Single-Payer: The Top 10 Enemies- We have met the enemy. And they ain't us.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Single-Payer
The Top 10 Enemies

July 20, 2009 By Russell Mokhiber


The Profiteers of Suffering

Most people, when they arrive in Washington, D.C., see it for what it is - a cesspool of corruption.

Two reasonable reactions to the cesspool.

One, run away screaming in fear. Two, stay and fight back and bring to justice those who have corrupted our democracy. Unfortunately, many choose a third way - stay and be transformed.

Instead of seeing a cesspool, they begin seeing a hot tub. The result - profits and wealth for the corporate elite - death, disease and destruction for the American people. Nowhere does this corrupt, calculating transformation do more damage than in the area of health care.

...


Before we confront and defeat the inside the beltway cesspool/hot tub crowd, we must first know who they are. To wit, we present the Top Ten Enemies of Single Payer (listed here in alphabetical order):

...

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/22062

[BlooInBloo]

1. I've lost track - did Obama campaign for POTUS on single-payer?

Or is the article misleading?

"Barack Obama: He was for it when he was a state Senator in Illinois. Now, ensconced in the corporate prison that is the White House, he says single payer is off the table. To get off the list, Obama needs to put single payer back on the table."

[TBF]

2. How is that misleading?

The article talks about his views when he was State Senator, and views in the White House. You're the only one talking about his views when campaigning.

Now, maybe you'd like to challenge the meat of the article. That's a little tougher, huh.

[BlooInBloo]

4. "You're the only one talking about his views when campaigning" - That's why it's misleading...

Durr.

[TBF]

7. Again, I'd invite you to challenge the meat of the article.

Can't do it can you?

[BlooInBloo]

10. Huh? I never made any claims about the rest of the article.

[TBF]

11. No, you simply wanted to derail the conversation

by talking about something else entirely. The article is solid.

[BlooInBloo]

12. "The article is solid. " - Except for the part that's misleading, perhaps.

[TBF]

13. We already debunked that myth.

This is the line you seem to have a problem with:

Barack Obama: He was for it when he was a state Senator in Illinois. Now, ensconced in the corporate prison that is the White House, he says single payer is off the table. To get off the list, Obama needs to put single payer back on the table.

You stated that Obama did not campaign on single payer. BFD. Noone said he did. Your point is irrelevant.

Moving on.

[dflprincess]

45. On the other hand, while campaigning Obama said he opposed mandate insurance

now he's all for it. The higher up the food chain he goes, the more corporate friendly he seems to become.

[TBF]

48. Agreed. n/t

[FormerDittoHead]

16. I have no idea who you're arguing to.

Do what I did. Put them on ignore. I have like 5-6 people on ignore, and your pen pal there who's making you spin your wheels is one of my few!

Some people seem to come in here, not to learn things, not to find things out, or to share things, but to show how fucking smart they are. Don't know what the other guy is or said, but I have a feeling I'm glad I don't know!

The other day I had the pleasure of seeing two people on my 'ignore' list duke it out! I have no idea what they were saying, but it was good to see them 'cancel each other out'.

BTW: thanks for the article. I didn't know about AARP and UNH.



.

[TBF]

18. I used to put people on ignore,

but now I've decided I want to see what propaganda they are spewing. It's an excellent article, and I didn't know the part about AARP either. That has to be the saddest one on the list - seniors being exploited like that.

[earth mom]

35. You're right except most of the shit stirrers are NOT smart. They just love drama.

:puke:

[lefthandedlefty]

17. He mostly spoke of a public option

I don`t think I ever heard him talk about single payer although i could be wrong since my wife says I have a bad case of CRS (can`t remember sh#t):crazy:

[TBF]

20. I had to google (as I age it becomes my best friend...)

Here is the reference to Obama saying he supported "single payer" as a State Senator of Illinois:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/05/22/moyers/

I don't recall him saying any such thing as a candidate for president, but the article OG references doesn't say he did. We know full well who he is being influenced by now unfortunately. That's why we need to speak up and make our voices heard. We are up against some pretty formidable lobbies.

[maryf]

25. Here's a link that contains a video of Obama supporting single payer...

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obama%E2%80%99s-single-payer-beat-down

The article is pretty darn good too...

[warren pease]

21. Nope... Amy Goodman's got him trapped on tape advocating single payer back...

...before he was a US senator. Too bad he started hanging around with assholes like Lieberman, Reid and Clinton instead of Senator Bernie.

Here's the Democracy Now segment found on Youtube where, as a state senator, he's all for single-payer. That's followed by a marvelous tap dancing routine by US senator and presidential candidate Obama from last year's endless campaign.

I think his recent speeches and actions as president speak for themselves regarding his new-found distaste for a humanist-oriented health care system that necessitates, by definition, telling the insurers to go to hell.

Unlikely in the extreme since these very sugar daddies have greased his palms so deeply that he lost sight of his heart line under all that lard.

I mean... a combined $38.6 million from the financial services, insurance and real estate industries. Another $43.4 million from lawyers and lobbyists? And that $37 million from "misc. business?"

Thank gawd for that $513,693 from labor to balance things out.


sf

[maryf]

26. sorry!

my video might be a dupe of yours, the article is too good for me to delete the post!

[warren pease]

27. Nonsense...

The more people see this video, and juxtapose it against the industry bullshit he's mouthing now, the easier it becomes to bring pressure to bear on him to go with single-payer and kick the proverbial money changers out of the temple.

Or the corporate racketeers out of the boardrooms and up on RICO charges, which would suit me even better.



sf

[maryf]

29. Thanks, you are so right!

and this discussion of ours serves to kick this thread to boot!

[warren pease]

34. And kick it we will...

...I'm trying so hard to like Obama but...

Between his cabinet appointments, his all-too-corporate point of view (fueled no doubt by incredible hundreds of millions in large campaign bribes from big biz), his so-called policy re Afghanistan and his refusal to abandon the hundreds of repressive laws, signing statements, exec. orders and pres. directives... or go after the torturers in chief.

It's much worse than that, but that's another long post for another time.

So far, I'm happy that he hit Albert Pujols glove when he threw out the first pitch at the All Star game. The rest just feels like more of the same, which in turn feels like betrayal.

To repeat some stats from a previous post: A combined $38.6 million from the financial services, insurance and real estate industries. Another $43.4 million from lawyers and lobbyists. $37 million from "misc. business."

And a lousy $513,693 from labor is supposed to balance things out.

And now this medical insurance nonsense. It seems to me that, if you're going to invite the insurance industry into any so-called "reform" package, you're going to get a little tinkering around the edges at best. Worse yet, any new care delivery model will contain the seeds of its own destruction.

Or putting it another way, if you're serious about building a new health care system, why would you include the most destructive elements (along with big pharma) who have demolished the current mess? And why would anybody expect different outcomes?

Sadly, I think the answer is they don't. Nor do they want different outcomes. They -- by which I mean the usual insurance corporados, big pharma, congress and the executive branch -- are doing quite well under the current for-profit system. Why screw around with the golden goose.

Gawd... It's so transparent it's hard to believe that 25 percent of America's most gullible nitwits -- the ones who spend their lives shooting themselves in the foot by voting the corporate line and then sniveling at how poorly things are going for them -- still won't even consider changing "the best health care system in the world." Which is what mass media tells them every day and which they lap up like starving puppies.

Bahhh. Keep up the good work, Maryf, and maybe this country can finally rise above 37th on WHO's list comparing the medical systems of some 190 countries. Right now, the US is just below Costa Rica and just ahead of that noted medical nirvana, Slovenia. :-)


sf

[maryf]

44. 33rd in the world in infant mortality rate...

I'm trying hard not to hate! Maybe its taking more energy trying not to...
One more time! the only public option is a Single Payer public option with no profit for any body!!

[Orwellian_Ghost]

22. Please re-read

your post. Even in such a short you constructed an illogical statement.

Then re-read, if you even read it once, the article.

This is where it becomes obvious that folks wear blinders and will pledge allegiance shutting off all critical thinking skills. We know where that leads.

[blindpig]

31. How is it then that so many of his supporters have gotten it wrong?

"He didn't say this."

"He didn't say that."

"You weren't paying attention."

And so forth. Can it be that so many people who are very interested in politics got damn near everything he said wrong? Or could it be that that they were mesmerized by his oratory, taking what he implied as his intent? Or maybe it was his earnest uber-supporters, who implied that a train-load of ponies was just around the corner? And the people took it in good faith, after all, these guys are on our side, they wouldn't lie, would they?

It's a dumb game and damn few are buying it. I don't care about what he said, I care about what he does.

[sutz12]

38. No. He didn't. His plan during the campaign was worse than Hillary's IIRC

He has often stated that the would prefer single-payer personally, but that it was politically infeasible now.

Unfortunately, I think he's is right. The forces lined up against are too powerful now.

But I have hope that with a foot in the door of a good public plan will result in eventual adoption of real UHC.

[Hydra]

3. Very straightforward list. Gold. n/t

[ipaint]

5. Thanks for the link.

Obama is against single payer, as president that makes him a formidable enemy of single payer. That fact has nothing to do his campaign or election just his stance on the issue.

Making beau coup bucks off the sick is a billion dollar industry. The meme that there is not a chance in hell single payer pass was spread far and wide in preparation for the introduction of this so called reform. We are all being played like a bunch of fools, again.

I've watched this good cop/bad cop shit my entire adult life. It never changes.
The constant insistence we settle for less is another meme that has been embedded in our expectations of our representatives. It's self defeating and the last 30 years of downward progress is a testament to it's failure to deliver one iota of forward movement for the working class which in some estimates is as high as 62% of the population.

I can't believe a president, who is as intelligent as obama, and has looked around the world at successful health care programs and has concluded that ours must include for profit insurance corporations as primary participants is on the side of the people.

[Triana]

6. K & R. ZMag rocks too.

Keep an eye on them.

[AzDar]

8. K & R

[Uncle Joe]

9. Kicked, recommended and bookmarking.

Thanks for the thread, Orwellian_Ghost.

[LWolf]

14. K & R nt

[slipslidingaway]

15. knr currently #13 n/t

[Cronopio]

19. K&R for Z Magazine.

Although I disagree with the article's insistence that anyone who is not completely for single-payer is a complete enemy to it.

[scarletwoman]

23. k&r for zmag! (nt)

[maryf]

24. K&R

Thanks!!

[backscatter712]

28. Ah yes, because anyone who suggests public option must be an enemy of single-payer!

And he's a villain against everything holy and good!

:sarcasm:

[maryf]

30. Public Option is counter to Single Payer

It does away with the 400 billion saved that a single payer plan would save. It taxes health care bennies for workers, it fines those who don't make the mandated payments, and it still doesn't cover millions and millions of people in need of coverage...the ONLY Option is a Single Payer Public health plan!!! Everybody in, Nobody out, Healthcare for People not for Profit!! Oh and that is the number one reason the Public Option plan is wrong, it keeps the insurance companies profitting on people's health.

Rally July 30th in DC http://www.healthcare-now.org

[inna]

33. thank you for this post. it really clarified some things for me. nt

[Kid Dynamite]

32. Public option by definition precludes single payer

otherwise they'd be the same thing

[earth mom]

36. I can't help but wonder what Obama's biggest supporters like Oprah think of his deceptions.

Oprah, Gore and a whole bunch of rich celebrities supported Obama.

Wonder if they feel like they fucked up now and threw their money away.

[geek tragedy]

39. His real supporters would reject what his enemies like

you and Jim Demint and Ralph Nader have to say.

[earth mom]

41. Not if they really wanted to see real change-which I think Oprah and Gore really want.

Too bad you can't accept the truth. That's YOUR problem not mine.

[geek tragedy]

37. As usual, the Naderites here and the Republicans form an

unholy alliance to kill real progress. Fortunately, the purist bedwetters here and at Zmag are as irrelevant as the President's other enemies.

[Ikonoklast]

40. They refuse to understand political reality of what can be done.

Single payer would be dead on arrival in Congress, and no health care reform would have happened.

NONE.

The public option plan is a step toward single payer. It is a political possibility; something achievable.

The purists demand the perfect, forgetting that perfection is the enemy of the good enough.

They would rather have nothing than their choice of single payer, so they could complain how they got screwed.

[blindpig]

43. So what does that say about Congress?

A Democratic Congress at that, where is the will of the people?

Looks to me that this 'democracy' ain't all that it's cracked up to be.

[maryf]

46. I'm not supporting single payer only so that I can complain...

the bill will tax worker's bennies, mandate payments from folks who can't afford them, and fine those who don't pay. 35,000,000 will still not have coverage. This reform plan may (please note I say may) actually be worse than what is currently in place...amazingly bad as it is...

[dflprincess]

47. There was no good reason to keep single payer out of the discussion

- it would have been a chance to educate the public about it and, if nothing else, would have made the "public option" look like a compromise. That way we might have gotten a strong option that really did lay the ground work for single payer.

Instead it appears we will be stuck with a very weak public option, that's being set up to fail while most of us will forced to continue to pay into the for profits. Perhaps Obama has decided he likes mandates because the insurance companies have to have someway to reoup the money they've spent lobbying against reform.

[blindpig]

42. Feel better now?

All of that bile must have been very uncomfortable.

The people want what the citizens of every industrial country have and there is no good reason that they shouldn't.

You do understand that posts of that sort are increasingly ineffective and make you look bad, eh?

[dflprincess]

49. So if you disagree with Obama you're his enemy?

Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich are now his enemies? Anyone who supports single payer is an enemy? That's so Nixonian.

[defendandprotect]

50. k i c k

[Curtland1015]

51. Has OG ever made a topic on here that didn't bash Obama?

I ain't saying the man is perfect, but it does seem that if the topic doesn't include at least one attack on the man, OG isn't interested.