There is a Time for Compromise - This Isn't One of Them: MAD AS HELL DOCTORS Drive for Single-Payer

[Orwellian_Ghost]

The Drive for Single Payer

by Ralph Nader

August 31, 2009

After several weeks of protests at Senate hearings and health care events by single payer advocates (visit singlepayeraction.org), six physicians from Oregon, with 191 years of combined real-world medical experience, are crossing the country in a 27-foot Winnebago making stops in nearly 30 cities, to debate, educate and advance full medicare for all. Everybody in, nobody out.

Calling themselves “Mad as Hell Doctors,” these physicians are already drawing crowds and expect thousands to turn out at each city that they visit, culminating in a large arrival demonstration in front of the White House around October 1. (Visit www.madashelldoctors.com)

They have written President Obama asking for a meeting “to discuss the future of health care as well as the moral, social, and fiscal imperative of enacting a single-payer system for America at this moment in our history.”

The White House turned them down flat, not even leaving the door open for reconsideration. Mr. Obama has met countless times with the CEOs of large corporations, whose greed and callousness causes so much of this crisis. Though he believes in single payer “if we started from scratch,” he has yet to meet with any single payer delegation.

...

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/the-drive-for-single-payer-by-ralph-nader/



ON SEPTEMBER 8TH, A CARAVAN WILL CROSS AMERICA TO DELIVER A CLEAR AND SIMPLE MESSAGE TO OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS IN WASHINGTON:
HEALTH CARE FOR PEOPLE - NOT PROFIT!

Mad as Hell: You CAN handle the Truth

There's no nice way to say it. The financial cost of health care is killing our citizens, hobbling our economy, crushing small business, and threatening the solvency of our government. In the meantime, the Health Care Industry is spending almost two million dollars a day lobbying Congress and manipulating public opinion to accept “reform” legislation that leaves a vicious, for-profit system intact. The "public option" is a trap. We need real reform that finds immediate savings, controls costs, and accomplishes the moral imperative of true Universal Access. A Single Payer plan is the only real path to a Health Care System that is socially, ethically and fiscally responsible. And yet, our elected officials refuse to even discuss the possibility of a Single Payer plan!
If that doesn't make you mad, we recommend checking your pulse.

The "public option" is doomed.

First: we will still have a dysfunctional health care system designed around insurance companies. Second: it will be impossible to cover everyone without raising taxes. The Obama administration is already saying it is acceptable to leave out 15 million people. Which 15 million? Will you be one of them? Who gets to decide? Third: in a "post-option" environment you can bet that the health insurance industry will manipulate the rules so that the sickest, most expensive patients will gravitate toward the public plan, which will cause it to fail. When it does, the opponents of real reform will point to the "public option" and scream: "See! Single Payer won't work!"

http://www.madashelldoctors.com/

[DrDan]

1. the frustratingly irritating part (if true)

"The White House turned them down flat, not even leaving the door open for reconsideration. Mr. Obama has met countless times with the CEOs of large corporations . . . "

[Freddie Stubbs]

The President can only sign a health care reform bill if Congress sends it to him

Congress seems to be reluctant at best to pass more modest reforms than what single payer advocates want.

[DrDan]

7. so therefore Obama should restrict his time to CEOs

vs the single payer advocates?

[John Q. Citizen]

8. are you suggesting the only people the president meets with are people who want exactly what

congress will send to the president?

If that's what you are suggesting then I think you are quite naive.

I know for a fact that the president has met with people who want no bill at all. Yet he won't meet with people who want a better stronger bill? Why not?

According to Rasmussen, one third of the country supports a single payer solution. I happen to believe that is low, but are you saying that the president won't even meet with any group who are advocating what fully 100 million Americans want?

That's just wrong.

[MercutioATC]

2. The 14th is going to be one UGLY Monday for them.

Denver to Des Moines in one day? That's over 600 miles.

Not terrible if all you're doing is driving, but they're doing rallies.

[ejpoeta]

3. the most infuriating thing about this whole thing is....

that no matter what happens.... whether they 'compromise' or not... the dems are going to get all the blame if whatever they do doesn't work. so trying to work with the republicans is like playing into their hands. the republicans aren't going to vote for anything, even if the dems give them what they want. it's the stimulus redux. they bent over backwards to get support from the republicans and gave them what they wanted, and they got NO house republicans and barely three in the senate. you would think they would have learned. and if they water this down so it doesn't work, they will only have themselves to blame when they lose seats. just do what you gotta do and get at the very least a public option that WORKS... not some mamby pamby thing that is reform in name only. because no matter what... YOU are going to take the blame. the republicans aren't going to sit there and admit that, well, they did play you and get you to pass a crappy no good bill. they are going to hammer at you no matter what you do. so just do the fucking right thing... not wring your hands and worry about making the republicans mad.

[AndyA]

4. When does that CHANGE part come, Barack?

They have written President Obama asking for a meeting “to discuss the future of health care as well as the moral, social, and fiscal imperative of enacting a single-payer system for America at this moment in our history.”

The White House turned them down flat, not even leaving the door open for reconsideration. Mr. Obama has met countless times with the CEOs of large corporations, whose greed and callousness causes so much of this crisis. Though he believes in single payer “if we started from scratch,” he has yet to meet with any single payer delegation.

We didn't elect you to act like George Bush. And yet...in so many ways, you act just like him.

In case you've forgotten:

1. Health care for all (public option is only way to control costs)

2. Transparency in government (which means no covering up Bushco's crimes)

3. Break the bond big corporations have on government

4. End the wars

5. No more torture

6. No more illegal spying

7. Get rid of Don't Ask Don't Tell because it's discriminatory

Yes, some changes have been made and many of them are good ones, but the ones listed above are BIG ONES that haven't been dealt with yet. They need to be addressed. Find the time and make it happen.

[travelingtypist]

5. Wish I could figure out where they're starting from.

I'm in Portland. I'd be there the 8th for the send-off.

[pleah]

6. K&R

[Orwellian_Ghost]

9. Night Bump