Medicare for All needs to be on the table. Medicare For All should have always been on the table. When so-called progressives saw Medicare for All being barred from the table they should have raised holy hell! Why? Because Americans have no idea how much they are being looted by our for-profit health finance system. Because if you keep saying "you’ll be able to keep the insurance you have", which is a big, fat lie anyway, you imply Americans have something to lose with universal Medicare. Medicare for All should have been on the table because while wages remain flat private health insurance premiums have gone up sky high. Medicare for All needs to be on the table, because without it Americans do not understand that it would save boat loads of money, their money. Medicare for All needs to be on the table because building on the inexplicable employer based system in the face of near double digit unemployment is beyond stupid. Medicare for All needs to be on the table because without it on the table Americans are kept completely ignorant of how health care really works in other countries(spare me the Swiss have private insurance argument, no other country on the planet relies on non-taxpayer funded, private, for-profit health insurance for basic medical care, and we don’t have the political capacity to regulate insurers like Europe). Medicare for All should have been on the table Because doctors and nurses support it. Medicare for All needs to be on the table because no one knows what the vaunted public option is. Medicare for All should have been on the table because not only does it already have a long standing movement of doctors, nurses and labor groups behind it, it’s simplicity makes it a lot easier to continue to build a movement around. To all those so-called progressives who sat back while Medicare for All was taken off the table, and thrown in the trash, you are just as guilty of dumbing down the health finance "debate" as the people who rally the teabaggers. I’m just wondering, what the hell are you afraid of? Are you afraid of losing your private health insurance? Are you afraid of health care rationed by need rather than wealth? What the hell has stopped you, in the face of a Democratic President in the White House who once supported single payer, and super majorities in Congress, from advocating for the best health care policy for the majority in this country? What’s stopping you, as outsiders of the system, from demanding the insiders give a serious hearing to Medicare for All?

Apparently, it takes a Republican from the South to make the Medicare for All argument progressives gave up on far too soon in exachange for Romney Care with a "sliver" of a public option.

Via Lambert:

One Republican’s view on single payer

* health care reform
* single payer

Sat, 08/29/2009 – 1:34pm — lambert

Jack Bernard writes an Op_Ed for the Columbs, GA Ledger-Inquirer:

I am a Republican, former chairman of the Republican Party in Jasper County, Ga., and chair of that county commission. …

In my view, it is unpatriotic to continue to lie to the American public about the situation facing us. Over the last 10 years, wages have gone up by about one-fourth. Health insurance premiums have gone up well over 100 percent. We cannot continue along this path to fiscal destruction. Inaction is not an option.

It is also against American values to mislead the public into believing that everyone can get good care even if they do not have insurance. The mark of a great nation is not how well it treats its privileged, but rather how well it treats its downtrodden. On this measure, we fail miserably; strange for a nation that prides itself on being the most religious democracy in the world. Where in the Bible did Jesus say “might makes right” or “those with the gold rule”?

Very few health or insurance professionals advocate for a single-payer system, the best way to control costs and ensure access. I hear all sorts of reasons: rationing (really, like HMOs do not do that now), paperwork (apparently insurance company bureaucracy does not count), socialism (come on — practitioners will still be independent and we all know it) and so forth. It is rare that we hear the underlying cause openly stated: greed. It will cut my income.

The members of Physicians for a National Health Plan are an exception to this rule. If you take a look at their Web site, www.pnhp.org, the rationale for a single-payer system is clearly articulated. The French have the top system in the world, with something like Medicare covering 66 percent of costs and private insurance for the rest, yet their cost per capita is half of ours. Universal Medicare will both control costs and achieve universal access to high quality care. Congressmen would get the same insurance as you and I. You better believe your coverage would be just as good as or better than what you are getting now.

The problem is not technical; it is political. It is high time we put the country ahead of ourselves and establish a single-payer system.

Jack Bernard is CEO of Monticello (Ga.) Health Care Solutions and a former chairman of the Jasper County Commission and the Jasper County Republican Party.

Exactly.

It’s not too late. You could support Representative Anthony Weiner in his effort to replace HR3200 with Medicare for All.