The Midterm Elections and Medicare For All

[eridani]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-quentin-young/the-midterm-elections-and_b_764305.html

First, it's important to recognize there are a number of candidates running for office this November who support single-payer legislation, both incumbents and challengers. The candidacy of Dr. David Gill in Illinois' 15th congressional district is but one example. Building up a single-payer caucus in Congress is an important goal, as is the continuing enlistment of support for single-payer legislation like Rep. John Conyers' H.R. 676 and Sen. Bernie Sanders' S. 703.

Second, several state-based movements for single payer are pressing their agenda for local reform. These states include Vermont, where an important Legislature-funded study on state models for reform - including single payer - is well under way, where several candidates have been vying with each other as to who's more supportive of single payer, including gubernatorial candidate Peter Shumlin. Sen. Sanders has pledged to seek whatever federal waivers are needed should the people of his state declare their preference for a single-payer system.

Third, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are under a serious threat from the National Commission for Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. The commission is presumably going to make recommendations for changing these vital social insurance programs in its report to a lame-duck Congress by Dec. 1. Any cuts should be emphatically rejected. Medicare should be strengthened by improving it and expanding it to everyone. That's also one of the surest ways to control skyrocketing health costs, as a recent congressional briefing by PNHP leaders and others recently pointed out.

Finally, our educational work in support of an improved Medicare for all remains indispensable. There are good reasons to believe that the new health law will be subject to destabilizing pressures from several quarters, including from actions by incorrigible offenders like the insurance industry (which is already complaining about the law's minimal restraints), and the law may unravel sooner than many suspect. Single-payer Medicare for all needs to be ready to fill the gap when that happens, and a powerful people's movement needs to be ready to push it forward in a new, dramatic way.

[Scuba]

1. I heartily endorse your comments. The reason we didn't get....

..."public option" is that it would have led to Medicare for All in one year as Americans would have dumped the extortionists now in control of health insurance.

As a 32 year veteran of hospital/clinic admin, I can attest to the myriad problems that would be solved through Medicare for All.

As a father, I can attest to the repulsive, murderous tactics for-profit health insurance companies take just to make an extra buck.

[eridani]

2. Kick for Saturday n/t

[leftstreet]

3. K&R

[tavalon]

4. Long term, that is a good goal

and we need to be thinking long term. We spend to much time getting riled at the last minute, to swoop in and save the day when we really should be looking at resculpting DC. I know the other side is.