Health Care Is A Right

But here is the thing, (4.00 / 1)

when you become an elected offical you are not just supposed to represent the people who voted for you, you are supposed to represent all the people.

It is a balancing act. Some pols do it better than others but all have to do it. I think Sen. Baccus was wrong not to let these folks at least present their point of view.

However there is a huge gaping hole in going to single payer that I have yet to see addressed: If we force businesses out of business we will have to compensate them. Insurance is a huge and hugely profitable business, so it would be enormously expensive when we are already spending enormous amounts of money.

There is also the issue of what we would do with the very large number of people who work for these companies and who would become unemployed at a time when unemployment is already too high.

I support the idea of a single payer system, but it is because I do that I believe the best way to go is the Public Plan the President has outlined. It will be more efficient and less expensive and will eventually drive private companies out of business. This has several advantages: we don't have to pay these companies to leave the business the market will have spoken. It will happen over a period of years so there will be no spike in unemployment and we don't have to listen the bullshit of Socialized medicine.

We can change the world, but we can not reasonably expect to do it in a very short period of time.  

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by: Something The Dog Said @ Thu May 07, 2009 at 17:03:54 PM CDT

Agreed: competition (4.00 / 1)

I think one of the best ways to get to single-payer is to offer it up as competition to what's out there right now.  I wanted single-payer immediately for a while before hearing about that approach and thinking it through.  I didn't define that view in the post.

The bottom line is Sen. Baucus made a very poor decision to preemptively not include a single-payer advocate for the discussion while including those that he did.

The good news I take from this event is that doing what they did proves how fearful he and the industry are of the plan.  They will continue to do everything they can to squelch it as early in the process as possible.  They will continue to show themselves to be backward looking and prejudiced.  I think they are helping single-payer become a reality more than they realize.

A Responsible Plan for Iraq: endorsed by Jared Polis

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by: WeatherDem @ Thu May 07, 2009 at 17:13:20 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

The Constitution and The Bill of Rights particularly, (0.00 / 0)

were written to prevent against a tyranny of the majority which is what the majority of Americans are when they want a single-payer system.

The roundtable was merely defending its Constitutional rights is all.  

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by: sufimarie @ Thu May 07, 2009 at 22:47:38 PM CDT

GOP wants there to be no govt between Dr an patient (4.00 / 1)

umm.. guys, for years you've been fighting the choice movement who says there should be no govt in the relationship between a woman and her doctor.

Please use a different meme you crockbots.

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by: sufimarie @ Thu May 07, 2009 at 23:09:56 PM CDT

Why the all or nothing approach? (4.00 / 1)

Seriously - the way you're framing the issue, you're either in support of single-payer, or you're against Americans.

To me, it's a very reductive way of approaching an issue that has been on the table for 100 years. You're foreclosing the possibility of cooperating with potential allies because they're not as ideologically pure as you.

Let's say that there had been a single-payer advocate on the panel. I can almost guarantee you that the advocate would've dismissed all the alternatives as insufficient and immoral, and argued instead for the adoption of the One True Holy Reform.

Look, I get the frustration - but the goal is to make sure that Americans have access to health care that they can afford, and to get started on fixing this system. It intrinsically makes more sense to me to fix it piece by piece rather than going for an all-or-nothing approach that renders all other approaches not just invalid, but immoral.

It's the staffer all the campaigns love to blame. It's the...Rogue Staffer!

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by: Rogue Staffer @ Fri May 08, 2009 at 11:33:22 AM CDT

You can almost guarantee it? (0.00 / 0)

What is preventing you from taking that extra, small step towards guaranteeing the ideological purity and stubbornness of a single-payer advocate at the roundtable.

Balderdash, I say sir.

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by: sufimarie @ Fri May 08, 2009 at 11:37:08 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

So (4.00 / 1)

they don't deserve a seat at the table?

Single-payer makes the most sense. Every other plan I've seen is just a rehash of our current system, and none of them do much of anything to fix our current problem.

What is the problem, you ask? It's that average Americans cannot afford to get sick. Getting sick in this country can be a sentence to financial ruin. As soon as I see a plan that's not single-payer that solves that problem, I'm all ears.

But that doesn't mean single-payer advocates don't deserve the right to be heard when Congress is discussing this important issue.

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by: redstateblues @ Fri May 08, 2009 at 11:39:52 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Straw man (4.00 / 1)

You've created a straw man, claiming that any invited single-payer advocate would not have been reasonable. Well then, why should the people who have made billions of dollars from denying care to people have a revered place at the table? Those are actual people, not straw men.

The current system IS immoral. Perhaps incremental change is the right way to fix that, perhaps not, but claiming ahead of time that others are not reasonable and therefore dis-inviting them (and having them arrested) is not a moral way to promote incremental change. The beneficiaries of the current immoral system are given a place at the table, and I guarantee that they dismiss the single-payer advocates as strident and unreasonable.

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by: lukeness @ Fri May 08, 2009 at 11:44:55 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Purposeful framing (4.00 / 1)

You're right - I did frame it that way.  I did so on purpose in order to have a conversation about it.

When powerful corporations have more decision-making capability than citizens over who gets care and who doesn't, and who lives and who dies because of the access or non-access to care, that's immoral.  People want health care.  We've had a system forced on us that doesn't deliver the most (or best) care to the most people.  It is immoral to deny people care that they need (not want, need, there's a difference there I think most people would agree with).

I think it is the entities in control who have foreclosed the possibility of cooperating with potential allies.  Denying a seat at a discussion table is a perfect example of that.  They're making enemies they don't need because they're terrified of the change those potential allies represent.  I'm not under any illusion that a seat at the table for a single-payer advocate would automatically translate to implementation of such a system, either.  Such a person would have faced a dozen or more other parties who don't want them there.  But a seat at the table is a reasonable request, I think.

Dismissing a single-payer advocate as an alternative seems to me to argue for the continuance of the Corporate Holy System.  Why is incremental change the only allowed viewpoint?  Everybody not making millions of dollars off the current system (a majority of people) recognizes the system is fundamentally flawed.  Incremental change won't fix that system in another 100 years.  The system will collapse before then.

I'm glad you understand the frustration.  I can appreciate your viewpoint to begin piece-wise change.  If a piece such as a competitive single-payer system could get a serious chance at implementation, I'd be all for it.  An expansion of current programs to cover more people would also be a good thing.  It just seems to me that Sen. Baucus and others are doing their best to deny anything related to single-payer or a program expansion even the barest chance of public scrutiny.  That is immoral in my view.

A Responsible Plan for Iraq: endorsed by Jared Polis

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by: WeatherDem @ Fri May 08, 2009 at 12:13:45 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Just putting single-payer on the table doesn't mean it'll pass. (4.00 / 1)

Let me repeat that: just putting it on the table doesn't make it any more of a reality. And don't take it from me, take it from Ezra Klein, who's been writing on health care reform and policy for years. This is what he said two weeks ago in a visit to Montana (Baucus's home state) to talk about health care reform:

Q: Baucus has said a government single-payer or Medicare-for-all system of universal coverage is not an option for reform. Shouldn't a single-payer system be considered?

Klein: There is a very strong intellectual case for single-payer. But if Max Baucus woke up tomorrow and said, "It's on the table," that's not going to make it any more likely to pass. It's not going to happen now. You couldn't pass a single-payer system. You just can't. What we found in 1994 (reform efforts) was, when politicians say, "We're going to take what you have now away, and you can trust the federal government to do this now" - that scares the hell out of people. Whatever is going to happen this year, for single-payer, the case has not been made. It's still a longer-range campaign. The question is, can (Congress) even stick their neck out far on (other reforms)?

The following phrase may be even more key - that the case for single-payer, despite all the energy that people have devoted to the issue, hasn't been made. I get emails from single-payer groups, and I talk to them and I don't get the feeling that they have made the necessary spadework in terms of organizing and convincing voters that single-payer is the way to go.

What I see them doing is holding a lot of house meetings - and house meetings have their place in an organizing campaign, however, they tend to attract a lot of folks who already feel as you do.

What do I mean when I - or Ezra - say "making the case" for single-payer? I mean being able to quell people's fears that they'll wind up with nothing. Now, I know that's not true, and you know that's not true, but the average voter believes it to be true, and that's who we have to grapple with.

Now, I'll grant that there's an extremely strong intellectual case for single-payer health care, and an extremely strong moral case for single-payer - but that doesn't mean a thing in politics. And the reason I can say that is because you could say the exact same thing about opposing the Iraq War. That position had, if anything, even more popular support, in terms of people marching & demonstrating.

And it did nothing to keep us from going to war for 6 years & counting.

I've said it before, I've said it again: I'm all ears when it comes to a reform proposal. I think single-payer is a great solution, and I think, eventually, that's where we'll end up. I just don't think that, politically, we're there yet.

I've already written at length, so I won't take up any more time. I'll quote Ezra once more, and link to 3 blog posts, one article and the interview I've quoted from.

We're at a place that we want to get it all done, but if you don't get it all done, you need at least to make it easier to get it all done, and not say, "If we don't get it all done, screw it." If you squander one opportunity, you squander a lot.

I deeply, deeply, deeply believe that to be true. You can disagree with me if you want, but this is the second time in my life that we've seriously taken up health care reform - and it took half my life to get to that point. These opportunities don't come along often, and I'd rather help move the ball forward, rather than fume about not carrying the ball.

Links:

The  Lessons of '94

Interview with Ezra Klein

Team Single-Payer

Max Baucus on Single Payer


It's the staffer all the campaigns love to blame. It's the...Rogue Staffer!

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by: Rogue Staffer @ Fri May 08, 2009 at 15:07:30 PM CDT

On-the-table & voter will (0.00 / 0)

I completely agree with your first point: just because single-payer is at the table doesn't mean it's going to be picked.  It doesn't even mean it's going to get what some of us would consider a fair shake.  The point I was trying to make is this: dismissing it prior to the discussion was the wrong decision.  It was wrong in a moral sense.  It was wrong in a democratic sense.  It can't get picked as the solution if it isn't one of the options.  You, I, Ezra and millions of other people understand and accept the validity of your first point.

Where I disagree with you and Ezra is I'm pretty sure there isn't a lack of desire from Americans in general when it comes to single-payer healthcare, or at least universal coverage.  The case has been made.  That is reflected in every poll I could track down from the past 6 years or so: a majority of Americans want the government to provide an alternative to the broken system we're all forced to deal with currently.  They support such a plan, even if it means longer wait times for care (which is a strawman anyway), rationing (same thing), or higher costs (which won't happen if done properly).  Those opinions greatly differ than similar results of 30 years ago.  Much like climate change action, the American people (citizenry, voters, whatever) aren't blocking progress.  The entrenched elite in power is.

A quick Google search provided pathways to 3 polls on the first page:

2009 poll
2003 poll 1
2003 poll 2

But I think that's the only place we disagree.  We both acknowledge there is an urgency to do something.  We both acknowledge single-payer likely won't be the result of whatever "health care reform" is enacted this time around.  I would be satisfied, but not overjoyed, if we took a distinct step (or set of steps) toward universal coverage, especially single-payer.  It is my belief that the moral necessity of such a program needs to be further ingrained in the American people, after which it will become inevitable to enact it at the political level.  Framing it as a basic human right is a part of that effort.  I don't know what the time-frame to enactment looks like, but I'm going to do everything I can to keep it as short as possible.

Thanks for the good conversation!

A Responsible Plan for Iraq: endorsed by Jared Polis

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by: WeatherDem @ Fri May 08, 2009 at 20:31:10 PM CDT

[ Parent ]