‘Don’t Repeal Health Law – Go Beyond it to Single-Payer Medicare for All’: Doctor’s Group

[kpete]

Source: Common Dreams

Published on Friday, January 7, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
‘Don’t Repeal Health Law – Go Beyond it to Single-Payer Medicare for All’: Doctor’s Group

Statement by Physicians for National Health Program

WASHINGTON - A nationwide organization of doctors who favor a single-payer health care system today rejected calls by Republican leaders to repeal the new health law, noting that the law contains modest benefits for patients that should not be spurned.


At the same time, the doctors said that the enactment of a single-payer, Medicare-for-all program is the only way to assure high quality, comprehensive care to all Americans and the only way to rein in skyrocketing health care costs.

"We reject the call by Republican leaders to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), even as we recognize the new law is incapable of resolving our health care morass," said Dr. Garrett Adams, president of the 18,000-member Physicians for a National Health Program.

"The health law is flawed because it continues our nation's reliance on an inefficient and wasteful private-insurance-based model of financing care - a rickety structure that denies health care access to millions, bankrupts patients, ratchets up costs and frustrates efforts to improve quality," he said.

Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/01/07-5

[Davis_X_Machina]

1. They're right. And they're left. They're righto-leftist!

With that jury-rigged ACA abomination kicked to the side way, true progressives from the left, and thoughtful conservatives from the right, can reach across the aisle, cut the mushy mandate-mongering middle right out of the equation. and finally usher in real health care reform, in the form of single-payer, or Medicare for all.

This is so obviously in the best interests of all Americans that there is no way it can fail to garner huge majorities in both Houses of Congress.

Now if we could just be sure that corporatist sellout Obama wouldn’t gum things up with his veto.

(OK I admit it, I got stuck with a garage full of "Kill the Bill" paraphernalia from '09, and something like this looks like the only way to get my investment back. Business is business....)

[jtrockville]

4. Time to call for a CBO score of single payer?

Didn't Anthony Weiner call for a CBO score of single payer, but it never happened?

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

9. Didn't you hear Boner? CBO scores aren't valid because they aren't flawless

This is the GOP's latest scheme -- to attack the organization (CBO) which evaluates their schemes and may not come to the "right" conclusion. The GOP noise machine will keep repeating the meme over and over until it becomes like the "liberal media" which no longer exists except in the minds of Repugs. Then when the GOP proposes something that will put us another $300 billion in debt (but benefits the top 1%) they'll say, "See, we told you the CBO can't be trusted. Turn to Fox News for the truth."

Bush did this with the American Bar Association during judicial appointments. Whereas past presidents turned to the ABA for an impartial evaluation of a candidate's qualifications, Bush said he'd take their "opinion" into consideration (a.k.a. the "polite f*ck you"), but in the end he'd go with his gut.

[dreamnightwind]

13. Lawrence O'Donnell too

Lawrence was on the Joe Scab show this (Friday) morning, saying the CBO score on this legislation is bogus.

I found the following transcription with Google, but I won't post the link because it was a vile RW site jumping on the opportunity to trash ObamaCare. I saw the show live, and the transcription seems accurate to me.

-----------------

Scarborough tells guest/MSNBC show host Lawrence O’Donnell that he is having trouble buying the CBO numbers on “a huge new entitlement program.” (“I’ve got to be honest with you. I’m having trouble with those numbers”. O’Donnell responds (in clipped key remarks):

Lawrence O’Donnell: I get it. No, you’re right. That’s because half of the bill is a giant expansion of Medicaid. So that is a NEW COST.

There is a KEY part of the “savings” through a gigantic cut in Medicare. $500 billion dollars. That is a huge cut. The savings are NOT coming through creating new entitlements .

There’s also revenue in it. There are 15 new taxes in it. The biggest tax in it is a tax that has never existed before … and I safely predict to you has NO chance of raising the amount of revenue that the CBO says it will raise. It is a tax that we’ve never tested before … but this is all academic because we’re not going to repeal health care.

------------------

Honestly, I don't know, but I think it's a question worth considering. It's entirely possible the much-hyped deficit reduction benefit of the legislation is not what it's made out to be.

Would repeal of it be a good thing? In my mind, it might be. I never liked it when Romney advocated it. I know it's not exactly Romney's bill, but for the most part it is.

What I don't get, is how can they ignore the benefits of decoupling health care from employers? The two have nothing to do with each other, or shouldn't. It would make Americans cheaper to employ, and our products more competitive abroad. And I'd think that business, except for the health insurance business, would love it.

I'm a single-payer fan, so that's where I'm coming from. But from everything I've seen from this administration, from the likes of Max Baucus, from the corporate lobbyist approach to drafting this legislation, the mandate to purchase it from the corrupt corporations that have caused the problem in the first place, and now skepticism of the CBO numbers from someone that I halfway trust (I don't always agree with Lawrence but I usually consider him intelligent and credible), I'd be quite surprised if this legislation is much more than a guaranteed expanded market for corrupt and colluding health insurers.

[jtrockville]

19. I meant a CBO score of single payer. Not this junk.

I heard recently, (Inside Washington maybe??), that there was controversy about whether CBO or some other government office should be the "official word" on budget impact. Newt Gingrich pushed for CBO and won.

[dreamnightwind]

20. Yes I got that

The poster I was responding to was referencing Boehner bashing the CBO scoring of the Democrat's HCR bill, and as much as I hate every word out of Boehner's mouth (and every tear out of his lying eyes) I thought it was very interesting when Lawrence said what he did.

Generally I've more or less trusted CBO scores, now I think I should take a closer look at how it works. If you find out where you read about it lemme know. It wouldn't surprise me if Obama's HCR doesn't help the deficit like they're saying.

But to your point, it would be great to get single payer scored. Kucinich pushed for this but was denied IIRC (not sure). You know the lobbyists will fight hard against it ever getting scored.

[jtrockville]

22. Major Garrett said it, on Washington Week.

Major Garrett's bio: http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/panelist/Major-Garrett

Washington Week, Jan 7 2010: http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/watch_the_show/13303
Scroll to 15 minutes into the show do see Garrett explain why CBO is now the budget impact authority.

I also tend to think they do a good job at evaluating the impact on the budget, regardless of who "appointed" them so-to-speak. Whild be interesting to see a CBO-style score of the CBO (how far off have they been, historically)?

[dreamnightwind]

26. Thanks

I'll check it out. Would be so nice if we could just trust our institutions and our reps, unfortunately, we can't possibly be too careful who and what we believe these days.

[eridani]

12. There is a big problem with CBO scoring

They only care about a law's effect on GOVERNMENT finances, and not a thing about its effect on the finances of regular people. It would be scored as a ginormous tax increase, never mind that people stop paying outrageous premiums to private insurance except for supplementary coverage.

In my state, our Washington Health Security Trust would privide--

--Real comprehensive health care, which would include medical, dental, vision, mental health, physical therapy, long term or hospice care, medical equipment and prescription drugs.

--Free choice of practitioners—no more limited and constantly shifting provider lists.

--Lower drug prices from bulk purchasing.

--No denial of coverage. No exceptions for “experimental” procedures or pre-existing conditions.

--Businesses and individuals would pay much less. Businesses pay 1% of payroll up to $250,000 per year and 10% for all payroll above that. Individuals 18-64 pay $125/month ($75/month over 65) with subsidies for low income people. Hardship exemptions available.

--No deductibles. Possible modest co-pays.

--Paying for extras over and above what WHST provides by individuals or employers is explicitly allowed.

--WHST would provide an estimated 56,000 jobs, $6.8 billion more in business revenue, $2.2 billion in wages and $1 billion in increased state revenues.

Of course just about anyone who is sane would prefer a $125 "tax" to a $450 "premium," but budget scoring would took only at the tax and not the savings to health care consumers.

[Psephos]

24. Sounds very interesting.

Can you point me to good independent analyses showing it would meet its cost projections?

[lobodons]

2. Private Insurance bottom line

Private insurance's bottom line is not health care for its customer's but rather it's botttom line is its bottom line which is dependant on the denial of health care to its customers.

[maryf]

3. profit. nt

[DesertFlower]

5. and take away all that money from the insurance

companies? :sarcasm:

[Amonester]

6. and by ricochet, the money to coRRupt

politican$? :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[pinto]

7. Kick

:kick:

[SnakeEyes]

8. Single payer is fantasyland dreaming... for now

It failed once when the Democrats controlled both houses and the presidency. Now you have the Republicans controlling the House and someone is seriously suggesting it as a possibility? Laughable. And that's not even getting into the rhetoric the right wing will put out there. They'll say "the people are rejecting the recently passed government run health care and the left is calling for even more government control" and then they will cite what's happening in states like Oregon, Arizona and Indiana with Medicaid and say "see, that's single payer, there is your rationing, and there is your death panels." And that will be all she wrote on the single payer argument.

The time and circumstance has passed to get single payer for now. We have to wait until this all dies down and it can be resurrected with a fresh start and enough time has passed for the public to forget all about the current debate. May take a new generation.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

10. We may not win, but we keep the issue alive

We keep pointing out that if single-payer existed people wouldn't be losing their homes, or forced into bankruptcy, or watching their loved ones die when an insurance company finds some way to deny treatment (the real "death panels").

People do change their minds, but it doesn't happen in the dark. The first civil rights laws didn't pass, but that didn't stop the civil rights movement. It may be a decade before Medicare-for-all passes, but it will pass.

It definitely won't pass if we simper off into the corner because we're afraid the GOP will yell at us.

The Repugs are always going to claim a mandate, even when they lose. The secret is not to play their game.

[area51]

14. You're kidding, right?

Single payer didn't fail, corporate whore Obama took it off the table and it never got considered. Nice rewrite of history there.

"Any proposal that sticks with our current dependence on for-profit private insurers ... will not be sustainable. And the new law will not get us to universal coverage ...." -- T.R. Reid, The Healing of America

[Recursion]

15. You're kidding, right?

Both Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders are on the record as saying single payer simply did not have the votes to pass either chamber.

[dflprincess]

25. But it should not have been taken off the table and all discussion of it surpressed

Starting the talk from the point that should have been the compromise (public option) guaranteed that no real reform would be passed and the big winners would be the insurance companies.

[slipslidingaway]

18. Exactly!!! The Dems never allowed SP to be discussed starting with the WH ...

Summit in March 2009. Baucus followed the lead and excluded advocates from Senate hearing.

[craigmatic]

11. The only way that it's going to happen is if the doctors form a pac and bribe the repubs.nt

[Enthusiast]

16. K&R

But what would it do to free enterprise? Oh, the horror!

[Vinca]

17. Rec a million times.

[Delphinus]

27. Adding my voice to yours.

This should have been the only thing at the table.

[Desertrose]

21. ...and another million recs!!

and a kick!

[Psephos]

23. Triple-D government, yet we blew our chance. The moment has passed.

The planets are no longer aligned; all that's left is a P.O.S. bill and a million regrets.