times/LA Times articles/opinion piece:
Rehabilitating Healthcare/Diagnosing the problem: http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-ed-health22-2009jun22,0,6390451.story
In Poll, Wide Support for Government-Run Health
By KEVIN SACK and MARJORIE CONNELLY
Americans favor a plan for government-run insurance to compete with private insurers, a Times/CBS poll finds.
A Public Health Plan
A robust public health care plan that piggy-backs on the rate setting powers of Medicare would lower costs, save money, and extend health benefits to more Americans.
3. John McCanne lives in San Clemente and is a senior scholar for Physicians for National Health Program www.phnp.org . He sends out a daily commentary on a health care reform news item. To subscribe to his list serve, visit http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day or send an email message with subject 'help' to quote-of-the-day-request@mccanne.org.
4. The California Nurses Association is a big supporter of single payer. Check out this article by a legislative advocate.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/18#comment-form
5. Health Care for All http://www.healthcareforall.org/ is asking everyone who supports the California single payer Bill 810 to join their organization. You can donate online at: https://secure.entango.com/donate/ztYyDmGBRjN
6. Letter to President Obama on Robert Reich's Blog:
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/
Vicki Beck, MS
Communications Consultant
P/M 760-420-3470 (NEW PHONE NUMBER)
F/760-431-5507
1. From MoveOn.org:
If we act immediately, we have a good shot at defeating ploys like the "co-op." The key is to make it clear that we support astrong public health insurance option and lay out exactly what that means.
Click below and we'll fax a flier in your name (for free!) to Sens. Feinstein and Boxer that sets the bar for a strong public health insurance option. Faxes come directly into the office, so staffers are guaranteed to see them. And if enough of us send faxes, staffers will pass the flier on to their senator.
http://pol.moveon.org/fax?tg=FSCA_1.FSCA_2&cp_id=967&id=16426-13794431-Ibhi1Kx&t=3
Additional sources on national bills:
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
House Tri-Committee bill plus great fact sheets:
http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/06/health-care-reform-house-dems.shtml
Kennedy Letter About Bill:
2. See NY Times/LA Times articles/opinion piece:
Rehabilitating Healthcare/Diagnosing the problem: http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-ed-health22-2009jun22,0,6390451.story
In Poll, Wide Support for Government-Run Health
By KEVIN SACK and MARJORIE CONNELLY
Americans favor a plan for government-run insurance to compete with private insurers, a Times/CBS poll finds.
A Public Health Plan
A robust public health care plan that piggy-backs on the rate setting powers of Medicare would lower costs, save money, and extend health benefits to more Americans.
3. John McCanne lives in San Clemente and is a senior scholar for Physicians for National Health Program www.phnp.org . He sends out a daily commentary on a health care reform news item. To subscribe to his list serve, visit http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day or send an email message with subject 'help' to quote-of-the-day-request@mccanne.org.
4. The California Nurses Association is a big supporter of single payer. Check out this article by a legislative advocate.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/18#comment-form
5. Health Care for All http://www.healthcareforall.org/ is asking everyone who supports the California single payer Bill 810 to join their organization. You can donate online at: https://secure.entango.com/donate/ztYyDmGBRjN
6. Letter to President Obama on Robert Reich's Blog:
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/
Vicki Beck, MS
Communications Consultant
P/M 760-420-3470 (NEW PHONE NUMBER)
F/760-431-5507
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Dear Democracy for America,
I appreciate the great work that Dr. Howard Dean and his brother Jim Dean have done on behalf of DFA and progressive politics around the nation. However, when it comes to the fight for "real" healthcare reform, it appears that Dr. Dean and DFA are aiming only for uninspiring half-measures, rather than speaking to principle. This approach will not succeed.
Access to health care is a Human Right, in the same way that voting (suffrage) is a right. Once this is understood, the discussion becomes simply matter of how to get there, rather than this sort of Washington D.C. closed-door dealing, rife with big insurance cash, fake and co-opted grassroots support, and the ambiguous nature of the ever-changing “public option.”
Speak to principle, and you can achieve greatness. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. understood that. Faced with impossible odds in his time, Dr. King did not aim for "a negotiated compromise of slightly-better-than-second-class citizenship" for all men -- nor did he promise his followers that he would "fight for their right to be counted as more like 65-68% of a person, rather than the going rate of '3/5 of a man.'" Not one for half-measures, Dr. King had the courage to speak to the principle and say it out loud: all human beings have rights.
Your plea lost me immediately when I read an equivocating appeal to "join our fight to draw a line in the sand: without at least a public health care option, it's not real health care reform."
Real reform is needed, and real reform will require real courage, and a real willingness to focus on principles. Although I have been a generous donor to DFA in the past, I do not expect to renew any pledges with DFA until the able DFA leadership in the hands of Dr. Dean and the army of well-intentioned DFA followers come to understand, and say out loud, that health care is a Human Right. With that simple step taken, DFA can then begin a new strategy towards fulfillment of the guarantee of that right to health care not just for some, but for all.
Rather than cash, I'll donate to DFA a possible new health care mission statement:
"DFA supports the right to healthcare access for all, and will not give up the fight until a publicly-funded, privately-delivered single-payer health care system is established in these United States."
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Until that day arrives, save your postage.
Mike Copass
4042 Mount Blackburn Ave
San Diego, CA 92111
Access to health care is a Human Right, in the same way that voting (suffrage) is a right. Once this is understood, the discussion becomes simply matter of how to get there, rather than this sort of Washington D.C. closed-door dealing, rife with big insurance cash, fake and co-opted grassroots support, and the ambiguous nature of the ever-changing “public option.”
Speak to principle, and you can achieve greatness. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. understood that. Faced with impossible odds in his time, Dr. King did not aim for "a negotiated compromise of slightly-better-than-second-class citizenship" for all men -- nor did he promise his followers that he would "fight for their right to be counted as more like 65-68% of a person, rather than the going rate of '3/5 of a man.'" Not one for half-measures, Dr. King had the courage to speak to the principle and say it out loud: all human beings have rights.
Your plea lost me immediately when I read an equivocating appeal to "join our fight to draw a line in the sand: without at least a public health care option, it's not real health care reform."
Real reform is needed, and real reform will require real courage, and a real willingness to focus on principles. Although I have been a generous donor to DFA in the past, I do not expect to renew any pledges with DFA until the able DFA leadership in the hands of Dr. Dean and the army of well-intentioned DFA followers come to understand, and say out loud, that health care is a Human Right. With that simple step taken, DFA can then begin a new strategy towards fulfillment of the guarantee of that right to health care not just for some, but for all.
Rather than cash, I'll donate to DFA a possible new health care mission statement:
"DFA supports the right to healthcare access for all, and will not give up the fight until a publicly-funded, privately-delivered single-payer health care system is established in these United States."
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Until that day arrives, save your postage.
Mike Copass
4042 Mount Blackburn Ave
San Diego, CA 92111
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