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There’s a Medicare for All sub-community at Firedoglake. I’m not sure how many bloggers and commenters are in it, but I think it includes at least:
– libbyliberal
— masslib
— ralphbon
— Hugh
— selise
— hipparchia
— blub
— Ian Welsh
— lambertsrether
— montanamaven
— readerOfTeaLeaves
— Valley Girl
— Russ
— keepemhonest
— SinglePayerAdvocate
— Tracie
— HealthSustainomics
— rhythmandblues
— sporkovat
— Elliot
— Evelyn
— alank
— bluebutterfly
— marchan1940
— Nathan Aschbacher
— Justinajustice
— Sanityplz
— MedicareForAllMarch
— arcuate
— nanb
— Jkat
— lilybelle
— pdgrey
— jawbone
— kipsullivan
— wigwam
— greenwarrior
— john in sacramento
— public.takeover
— mui1
And yours truly, letsgetitdone.
It’s really quite a bunch. Lot’s of good blogs and great comments. It’s time everybody recognized one another, and feel they have lots of company here. It’s also way past time that we make a big push to get HR 676 back “on the table.” This means pressuring progressives in both the House and the Senate to vote no on anything but Medicare for All. Here’s a post that outlines the strategy. Let’s all come together right now and get this done!
(If I’ve missed anyone in this list, or included someone mistakenly, please let me know in the comments. Let’s get this list revised and make it a good one.)
(Also posted at the Alllifeisproblemsolving blog where there may be more comments)
112 Comments
I can appreciate your “wishful thinking” for medicare for all. But, I really think we the people are going to have to decide to get behind Rockefeller, Sanders and others who can see the light at the end of the tunnel for the “public option” with no triggers and open to all comers. I believe we have to decide what it is we want for our country’s future and get behind this majority on capital hill and get it passed. the repugs are far too effective in distracting the public from the real mission ” which is to affect change”. Obama needs to stop the game playing, and give his troops some direction. I am really weary of the guessing on what is the next step. His speeches haven’t been doing it for me!!!
1. Is that what the existing public plan proposals really do? Do any of them live up to the original Hacker blueprint of being available to all non-elderly comers? (And the other requirements: prepopulate with a large member base, subsidies available only to the public plan, use Medicare provider rates). Because if something doesn’t do those things, it’s not the real, strong public plan people have demanded.
2. Why do only progressives keep pre-crippling themselves by calling what they want “wishful thinking”? I think that under current circumstances, where the finance sector has destroyed the real economy and where the people elected a president with a strong mandate for Change of the corrupt corporate political system, and where a consistent c.70% support a public option, that it’s rather far-fetched wishful thinking on the part of corporatist Dems that they can get away with betraying their mandate, betraying the people, acting directly counter to the avowed will of the 70%, and aggressively seeking further corporate entrenchment, further corporate looting, through such mechanisms as this reactionary health care “reform” proposal.
It would be wishful thinking if progressives would fight back.
As for the “public option” itself, by now I’m convinced it was always a scam, meant to misdirect people away from single-payer. They never really intended to seek a real public plan.
Rather, they’d claim to want it, then pretend to have to negotiate it away. Force majeure, so sorry. And if there was enough blowback that they had to ever include a public option in a votable bill, it would be a phony public option. The “trigger” ploy was only the most obvious. Another is this notion, propagated by Obama himself, of a public plan with 5% as its member base, and which according to his Social Darwinist rhetoric would be thrown into the marketplace to compete with the insurers on their terms. This too would clearly be a potemkin plan.
No, I think it’s simgle-payer or nothing. I don’t see what else could possibly constitute real reform.
Hi Russ, Thanks your fine comment. You asked:
I think it’s because progressives have such a desire to appear to be “rational” and “practical” that they are too ready to believe that trtying to fully implement what they think of as an ideal is always impractical. Over the years, progressives and liberals have accepted the “half-a-loaf” myth, and made that their ideal, which is why we’re always getting either a quarter of a loaf or no loaf at all.
Our forebears were tougher than that. They were irrational, but they understood that “half-a-loaf” is not always better than nothing at all, and they also understood that compromise is something you do at the end of the legislative process, not at the beginning, and only when you get something worthwhile out of it.
I agree. I am for single payer/Medicare for All because, except for Rockefeller’s PO which has no chance of passing, none of the other proposals with or without a PO will contain medical costs. And even with Rockefeller’s PO I don’t know how available it is and its Medicare plus 5% rates would only be for the first 3 years so it might not do that much to contain costs either.
Because I write on economic issues as well, I look beyond the context of the current debate. I am fixated by the economy’s fundamentals which are horrific and deteriorating and which are masked by an Adminstration’s temporary and only partially successful attempts to artificially prop up an insolvent banking system and re-inflate the burst bubble by creating smaller ones in stocks and commodities. Whatever comes out of the current debate short of single payer or a very robust PO will be made irrelevant by what is going on, and being glossed over, in the economy.
Finally I am for single payer because it is fair and we have any number of countries with variations of it which work to model one of our own.
Obama was right, when early on, he indicated that health care reform was one of the important stools in economic recovery. If he had continued to push that and also taught people about the stupidity of insisting on revenue neutrality for health care reform we’d all be a lot better off. I think Obama needs to learn some “saltwater” Keynesian economics from Paul Krugman, Joe Stieglitz, and Jamie Galbraith, and get rid of the corporation-worshiping bozos he’s listening to now.
bingo!
Hi CarmanK. Thanks for your comment. My reply to you is that the effect of progressives supporting the PO has been to move “the Overton Window” to the right and has been very damaging.
It is not smart strategy to get behind a pre-compromise. If we can’t win a fight for what we want and must compromise in the end on something we can live with, but is definitely second best, then as reasonable people we should do that. But to “ger behind” that compromise before the fight is done is just to guarantee that one will be faced with a compromise that is even more watered down and that one will likely not be able to live with.
The left would be much better off today if it had not gone for the PO “second best.” Even today, it will do better if it resets and goes for HR 676. That is, get behind John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich, and Bernie Sanders (S 703), and not Jello Jay. Failing getting these bills passed, there are better compromises than a completely new PO system. One of them is the compromise I outlined in the three-step strategy linked to above.
Lets, appreciate seeing the list of supporters and your link. Thanks so much.
Single Payer pulls me like a moral gravity. Worthy of my energy and time investment. My code of ethics and sense of community and empathy.
Let’s keep on keeping on. As Obama says when he tells his “fired up and ready to go” story, one voice can change the world. We’ve already got many more than just one voice here. Maybe before this is done we’ll have a majority of the “Firepups,” and then perhaps some of the Firedogs will come over, and then, who knows? Is anybody spotlighting this one? Is it worth spotlighting?
“Medicare for All” by means of “Medicare for All” Folks at Firedog Lake. That seems to me, a great community and movement to be part of. For me your three steps reflect -deep down- the tension and struggle between the principle of solidarity and the principle of insurance. In the funding and financing of Western health care we see, under the influence of privatization, an ever increasing tension between the principle of solidarity (with risk sharing afterwards) and the principle of insurance (with risk sharing before). Our societies become a complex mixture of these two systems, who are not connected with each other unconcerned and to exist next or through one another. I see your step 1 as laying the foundation of (renewed) solidarity, step 2 as the regulation of abuses in the insurance-market and step 3 to come up with a sound and fair synthesis and fit between these two systems. It makes sense to me.
But without “Medicare for All” the tensions between these two systems will continue to show. A system of solidarity for everyone without risk selection and without premium differentiation for a specific category or group, and with the duty to accept and adjustments afterwards. This for a basic coverage package to be determined by politics. And all this completed by a more pure insurance system of complementary insurances, in which variations in demand and premium differentiation will play a greater part.
This gigantic operation will of course have to be budget-neutral in these days, and but also ideology-neutral I might add. What I mean by this is that the existential characteristics of caring and healing, the personal calling, the professional autonomy and the commitment ideally will have to grow and blossom even during this new reform. But the conditions of such a support of an ethics of care are not favorable. By the role of the few big insurance companies there is the risk that the insurance elements in the financial system will push out the solidarity elements, especially through pressure on health care providers who need to compete with one another on the market for insurances, and indirectly on the “market of our well-being and happiness”. Financial loss and gain enter the helping relationship. Of course this isn’t something new; this has always been the case, but less explicit and framed within clear solidarity boundaries. I personally think that a solidarity system gives both theoretically and more practically, more room for tender care and carefulness, and more intensive care. BTW our health care place seems to become lonelier by the minute as mergers go on between insurance companies and mergers go on between health care providers. What do you mean… more choice!? To sum it up, it is clear to me that the present individualistic-based US health system with millions of uninsured really is an insult to its population.
Letsgetitdone, you have a great way with words and ideas, but what I admire is that you do realize that all that means nothing without “putting them into action”. My respect and blessings to you, my friend. Keep on going, ….at least go down fighting ! But who knows…..you’ve made up a fine list of “mustard seeds”, and what powerful plants they are; they really can crumble that Hill !
Thank you Henk. And thanks for a great way to look at my three-step strategy:
I hadn’t thought of it from that very insightful perspective. And thanks also for working with that perspective in the rest of your message. It was very illuminating.
And don’t worry. If I go down, I’ll go down fighting, as I’m sure will many others in the fine group I’ve identified.
Dear Letsgetitdone:
I know you want this widely diseminated. However as of 9/20 8am EST when one clicks on firedoglate.com the latest story is GOP/complex blows smoke.
RichardKanePA
Hi Richard, Can’t say I have any influence over that. I just do my best and let others do what they’re going to do.
Count me in!
Thanks Jim, I’m happy to.
– libbyliberal
– masslib
– ralphbon
– Hugh
– selise
– hipparchia
– blub
– Ian Welsh
– lambertsrether
– montanamaven
– readerOfTeaLeaves
– Valley Girl
– Russ
– keepemhonest
– SinglePayerAdvocate
– Tracie
– HealthSustainomics
– rhythmandblues
– sporkovat
– Elliot
– Evelyn
– alank
– bluebutterfly
– marchan1940
– Nathan Aschbacher
– Justinajustice
– Sanityplz
– MedicareForAllMarch
– arcuate
– nanb
– Jkat
– lilybelle
– pdgrey
– jawbone
– kipsullivan
– wigwam
– greenwarrior
– john in sacramento
– public.takeover
– mui1
– Jim White
– letsgetitdone
Add me, por favor. And pay for it with progressive taxation on real income.
You bet, Eureka Springs. I’m for progressive taxation myself. The US made a big mistake in getting rid of it. All we’ve gotten for our troubles is a society that that’s the most unequal we’ve ever seen since the 1920s. Progressive taxation for all!
perris has been promoting this for some time
thom hartmann might be the very first person promoting the idea so add him to the list since he posts here once in a while when promoting a book
here’s a letter thom wrote to teh president, I wonder if this was the first proposal on this nature;
add perris and thom hartmann to your list and we’re good to go
perris, great letter. It’s the first step of teh three-step strategy I proposed in the link above. And again, I’ll add the two of you.
OK perris, I’ll add you both. Thanks.
Thanks so much, lets! I am proud to be part of this community.
Have you read this hit piece by Kathrine Seeyle today?:
http://prescriptions.blogs.nyt…..-unlikely/
This is what we are up against. This is what the PO advocates do not understand. When Obama says private insurers provide a “legitimate service”, and he doesn’t intend to sign a law that threatens their dominance, he means it. When Sebelius says any legislation passed will make sure single payer never happens, she means it. And, they are not alone. These neoliberals are not with us. They don’t believe in Medicare for All. When they propose a plan that subsidizes the profits of for profit-insurance with cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, you should know they do not believe in strengthening and broadening public insurance. I wish the PO advocates would wake up and smell the coffee already. it’s getting very late in the game. Also, see Scarecrow’s latest to see how Obama decimated the PO and it’s supporters on TV today.
Thanks masslib, I hadn’t seen the Seelye piece yet, though I think that’s a terribly biased piece since it doesn’t confront the counter-arguments to the things she says. As you well know, the idea that Medicare for All will lead to a rise in taxes for the middle class is quite arguable. There’s also the question of “total burden.” That is, if we take into account both taxes and insurance costs that middle class people have to pay, the total of these would be reduced by Medicare for All, at least in the short run. Of course, rising Medical costs have to be reined in whether we’re talking public or private insurance; but here too, the rate of increase in private insurance costs is much greater than the rate of increase in public insurance costs.
I agree with you about Obama, Sebelius, and many of the Democratic politicians. They have an inordinate belief in the wonders of the market and think that a privately dominated “free” market in health care is an advantage. This belief is against all the empirical evidence available today from all over the world. That evidence says that the systems that work are either private health insurance with extremely heavy regulation that our companies would oppose just as strongly as they oppose Medicare for All, or are public health insurance systems. There is no successful predominantly free market system existing today, and this is consistent with Kenneth Arrow’s analysis of many years ago showing that health care isn’t a domain in which free markets can operate because of the nature of the goods and services being provided.
During the campaign President Obama was known to chuckle some at the realtive naivete of Jogn McCain about economics and was also know to express the view that he knew something about economics. But when it comes to health care economics, not to put too fine a point on it, he is the one who looks more than a little bit naive.
masslib, I forgot to say thanks for the alert to scarecrow’s latest. As it happens I always follow his careful posts anyway.
I’m in too.
I think Ezra is right, though. People don’t know what the hell they’re paying because they don’t see it on the pay stubs.
Maybe part of the legislation should include requiring employers to get that information out just as we see what goes into retirement, taxes, etc.
Thanks Loo Hoo. I’ll certainly add you. On Ezra’s piece, I’ll be blogging about it later this evening, though I don’t know if I’ll finish that before midnight.
ps, I might be against a true single payer;
if “single payer” means there can be no private competitition then I am against it
in order to keep government programs efficient they really need to go against a public model, for instance I would not be happy if private colleges were de certified, nor would I be happy if we were not allowed to write checks (the monetary system is pseudo single payer since there are still other forms of trade like personal checks)
perris, I don’t think “Medicare for All” implies that private insurance companies would have to go out of business. If these companies can compete with Medicare then I have no objection to their continuing on. But I do insist that reform legislation should not try to equalize the playing field between public and private by crippling Medicare.
Let Medicare compete with its 2.5% overhead margin against the privates with their 30% overhead + profit margin, and then let’s see if the privates can stay in business. Obviously, if they’re going to succeed at that they’ll have to increase the value of their services or lower their overhead. We know the last can be done, since the Japanese privates operate at a margin of 1.5% if I remember correctly.
Apropos of this, if private for-profit insurance is to be retained, then I would insist on constraints on the political activity of those corporations. Corporations are not people, and I don’t think they should have the right of free speech. Their penetration of the political system and corruption of it is one of the corporate crimes of the modern age. It has to stop. One of the main arguments for having mandatory Medicare for All for basic health care and not allowing them to even operate in this market is that the political problem they represent would be over.
We all know about the greeds of corporate executives that drive insurance companies and health care organizations. But I think you’re wrong to you say that corporations are NOT people. I happen to believe that corporations (most of all) consist of people, and that everyone working in a corporation or non-profit institution is (personally) responsible for the unsustainable outcomes of their corporate operations (and this is also true for an insurance company, ….and for the doctors working there). I always found it rather silly to grant corporations all these personal rights (by US law) and to consider them as human identities. The bottom line for me is that if there’s no longer a single human left in this place (except machines), than I think there’s no longer exists a living organization anymore.
Henk, I think you’re mis-interpreting what I’m saying. Of course corporations are made of people as are all organizations. But under the US constitution legal rights such as the right of free speech are the rights of persons. In post-civil war jurisprudence, US Supreme Court decisions began to extend these rights to corporations as legal persons and applying the protection of the 14th Amendment to them, even though the intent of the 14th Amendment certainly was not that it apply to corporations. Today, corporations claim the right to free speech on an equal basis with individuals and that right underlies all that they do to set up front organizations ro establish their great influence in our political system.
If we were to insist, however, that corporations are no more than legal fictions and not real persons, then it would be much easier for the political system to regulate their political behavior and prevent the increasing domination of the political system by the economic system. I know you well enough to know that it is very likely that you agree with me that corporate speech (though not the speech of people who happen to work for corporations) must be subject to regulation in the public interest if we are to prevent the evolution of democracy to plutocracy.
Here’s more on corporations as citizens
Will Pitt: The Supremacy of the Super-Citizen
Let’s not forget that Andrew Jackson is the founder of the Democratic Party. Real Democrats know about the dangers corporations pose to democracy.
Thanks Joe. It was my intention to address the relationship of sustainability with moral responsibility, not legal matters etc. I happen to think that employees also bear a moral responsibility for the (social and ecological) sustainability of the outcomes of their organization’s operations. The very idea that an organization, or more specifically its employees, can have social responsibilities raises many basic questions of moral philosophy, and the ethical framework that an organization can, or should, abide by. I agree with McElroy (discussing Rawls’s theory of justice) that only people can bear moral responsibilities. Corporations, per se, as abstract, inanimate inventions of ours, cannot be held morally responsible for anything, notwithstanding the veritable personhood granted to them by governments and the courts in commerce. Indeed, only humans can act as moral agents, and make choices between right and wrong. Perhaps we could discuss this at a later stage; I understand this isn’t the right moment in time to do so.
Henk, This is a complex question, and this is probably not the proper forum for it. But I will say two things. First, I agree that individuals have moral and ethical responsibility for the social organizations they are members of, including their political systems for that matter. But, second I believe it is meaningful to talk about the ethical, moral, and social responsibility of organizations apart from the individuals who are members of those organizations. To put this philosophically, I am not a methodological individualist as Popper was, and I don’t agree with Rawls. As for our very good mutual friend Mark McElroy, I think his view on organizations, as you have stated it, may be inconsistent with his views on the nature of organizations and certain other collectives including his views on Gaia. However, I have to admit that I am not entirely sure of which specific view of Mark’s you’re talking about, so I may be wrong in the quick reaction I’ve just given you.
I know medicare for all doesn’t mean private insurers have to go out of business, I am commenting on the term “single payer”
what does that actually mean?
“Single payer” means only one insurance funder for essential services, most often the Government. But that doesn’t preclude private insurance for “non-essential” services. My “Medicare for All” notion wouldn’t prohibit private insurance from offering essential services, as long as everyone had the right to a Government plan paid for with tax revenue.
hi letsgetidone. only time right now for just a quick driveby, but wanted to thank you for this list, even if i’m now (based on some of your comments here) confused by it. my understanding of “medicare for all” is that IS single payer. that’s the list i want to be on — i do NOT favor a multi payer system that would pit private insurance against a gov insurance program (especially medicare). with multi payer systems we are back to the increased administrative costs and adverse selection issues that single payer solves.
hopefully more later if the above is not clear. thanks again!
Hi selise, I’m for single payer too as specifified in HR 676. However, if insurance companies want to offer essential health insurance services and some people want to buy into that, I have no objection as long the people who do so get no tax deductions, credits, or exemptions, for exercising their free choice of using another insurer outside of the public one.
Of course, you understand that under this arrangement they’d still be paying just as much for the public system through the taxes they pay to the Federal Government. So if they want to pay double or more and also pay some private insurer for the privilege of getting screwed by them when they welsh on coverage, and having less freedom to select the providers of their choice, then who am I to deny them that freedom, however stupid its exercise may appear to me.
See here:
(In practice, supplemental private insurance continues to exist.) Here’s the PNHP FAQ. Here’s the HR676 FAQ.
And, thanks lambert for highlighting this from PNHP a few days ago:
http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/09/1…..y-for-all/
The above highlights just one part of what imho is a fascinating piece by Vicente Navarro, M.D., Ph.D. who is is Professor of Health Policy at The Johns Hopkins University and editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Health Services.
snippet from Navarro’s article:
~~We see here the same problems we’ve seen with other programs targeted to specific, small sectors of the population, such as the poor. Programs that are not universal (i.e., do not benefit everyone) are intrinsically unpopular. This is why antipoverty programs are unpopular. People feel that they are paying, through taxation, for programs that do not benefit them. Compassion is not, and never has been, a successful motivation for public policy. Solidarity is. You support others with the understanding that they will support you when you need it most. The long history of social policy, in the U.S. and elsewhere, shows that universality is a better way to get popular support for a program than means-testing for programs targeted to specific vulnerable groups. The limited popularity of the welfare state in the U.S. is precisely due to the fact that most programs are not universal but means-tested.~~
And, oh, btw, ;) the PNHP site and particularly the blog contain a wealth of info.
They do and thanks to VG and lambert for the links.
proud to be part of yr illustrious list, letsgetitdone!
Russ has a good phrase up there – ‘pre-crippling’.
if there is any tendency that all on yr list share, it might be a skepticism of the ‘pre-crippling’ tendency that has become so habitual to many.
nice post at 23 also. Single Payer will not in any way outlaw the insurance cartel, they will just have to use their capitalist kung-fu to adapt to the new market conditions.
But the sad fact it, cartels are no longer really capitalist, they are parasitic with the State protecting them and allowing them to feast, and the last thing they want to do is compete.
Which is also how you can tell the Obama’s ‘reform’ efforts were a fraud from the beginning, ‘PO’, triggers, whatever, mere kabuki, because all of the affected industries were fully dealt in behind closed doors the beginning.
Working for and yearning for a Public Option is to chase a mirage – it was designed and built to forever recede towards the horizon, and lead the annoying Left Democrats off into the desert to wither away.
Thank spork. And you’re dead right that these monopolistic companies are no longer capitalists. They’re really “lemon socialists” in disguise.
yellowsnapdragon is all about single payer, Medicare for all. Add me to the list!
Thanks, yellowsnapdragon. You’re on it. Toward the end of this discussion, I’ll provide a revised list.
Add me, too. To be perfectly honest, this is one area where raising my taxes makes sense. It has to be a more efficient use of my tax dollars than the amount we currently spend on premiums and co-pays today.
You got it, musicsleuth.
And, raising taxes to accomplish this would be great “insurance” in lieu of gambling with the house (the BIPs) who are playing with a stacked, marked deck.
I’d rather say I support “paying taxes” to accomplish this, meaning I’d rather pay the “health insurance dollars” I now spend to an equitable system, rather than to gamble with “insurance corporations” whose aim is to profit by denying care.
And, thanks, letsgetitdone.
You’re welcome VG. Always a pleasure.
I’m proud to be an advocate of Universal Single Payer Health Care! As a disabled Vet, I’m fortunate to have the VA and I must admit that I feel somewhat guilty having this benefit while I know that almost 50 Million of my fellow Americans are doing without. Especially so when I know it is at the cost of at least 45,000 lives a year-an unconscionable toll.
OK, non-plussed, will do.
And one more thing, it’s not just the 47 million who don’t have any insurance; it’s also all the millions of others who have private insurance who have yet to be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions, or who will have their policies rescinded on some technicality, or who will be driven into bankruptcy by co-pays and other gotchas in the present system.
I’m in. I would love to see the only reason for there to be private health insurers is for supplemental insurance.
Hi rhythmandblues. Check it out above. You’re already on the list based on previous comments you’ve made.
Medicare for all – you bet. I’m already on Medicare and it works very well. Thanks for keeping up with this.
Thanks Twain.
http://www.hr676.org/
HR676.org looking for 1 million co-sponsors of Conyers’ HR 676 bill. Asking for donation of at least $10.98 for the year to be pay-palled or as check, etc. ($.99 a month and one free month), to combat medical industrial complex “industrial strength” disinformation advertising.
Please check out and pass on. Thanks.
Thanks lib. Let’s do it folks. Let’s get 1 million co-sponsors for HR 676.
Please add my name to the list.
You’ve got it, Margot. Thanks
Add me, too.
OK, Mary. Happy to have you aboard, and good luck to you and Ron, as well.
I think the public option is the fantasy. Please read the July 20, 2009, truthout article “Bait and Switch: How the “Public Option” was Sold” http://www.truthout.org/072309E. No legislation (not in the House nor Senate) includes a viable public option, as this article explains. What we’ll end up with is insurance mandates. Medicare for all is the solution. It is the easiest to implement since it could be accomplished by slowly broadening eligibility. It wouldn’t involve fighting the health insurance industry directly. It would require changing Medicare Subpart D to allow negotiations for prescription drugs, and adding revenue to Medicare since it is heading over a cliff at present.
There’s also this one from Truthout
Congress to Transfer Hundreds of Billions in Tax Dollars to the Insurance Industry
Right on, AnyDay. I’ll add you to the list.
Proud to be there. What’s happening with the progressives in the House? They have the power. They can obstruct. Are they standing up? Talking? Taking a stand together? Issuing press releases? Being interviewed?
Some are. But not nearly as many as we need. They need to stand up on their hind legs and do some barking. They need to show the so-called “blue dogs” who the real blue dogs are. The people who call themselves “blue dogs” are really just “purple dogs,” or as we used to call them “yellow dogs,” or “boll weevils.” They’re not real Dems.
Nader says the health care and pharmaceutical industries are VENDORS and should not be calling the shots for the customers, us — the U.S. citizen taxpayers — and these VENDORS are being hired by our proxy Congressional representatives (exploiting and defrauding us while hiring these contractors or vendors). Vendors, when they do a sh*tty job, or don’t do the right job, are fired! They don’t get a do-over. They are not paid for said sh*tty job, neither are they coddled and promised even MORE money on top of the original money for said sh*tty job and the prospect of even sh*ttier work. But Congress has our checkbook, and the Pres is in on the bribery, too, sadly, the fix having been in.
And if we look to the future and not call them on this, eat sh*t and smile or grumble, but eat it as taxpayers, we are a sad, sad, sad lot, indeed. Forever screwed, and guaranteeing our progeny will be, too.
Thank lib. I’m with you all the way.
I think a simple analogy for the simple-minded teabag crowd is…have you ever been in, or known someone who has had an accident with an uninsured driver? the insured almost inevitably bears the greater cost in the situation. That is the reason that universal health care or at worst a public option scheme is so important. Distribute risk widely and it is much easier to bear.
The administration made a really huge mistake not going for universal care right out of the chute. As my grandmother used to tell me, you can always bargain down, but it is very hard if not impossible to bargain up.
Agree completely, therealhellkitty. As I like to put it, if you want 185K for your house, don’t be stupid enough to make that your asking price.
Please add me to your list too.
Sure.
any bill without a robust public option must to be replaced with single payer.
starrynight, does that mean I should add you to that list?
yes
I had on a “Mad as Hell Doctor” on my radio show yesterday. He was really really mad but also articulate and charismatic. He’s an emergency room doctor from Corvallis, Oregon. His perspective as a doctor is vital to this discussion. He explains why we haven’t heard a roar from doctors, but that is changing. These doctors have been attracting crowds whereever they go and tomorrow they will be in Nashville. He is very frustrated that they can’t get any TV exposure. Ed Schultz keeps having “scheduling problems”. I told him I would alert the folks at firedoglake to take up the cause of getting the “Mad as Hell Doctors” on the TV and a meeting with the president. I will put up a short diary with the link to the podcast. We gave him our full 45 minutes in our second hour. He was so grateful to be able to have such a long forum. He said health care doesn’t lend itself to sexy soundbites. But I found his way of expressing the debate very sexy and very smart. Let’s get him on the TV.
Hi mm, I’d love to get him on TV. Maybe we can all pressure Ed Schultz to get over his scheduling problems. Tell him that we need to move the Overton Window to the left.
let’s get ‘er done!
You bet mm. By the way, we’ve got to get health care done. But what we’ve really got to got to get done is the reversal of the our march toward plutocracy and the restoration of Democracy in America. Since Nixon’s election we’ve been going backwards, and now we have the greatest threat to teh rule of the people we’ve had since the threats from Fascism and Communism in the 1930s. In the tea baggers’ propaganda they emphasize how they want their country back. Well, I want my country back, too and it’s not their country, but the America that dreams of and works toward both freedom and equality here at home. letsgetitdone, starting with health insurance reform and medicare for All, and then moving on to all the other issues where we’ve been losing on the other dimensions of democracy
“The person credited with inventing the “death panels” claim about health care reform worked with tobacco giant Phillip Morris to railroad health care reform in the Clinton administration, Rolling Stone magazine reports.
In an article in the magazine’s October 1 issue, not yet available online, writer Tim Dickinson reveals that Phillip Morris “worked off-the-record with … writer Betsy McCaughey as part of the input to the three-part expose in The New Republic on what the Clinton plan means,” Rolling Stone reports. “
http://rawstory.com/08/news/20…..g-tobacco/
http://www.crewsmostcorrupt.org/
Your scandal-ridden Congress exposed! And these are the officially illegal actions. Add that to the “legal bribery” amoral actions and decisions.
Would you trust you’d get an affordable and humane health care reform bill from these people?
Please add me to your list. I’ve been an advocate for single payer, health/medicare for all for 40 years. And please, progressively raise taxes, mine included, to pay for it.
Please, whatever it takes, prevent the passage of this bogus Baucus bill at all costs. Our souls already pretty much belong to the corporations. If this passes we will have no hope of ever passing any effective change in any area. Needless to say single payer is the only thing that really makes sense.
Mad as Hell Doctors
Add me to the list.
Hey put me on dat list
Definitely put me on.
Thanks.
starrynight, esseff44, foothillsmike, and TheCallUp, you’re all added, and Thanks
Thanks for putting me on the list, LGID.
You’ve been doing great work for “Medicare for All,” lambertsrether, even if you’ve moved on a bit from FDL. Thanks.
I think you missed me. Please add me to your list. Thanks!
Sorry elouise. I’ll certainly include you now.
CarmanK:
If Obama’s speeches haven’t been doing it for you, then why not make Medicare For All for your own next step?
It’s the only solution on offer, with crafted legislation and a base of support, that can actually be shown to save lives and money, based on the experience of other countries.
Single payer getting no oxygen from the A list? I’m shocked.
Couplea things.
1) Medicare for All is good. This should be self-evident, not even subject to debate anymore. But, of course, you can’t even say it in Polite Company without drawing a dirty look, a “pipe down,” or an “It’ll never pass, so get over it.”
2) Somehow reducing the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 55 through a “buy in” (ie: higher premiums than the elders pay) got dropped from the Baucus Plan, and it doesn’t seem to be showing up much of anywhere anymore, not even talked about. Why? Why not? Just getting used to the idea of younger and younger people being able to access Medicare can make a huge difference in the public perception and dialogue. Which is probably why you don’t hear about it.
3) We’re already paying for Medicare through our payroll taxes, but it’s not enough, of course, to cover everyone; it’s barely enough to cover those already on Medicare let alone millions more, healthy though most of them may be. We’d have to see the Medicare tax go up to something maybe not much lower than the cost of employer-provided coverage, ie: 10% to 15% of workers’ income, or even more. That could be a big financial hit for those already groaning under unrelenting debt loads from the late (and not necessarily lamented) Bubble Times. And there could be another problem with it: what’s to prevent Congress from appropriating any surplus in the Medicare fund for all their wars and their pork projects and all the rest of it that they have been using the Social Security surplus on for decades? The Republicans obviously, and the Democrats on too wide a scale, have no intention whatsoever of taxing the rich to make good on all those Treasury bills that are supposed to be backing up the continual raids on SS. The rich have essentially said they refuse to be taxed, period, end of discussion. And all parties in Congress pretty much say, “OK, then.” Under the circumstances — and given bitter experience since Lyndon Johnson’s era — it’s not wise to think that any tax funding for Medicare for All would actually be used for that purpose, especially if the fund were running a surplus.
So what I would suggest in addition to pushing the idea of Medicare for All is pushing for taxing the parasitical rich — again — to pay for it. Oh, they’ll squeak and squeal and threaten to leave for friendlier lands the way they always do, but they really do need to learn to carry their fair share again. And if they won’t, then let them leave. Bye bye. Of course they’d have to pay a confiscatory exit fee. ;-D
ChePasa, I agree with your emphasis on the well-off paying their fair share. The Democrats refusal to make them do it is outrageous. We expect that from Republicans. But when we get it from Democrats we know that they’re not real Democrats but people who have bought off on Reagan’s 1980s BS. Btw, does your statement mean you’d like to be added to the list?
Count me in. I believe single payer/Medicare for All is the answer. I do support public option as the second best answer.
Thanks, will do.
Tis an honor to be on the list. Thanks for all you do in support of medicare for all. It is the single most feasible, economical, and effective solution to what ails the health care system introduced thus far. It would be in the best interest of government leaders to join the vast majority of Americans who already support medicare for all and who will not settle for anything less than that for their health care needs.
Thanks alank. It’s an honor to be compiling it.
Update on the list:
– libbyliberal
– masslib
– ralphbon
– Hugh
– selise
– hipparchia
– blub
– Ian Welsh
– lambertsrether
– montanamaven
– readerOfTeaLeaves
– Valley Girl
– Russ
– keepemhonest
– SinglePayerAdvocate
– Tracie
– HealthSustainomics
– rhythmandblues
– sporkovat
– Elliot
– Evelyn
– alank
– bluebutterfly
– marchan1940
– Nathan Aschbacher
– Justinajustice
– Sanityplz
– MedicareForAllMarch
– arcuate
– nanb
– Jkat
– lilybelle
– pdgrey
– jawbone
– kipsullivan
– wigwam
– greenwarrior
– john in sacramento
– public.takeover
– mui1
– Jim White
- perris
- thom hartmann
- Loo Hoo
- yellowsnapdragon
- musicsleuth
- nonplussed
- Twain
- Margot
- Eureka Springs
- marymccurnin
- Any Day
- therealhellkitty
- starrynight
- elouise
- Gabriele
- esseff44
- foothillsmike
- TheCallUP
- ChePasa
- erinmblair
– letsgetitdone
Please let me know if I’ve missed anyone.
I’m on there already, but I wanted to stop by and say thanks for putting this together. You either have one hell of a memory, or have a lot more luck with the search function than I do. :-)
I’ve been pressing my Oregon Senators and Representative to get behind the Kucinich “State Innovation” Amendment to HR3200. To get Wu to support it in the House, and to get Wyden or Merkley to propose such an amendment in the Senate.
Hi Nathan, Thanks for your work. I hope you’re successful in getting your representatives in both houses to back the Kucinich Amendment to HR 3200. It’s not so much my memory or good use of the search function here at FireDogLake which doesn’t work to well for me for some reason. What I did to get the list was to compile it from comments on my own posts, thinking that would give me a large enough list to incent people to add to it. That seems to have worked pretty well.
You can ad me to that list
Been lurking (busy work schedule) but not many comments.
Thanks
Thanks billybugs. I’m happy to add you.
Count me in. Jay
And you too, Jay. Thanks.
add me to the list of FDL community who support single payer
Will do dcblogger. BTW, I’m a DC blogger too, or at least a DC region blogger. I live in Alexandria.
Final Update on the list for now:
– libbyliberal
– masslib
– ralphbon
– Hugh
– selise
– hipparchia
– blub
– Ian Welsh
– lambertsrether
– montanamaven
– readerOfTeaLeaves
– Valley Girl
– Russ
– keepemhonest
– SinglePayerAdvocate
– Tracie
– HealthSustainomics
– rhythmandblues
– sporkovat
– Elliot
– Evelyn
– alank
– bluebutterfly
– marchan1940
– Nathan Aschbacher
– Justinajustice
– Sanityplz
– MedicareForAllMarch
– arcuate
– nanb
– Jkat
– lilybelle
– pdgrey
– jawbone
– kipsullivan
– wigwam
– greenwarrior
– john in sacramento
– public.takeover
– mui1
– Jim White
- perris
- thom hartmann
- Loo Hoo
- yellowsnapdragon
- musicsleuth
- nonplussed
- Twain
- Margot
- Eureka Springs
- marymccurnin
- Any Day
- therealhellkitty
- starrynight
- elouise
- Gabriele
- esseff44
- foothillsmike
- TheCallUP
- ChePasa
- erinmblair
- billybugs
- JayGold
- dcblogger
– letsgetitdone
Thanks to everyone who contributed
honestly, I’ve been listening to the markup on the Baucus Bill today and it seems waAay more complicated than it needs to be. Medicare for all, let the insurance companies wither on the vine.