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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAmerica's Superficial Health Care Debate Silences Single-Payer Supporters
Chris Hedges
Protesting outside the Supreme Court recently as it heard arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act were both conservatives from Americans for Prosperity who denounced the president as a socialist and demonstrators from Democratic front groups such as the SEIU and the Families USA health care consumer group who chanted "Protect the law!" Lost between these two factions were a few stalwarts who hold quite different views, including public health care advocates Dr. Margaret Flowers, Dr. Carol Paris and attorneys Oliver Hall, Kevin Zeese and Russell Mokhiber. They displayed a banner that read: "Single Payer Now! Strike Down the Obama Mandate!" They, at least, have not relinquished the demand for single payer health care for all Americans. And I throw my lot in with these renegades, dismissed, no doubt, as cranks or dreamers or impractical by those who flee into the embrace of empty political theater and junk politics. These single payer advocates, joined by 50 doctors, filed a brief to the court that challenges, in the name of universal health care, the individual mandate.
"We have the solution, we have the resources and we have the money to provide lifelong, comprehensive, high-quality health care to every person," Dr. Flowers said when we spoke a few days ago in Washington, D.C. Many Americans have not accepted the single payer approach "because people get confused by the politics," she said. "People accept the Democratic argument that this [Obamacare] is all we can have or this is something we can build on."
"If you are trying to meet the goal of universal health coverage and the only way to meet that goal is to force people to purchase private insurance, then you might consider that it is constitutional," Flowers said. "Our argument is that the individual mandate does not meet the goal of universality. When you attempt to use the individual mandate and expansion of Medicaid for coverage, only about half of the uninsured gain coverage. This is what we have seen in Massachusetts. We do, however, have systems in the United States that could meet the goal of universality. That would be either a Veterans Administration type system, which is a socialized system run by the government, or a Medicare type system, a single payer, publicly financed health care system. If the U.S. Congress had considered an evidence-based approach to health reform instead of writing a bill that funnels more wealth to insurance companies that deny and restrict care, it would have been a no-brainer to adopt a single payer health system much like our own Medicare. We are already spending enough on health care in this country to provide high-quality, universal, comprehensive, lifelong health care. All the data point to a single payer system as the only way to accomplish this and control health care costs."
Obamacare will, according to figures compiled by Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), leave at least 23 million people without insurance, a figure that translates into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths a year among people who cannot afford care. Costs will continue to climb. There are no caps on premiums, including for people with "pre-existing conditions." The elderly can be charged three times the rates provided to the young. Companies with predominantly female workforces can be charged higher gender-based rates. Most of us will soon be paying about 10 percent of our annual incomes to buy commercial health insurance, although this coverage will pay for only about 70 percent of our medical expenses. And those of us who become seriously ill, lose our incomes and cannot pay the skyrocketing premiums are likely to be denied coverage. The dizzying array of loopholes in the lawwritten in by insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyistsmeans, in essence, that the healthy will receive insurance while the sick and chronically ill will be priced out of the market.
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Link: http://truth-out.org/news/item/8407-the-real-health-care-debate
CH hits a home run with this article...good read.
TransitJohn
(6,932 posts)rbnyc
(17,045 posts)Truth, indeed.
Coyote_Bandit
(6,783 posts)I could give this a million recs.
We didn't get healthcare reform.
We threw a few crumbs to a few folks to help them get health insurance. Those under 26 - typically a pretty healthy group - can stay on their parents insurance. Those with pre-existing conditions can now purchase insurance - if they can afford it with the additional premium those pre-existing conditions carry. Eventually there will be income based subsidies which are related to income - not to the cost of insurance or to the cost of living in a particular locale.
Meaningful healthcare reform is one thing that the people of this country desperately need. Many of them do not have the luxury of waiting another couple of decades for the bastards in Washington to revisit the issue and dole out a few more crumbs. As a progressive, I am embarrassed that our president did not strongly encouyrage Congress to entertain evidence regarding single payer - after campaigning in support of single payer (do we really need to post the youtube link again?).
I haven't seen a doctor for nearly 15 years. I am certain that the quality and perhaps the duration of my life have been negatively impacted by that. I am in serious need of some dental work and I have both hearing and vision impairments - none of which are traditionally covered by health insurance. Ah, well, not everyone wins the lottery. Not everyone can have even the most basic care. My situtation certainly isn't unique. I'm just another throw away.
Our nation is willing to fund and fight endless wars. But we lack the humanity to make sure that our citizens have access to accessible and affordable health care. And we'd rather make the issue a political talking point than to make health care a real world option for those without meaningful access to it.
slipslidingaway
(21,210 posts)Obama Locks Out Single Payer Supporters
http://www.phillyimc.org/en/obama-locks-out-single-payer-supporters
Even though several polls showed a majority of citizens favored such a system.
So much allowing everyone a seat at the table.