Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning
In an update to Small Victory for a Long-Term Single-Payer Strategy, I reported that “Rep. Anthony Weiner, (D-NY) will…make a motion before the House Energy & Commerce Committee to…replace H.R. 3200 [the hybrid, “public option plan] with H.R. 676 — single payer Medicare for All.”
In exchange for Weiner’s agreement to withdraw his amendment during the House Energy and Commerce Committee health care markup session, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) promised to permit Weiner to bring H.R. 676 to a vote on the House floor.
But will the House leadership direct the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to provide a comparative cost analysis between single-payer and alternative plans so that Congress and the American people can make an informed choice? And why have they refused to do so so far?…
One of the core arguments on behalf of a single-payer system is cost effectiveness. Many of the figures — like the fact that 31% of health care costs in the U.S. go to what I have called the unnecessary parasites, for-profit carriers and HMOs, as compared to administrative costs in the 1 to 2% range in single-payer countries — are well known by those who have paid attention.
As Marcy Winograd, a progressive Democratic candidate for the Congressional seat now held by Rep. Jane Harmon (D-CA), notes in “Single Payers Crashing the Gates”, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finds that the “hybrid” public option plan advanced by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) would require a federal outlay of a trillion dollars over ten years because most of taxpayer monies under the plan would go not to health care but to subsidies that would find their way into the coffers of insurance company CEOs and their Wall Street investors — subsidies that would still leave 36 million Americans uninsured in 2019.
During his July 22, 2009 news conference, President Obama conceded that the only way we can insure that every American has health care coverage is through a single-payer system.
The CBO informed Winograd that it had not performed a comparative analysis between the hybrid, public-option plans and the single-payer plan embodied in H.R. 676 because Congress has not asked for it. When pressed, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) evaded Amy Goodman’s question on Democracy Now! as to why a comparative CBO analysis had not been performed. He instead noted that H.R. 676 would be given a vote on the House floor.
For years, Waxman had been a co-sponsor of H.R. 676, but on Democracy Now! Waxman demonstrated that Democrats, like their Republican counterparts, are capable of staying on party leadership message, as he repeated the Obama talking point that single-payer would be fine if we were starting from scratch, but that we had to build upon the existing system.
As I observed in “Single Payer and the ‘Democracy Deficit,’ it is difficult, if not impossible, to build upon an utterly corrupt and unstable foundation.
Those who support single-payer and those who simply desire that Congress act on the basis of a comparative cost analysis prepared by the Congressional Budget Office, can sign a letter to Speaker Pelosi and other House leaders requesting that H.R. 676 be scored for a comparative CBO cost analysis.
The letter states, in pertinent part:
Some information is available to House Members on these issues, but a CBO analysis would provide a comparison to other health care bills which the CBO has scored.
Please order a CBO scoring of HR 676.
Understand what “we the people” are up against. The health care insurance industry spent $130 million in lobbying efforts, in the past quarter alone, to preserve its multi-billion dollar profits made at the expense of the health and very lives of the American people.
We are all aware of the degree to which corporate monies in the form of campaign contributions and lobbying, and limitation of corporate media coverage to corporate-sponsored candidates, has corrupted our political system. But the new tactic entails an effort to silence the people’s voices at one of the oldest forms of democracy in these United States — the town hall meeting. The staged wing-nut protests, discussed in Brad Friedman’s recent post, are, according to Keith Olbermann, being staged by “a front group maintained by corporate funded Americans for Prosperity, now busing people all over the country to town halls.” Their organized verbal assaults are being misrepresented in the right-wing echo chamber as reflective of how “we the people” truly feel — this, despite polls showing that 2/3 of Americans favor a single-payer system.
By signing the letter to Speaker Pelosi and other House leaders you can help prove them wrong.
Of course, if “we the people” really wanted to be heard loud and clear, each of us could write our respective member of Congress, stating, in no uncertain terms, that we regard their vote on “single-payer” as a Congressional litmus test — that a 2009 vote against HR 676 will trigger a search through organizations like Progressive Democrats of America for a candidate to replace them in the 2010 election.
UPDATE, 8/05/09: Progressive Democrats of Santa Barbara announced they will hold a “one night only” public lecture explaining single-payer at Antioch University, 801 Garden St, Santa Barbara, CA on Monday, August 17 at 7:45 – 10:45pm, contact : Lois Hamilton vlhamilton1@cox.net. Let’s hope they, and others who seek to make democracy work in this fashion, have a plan in place to deal with wing-nut disruptions, should they occur.
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Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California State Bar since 1977 and has practiced in the fields of civil litigation and workers’ compensation at both the trial and appellate levels. He graduated cum laude from Southwestern University School of Law where he served as a student director of the clinical studies department and authored the Law Review Article, Executive Privilege: Myths & Realities. He received an MA in political science at Cal State University Northridge and a BA in political science from UCLA. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968).
Hell, let the fascists screw it up. Who cares anymore.
In my life, none of this will make a difference.
If the fascists can’t love a child, an adult, and an old person equally regardless of sex, race, religion, or employment, we’re finished with this whole dog and pony show.
They can pass whatever they want. If they don’t provide health care for everyone inside our borders, nothing they say matters.
The guy picking melons (which we all love) out in the field will die from apendecitus, or a trailer accident just like they have in the past.
Insurance should be outlawed.
The doctor in Deadwood didn’t go around selling insurance policies.
I don’t even like Single Payer. We need national health care (it should come from TAX), anything less means we care about profits over human life.
A good idea I saw on one of the blogs to discredit the astroturfers.
If you happen to go to one of these town halls, blend in with the shouters with a “wheres the birth certificate?” sign.
http://nprcheck.blogspot.com/20...ns-on-npr.html
Good site I found linked on one of the blogs I read along with this one, haven’t read it ’till today but it offered a fresh perspective on things.
This birther nonsense is just too much.
Anyway you look at it, any way you want to measure it, for the masses – America has a second-tier healthcare system. Most don’t know this because of the lying liars in the mainstream media (and dishonest politicians – even obama catapults this one).
WHO identifies health care systems using objective measures, worldwide United States’ ranks 37th, behind Colombia and Portugal (which both spend far less).
Not only are 47 million Americans uninsured (almost 20 percent of the insurable market), 41 percent of Americans with incomes of $20,000 to $40,000 did not have health insurance for at least part of 2007, up from 28 percent in 2001; 53 percent with incomes under $20,000 lack health insurance. This is a crisis.
And it kills – lack of insurance causes atleast 18,000 deaths a year; people without health insurance have 25 percent higher mortality rates; and, 59 percent of uninsured people with chronic conditions such as asthma or diabetes skip medicine or go without care, getting sicker.
Anyone that says we cannot afford it is lying – US spends TWICE what single payer nations pay and gets much less for it. Fiscal conservatives (and the dems that yak about budget restraints) would demand single payer if they were honest.
The FACTS is, our bloated and corrupt private system can’t compete. If anyone is a socialist, it’s the folks that want to protect inefficiency in health care, effectively subverting the role of government to maintain monopoly profits in that industry.
On wackos advocate for private police and fire services; Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force; highways, roads, and bridges; and other essential public functions.
Likewise, private for-profit insurance companies have abused market powers and entrenched themselves as monopolies. Now they will do whatever it takes to use those monopoly powers to sidetrack real health care reform, especially since the evidence is overwhelming that they don’t do a very good providing health care services.
Why does the “health insurance” industry have an inherent right to exist? This is the question that I don’t hear asked. If an industry is obsolete – through whatever means, times change (in this case, the health insurance industry has made itself obsolete through its own greed) – then isn’t that what the free market is all about? If government can do it cheaper and better (and it can), then why is there any concern at all about the future of these health insurance companies? There are hundreds of thousands of businesses that have eventually had to pack it in. Find something else to do.
Of course, I’m being obtuse here. The answer is the money that the health insurance industry is funneling into congress. But the question is never asked – Why do these companies have a right to exist if they so obviously can’t do the job they claim to be in business to do?
Stop the “single-payer would be fine if we were starting from scratch” argument dead in its tracks with these 4 points.
1. We don’t have to start from scratch. We have Medicare now, and this popular program has been cost effective and popular for over 40 years.
2. Medicare could be expanded to universal coverage for all ages by gradually over a period of years lowering the age of eligibility from the current 65 to 0, when everyone would be covered.
3. Insurance companies are currently contracted by Medicare to help administer the program, so the argument that insurance companies would be driven out of business is false.
4. Insurance companies now provide various defined benefit policies to pay for Medicare deductibles and coinsurance for those who want fixed predictable annual costs, and these supplemental policies could continue under a Medicare style single payer universal coverage for all health care system.
There was a universal health care study commissioned in New York under Governor Spitzer to determine what the most cost-effective, best way to cover New Yorkers would be. Two Fridays ago, the report came in. Guess what it showed?
Gov. Paterson has since been SITTING ON THE FINDINGS–apparently not interested in using them to further the national debate on health care reform.
Info. about the NY study/findings is here:
http://singlepayernewyork.org/n...erson.php#more
as well as a link to the actual reports.
Thank you, Jade. Your link contains the following:
So the Kennedy “public option” adds $1 trillion to the federal deficit over ten years, and single-payer saves $34 billion per year for just one state, albeit the state with the largest population.
Even if it were the other way around, true humans, decent humans would think it was cheap at twice the price.
Capitalism is a psychosis, a grave, grave personality disorder exacerbater that breeds up whole populations of sociopaths.
Somebody get me into the Oval Office for just a few minutes! I’ll use the voice on him. It will work.
LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET OUT OF THE WAY. (Thomas Paine)
We have the 37th worst quality of healthcare in the developed world. Conservative estimates are that over 120,000 of you dies each year in America from treatable illness that people in other developed countries don’t die from. Rich, middle class, and poor a like. Insured and uninsured. Men, women, children, and babies. This is what being 37th in quality of healthcare means.
I know that many of you are angry and frustrated that REPUBLICANS! In congress are dragging their feet and trying to block TRUE healthcare reform. What republicans want is just a taxpayer bailout of the DISGRACEFUL GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance industry, and the DISGRACEFUL GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT healthcare industry. A trillion dollar taxpayer funded private health insurance bailout is all you really get without a robust government-run public option available on day one. Co-OP’s ARE NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR A GOVERNMENT-RUN PUBLIC OPTION. They are a fraud being pushed by the GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance industry that is KILLING YOU!
YOU CANT HAVE AN INSURANCE MANDATE WITHOUT A ROBUST PUBLIC OPTION. MANDATING PRIVATE FOR PROFIT HEALTH INSURANCE AS YOUR ONLY CHOICE WOULD BE A DISASTER AND UNETHICAL, CORRUPT, AND MORALLY REPUGNANT. AND PROBABLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL AS WELL.
These industries have been slaughtering you and your loved ones like cattle for decades for profit. Including members of congress and their families. These REPUBLICANS are FOOLS!
Republicans and their traitorous allies have been trying to make it look like it’s President Obama’s fault for the delays, and foot dragging. But I think you all know better than that. President Obama inherited one of the worst government catastrophes in American history from these REPUBLICANS! And President Obama has done a brilliant job of turning things around, and working his heart out for all of us.
But Republicans think you are just a bunch of stupid, idiot, cash cows with short memories. Just like they did under the Bush administration when they helped Bush and Cheney rape America and the rest of the World.
But you don’t have to put up with that. And this is what you can do. The Republicans below will be up for reelection on November 2, 2010. Just a little over 13 months from now. And many of you will be able to vote early. So pick some names and tell their voters that their representatives (by name) are obstructing TRUE healthcare reform. And are sellouts to the insurance and medical lobbyist.
Ask them to contact their representatives and tell them that they are going to work to throw them out of office on November 2, 2010, if not before by impeachment, or recall elections. Doing this will give you something more to do to make things better in America. And it will make you feel better too.
There are many resources on the internet that can help you find people to call and contact. For example, many social networking sites can be searched by state, city, or University. Be inventive and creative. I can think of many ways to do this. But be nice. These are your neighbors. And most will want to help.
I know there are a few democrats that have been trying to obstruct TRUE healthcare reform too. But the main problem is the Bush Republicans. Removing them is the best thing tactically to do. On the other hand. If you can easily replace a democrat obstructionist with a supportive democrat, DO IT!
You have been AMAZING!!! my people. Don’t loose heart. You knew it wasn’t going to be easy saving the World. 🙂
God Bless You
jacksmith — Working Class
I REST MY CASE ( http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.co...re-healthcare/ )
Republican Senators up for re-election in 2010.
* Richard Shelby of Alabama
* Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
* John McCain of Arizona
* Mel Martinez of Florida
* Johnny Isakson of Georgia
* Mike Crapo of Idaho
* Chuck Grassley of Iowa
* Sam Brownback of Kansas
* Jim Bunning of Kentucky
* David Vitter of Louisiana
* Kit Bond of Missouri
* Judd Gregg of New Hampshire
* Richard Burr of North Carolina
* George Voinovich of Ohio
* Tom Coburn of Oklahoma
* Jim DeMint of South Carolina
* John Thune of South Dakota
* Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas
* Bob Bennett of Utah
SINGLE PAYER has NO PROFIT MAKING CAPABILITY so WHO IS GOING TO PAY TO RUN IT!!?? US! Where is the competition to drive down premiums?! Where is the CHOICE if rules are introduced (without our sayso as always) that persecutes smokers, drinkers, fatties, SPORTS-PEOPLE, disabled, AGED etc.? What happens if a rogue gov. decides to rob or scrap it?! What happens if this POWERFUL MONOPOLISTIC TOOL is used to exert CONTROL on the WAGES OF HEALTH WORKERS!? What happens if SOCIALIST FIDDLING brings the system to IT’S KNEES – AGAIN?! Single payer is OK on paper but still problematic! All systems have their PROS & CONS!!
Single payer gives too much power the holder of the pay-pot (gov.).
We will have to pay taxes for the ‘pay fund’ running costs (though we shouldn’t have to, we will be charged if implemented – it’s always the way!).
Competition will be removed so we will have NO CHOICE.
What happens when the pay-pot-owner decides how we have to behave to have our entitlement. We won’t be able to find a more lenient provider…
Competition should (possibly regulation needed- sorry to cuss!) reduce premiums.
I admit insurers should only be able to gamble a tiny percentage of their profit on the stock market (afterall they are already gambling).
No system is perfect. War money should go into medicaid, that’s my oppinion!
Private81 — Sorry, but you just don’t get it. Single-payer systems, which every industrialized nation in the world other than the US has, do no include “premiums.” We have single payer for the elderly (Medicare), for Veterans and for members of Congress.
Single-payer ends the conflict between corporate profits and the lives of our citizens.
In a single-payer, only one to two percent of health care expenditures go to overhead. 31% of the cost of health care in the US goes to the unnecessary parasites — for profit carriers, their CEOs & Wall Street investors etc.
The most successful parasites in natures are the ones that convince the host they are actually needed. In the US, the health care insurance parasites have done that by confusing people like you about premiums, rationing and the like.
The other advantage in a single-payer system is that it could set drug prices. We pay nearly 4 times as much for the identical pharmaceuticals as Canadians do.
Finally, this idea that someone has to “profit” off the misery of others is appalling. The difference between your approach and mine is that you think “me” while I think “we.” At its essence this is a match between the greed of the few vs. the needs of the many.