Now change to SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE and take it out of the corporations' hands

[Rosa Luxemburg]

Next step in the affordable care is to push for state-provided health systems/public options bypassing corporations. Get rid of insurance companies too.

Public health care would allow contraception etc. Women should push for government or cooperative healthcare!

[Kennah]

1. Hobby Lobby decision probably accelerates our path there

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. Women all over America will be looking for corporation-free healthcare

Perhaps there can be cooperative healthcare centers run by women?

[freshwest]

6. I'd like that... but what do I see popping up in my blue state area now?

'Christian health care clinics' located in the evangelical churches and 'Pregnancy crisis centers' located in the Catholic churches. I think it's all corporate run, but they won't say so. It all just freaks me out.

Single payer from the government is the only way to truly end this geder discrimination but requires a tax base to make it work. And no one wants to pay taxes, they are all brainwashed. So they vote for the ones who won't raise them.

We've got a problem in this country that is huge.

[Ron Green]

7. When people start to understand that we're paying 18%

of GDP now for a "system" that doesn't work, and that other countries are getting better outcomes for less money, they'll start to see the light.

[Doctor_J]

10. this has been true for 40 years, and we're farther than ever from SP

so I don't see SP coming any time soon.

[Ron Green]

17. We are NOT farther from single-payer. Almost every state has an organization

working to make it happen, through public education and lobbying.

Remember "Hillary Care" about 20 years ago? A modest attempt at best; slapped down in about six weeks by the "Harry and Louise" commercials. Not this time. Health care is in every newspaper and around every dinner table now, and the fight is joined. When the truth comes out, people start to understand that the best care for the most people for the least cost is delivered by a system with single-payer funding.

Obamacare, if it's done nothing else, has put the issue out there; and that's a giant step toward what we need and what we eventually will have.

[IronLionZion]

15. What % of GDP would be single payer?

And how much of GDP is our existing public health programs: Medicare, medicaid, Tricare, VA, Federal employees health program, rural ER subsidies, public hospitals, community clinics, etc. ?

[Ron Green]

16. It's all included in the 18%. The problem is that we're already paying

a lot for a weak system. Emergency rooms are subbing for primary care. Fee-for-service is still moving money into profit-taking providers. Laws written by Big Pharma prevent negotiation for drug prices. And on and on. Single-payer won't automatically fix everything, but it's a start, and absolutely essential.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

25. I think some us get it but the majority are uninformed

The healthcare is overpriced here - a business. Making money out of crowns and the number of stitches. They love doing colonoscpies when you don't need them. I believe in preventative healthcare but this is ridiculous.

[wandy]

3. You now understand why the GOP's feathers got so ruffled about Obamacare........

Its the first small step to some form of universal health care.
Oh, is that going th hurt some of the GOP owners bottom line.
Get rid of insurance companies indeed.
This Hobby Lobby folly will only speed the progress.

Call this the first real sign that the ACA stung them at their deepest religious beliefs. Yup, right in the wallet.

[Doctor_J]

11. What do you mean?

Call this the first real sign that the ACA stung them at their deepest religious beliefs. Yup, right in the wallet.

HC profits are through the roof. The ACA made these religious loopholes possible.

[IronLionZion]

14. Cancel your employer insurance

why give your money to these for profit bastards?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

20. Exactly

[wandy]

19. What happens when people start seeing health care as much of a necessary as a cell phone........

What happens when either by competition or by voter action insurance companies are forced to make insurance more affordable?
Why profits go down of course. Thats a bad thing.
What happens when voters/government/health care providers et all get tired of these sure to increase religious loophole games.
Some form of nationalized health care plan happens.

That is a very bad thing.
The profit drys up.
Their is less money for lobbyists to buy 'representation'!

Try seeing this from the GOP perspective.
They know that if some form of Medicare for all is initiated it would hurt their bottom line almost as badly as if/when their elimination of Unions hurts the Democrats.

Our current 'health care' has far less to do with 'healing the sick' than it does with the Health Care Complex's profit.
Surely you would not want to force the GOP to rely on funding from only piddly sources like Charles and David and the M.I.C.

Not all of the GOP obstructionism is caused simply by a Black Man living in the white house.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

27. Of course it's all about profit

That's what the GOP does. However we have to be careful of own members of the Democratic Party. There is so much greed and power-thirsty people.

[wandy]

37. I never said Democrats were as pure as the driven snow.............

For the time being I am resigned to see this this way.

Corrupt democrats must be considered a small yappy dog nipping at our ankles while we battle the two faced, fire breathing, hell hound that is the Teapublican party.
If we don't keep the Hell Hound in check it may not matter how we deal with the yappy dog.

Although I admit it may be the Toy Poodle that finally takes us down,.

[BlindTiresias]

4. Unlikely

The insurance companies have a captive market and a large war chest, making any arguments saying that the ACA was a clear path to single payer so optimistic so as to be absurd. Not saying it is impossible, but the insurance companies will fight to the death to maintain their current advantage.

[Ron Green]

5. So are you hooked up with your state's single-payer group?

I suggest you support them generously. State by state is how it will get done.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

22. Not a clear path but one to remove the overgrowth on

of course the overgrowth of insurance companies will fight to the death but so will we. We are not going away. I would like workers' cooperative health plans. Hospitals need to drop their prices for treatment too.

[BlindTiresias]

23. Considering how things ae going

I would expect the insurance companies to win that fight.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

24. we need to reverse

the way things are going

[BlindTiresias]

26. Agreed, but unlikely to happen.

The american left are simply paying the price for courting capitalism and assisting in the destruction of socialism as well as communism. Now that the only competition of the right is dead we are seeing liberalism decoupling from socialism and that political philosophy is reverting to a pre-1914 way of looking at the world. Maybe if they didn't want to end up as slaves they shouldn't have allied with an ideology that makes people into slaves?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

31. People are just beginning to notice

it will take a long time I don't think it is impossible.

[truedelphi]

8. Wish I could rec this a thousand times. n/t

[xchrom]

9. du rec.

[Borchkins]

12. yes!!!! But first we need to keep the democratically controlled senate and flip the house.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

32. We need to dig our supporters from their couches and vote

[IronLionZion]

13. Does Medicare cover IUDs and Plan B?

You think GOP won't fight over every single treatment and every penny like they already do in our public health programs?

I help people enroll in Medicare/Medicaid/Disability almost as if its my job. You'd be astonished by what GOP has blocked purely out of spite. They block a lot of life saving treatments just to spite certain undeserving groups of people they don't like. For other things they only appropriate funding for the screenings, not the treatment.

I support Single Payer too, but DUers must realize it will be Hobby Lobby/Shutdown battles non-stop for the rest of our country's future. America just isn't as liberal as the other developed countries. Accept it. Which is why I support doing it at the state level, like in Vermont and hopefully California too.

[Uncle Joe]

18. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Rosa Luxemburg.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

29. We don't want to pay for each stitch

[abelenkpe]

28. yes please nt

[get the red out]

30. Absolutely

We are slipping into Theocracy now since corporations aren't just people, but can have religion, and abuse their employees according to that religion.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

33. Governed by Chic-Fil-A

It looks like we won't have a government at all. Just private services run by right wing religious nuts/corporations.

[get the red out]

34. That's it!

We will have to appeal to our Christian Corporate masters for what few scraps they are willing to give the heathens.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

35. Can you imagine to having to report to Big Brother every day?

[Distant Quasar]

36. What do you mean by "single payer"?

It's possible to have a universal healthcare system, and an excellent one, without true single payer. For example, some of the best national health systems (e.g. France) incorporate both state-provided health insurance and private insurance policies to top off the core government benefit; I believe patients in France also pay for at least a limited share of their expenses out of pocket.

The French model seems to be very successful both in outcomes and cost effectiveness. On the other hand, totally government-run healthcare systems a la Britain's NHS tend to run into problems with quality of care. I also think it is probably desirable for people who are financially able to pay for a share of their routine health expenses to do so; otherwise you are encouraging overuse and thus higher costs.

In short, the devil is in the details, and "single payer" has a very specific meaning. I am all for universal health insurance, but skeptical of a full-on single payer system.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

39. The NHS is the best

The NHS is a good system. Things do go wrong but they also go wrong in the USA. The NHS in Britain served me well. I had midwife team who looked after me through pregnancy, birth and post-partum as well as the family doc and obs/gyny.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/17/nhs-health

[One Voice]

38. Agreed! n/t

[DirkGently]

40. We certainly are getting "help" making that case.

No one does it this way. Or maybe Mexico -- I forget. Employers are not equipped to deal with healthcare, period. They don't want it. They don't get it. They are not qualified.

And we should be what -- surprised at the malicious, bad-faith posturing about "freedom" to mistreat employees in this area as well?

This is a frog and scorpion situation. Of COURSE corporations will screw over workers. They don't mean to. It's in their nature.

Profit is a great motive to make a nice widget. Completely useless when the first priority is fair treatment or positive outcomes for people.

I have a phrase for when someone doesn't know what they're doing, or is otherwise threatening to screw everything up, and you need to simply cut their control out of the equation:

"Take the ball out of their hands."

Employers can't do healthcare.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

42. Employers should not decide what healthcare you can get and cannot get

For example although a minor thing. My last school system would not allow support stockings but no my present school system allows 2 pairs per year. I don't like the fact they can pick and choose.

[pnwmom]

41. Public health care wouldn't necessarily allow anything in particular.

It would all depend on what the covered benefits of any single payer system provided.

Single payer doesn't mean everything-no-matter-what-is-covered-for-free.

It's just a more efficient system than what we have now.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

43. Free at the point of use but

it doesn't mean everything is free.

[pnwmom]

44. No, not free at the point of use, either.

If the government ever set up a single payer system, then the government would decide what benefits would be provided. A conservative leaning government could decide that a single payer health system wouldn't pay for abortions, for contraception, or both.