If we had gone the single payer route six years ago, we wouldn't be with the Supremes today.

[Stinky The Clown]

Back then, when we had the white house and both houses of Congress, we could have gotten single payer if the white house had used the bully pulpit and actually pushed for it.

Now we have the republican plan that the republicans hate because Obama put it in place.

Ah fuck it. I got my Medicare. I'm going back to sleep.

As you lob excuses for this, do it quietly.

[stevenleser]

1. You have a lot more confidence in the Republicans than I do. I'm sure they would have crafted

legal arguments to challenge single payer/medicare for all.

[PedXing]

31. Even this court couldn't gut Medicare.

[Doctor_J]

50. If the Republicans tried to repeal Medicare for all the torches would have lit the entire country

and their senate head count would be in the 30's by now.

[el_bryanto]

2. I don't know if we could have gotten single payer

But it was terrible for Obama to take it off the table so early in the negotiations. He compromised too early, and Republicans did wha they always do which is ask for more and demonize him for not being willing to compromise.

And maybe if he had used his time to explain how Single Payer could work for most Americans we might have gotten it.

Bryant

[think]

52. Agree. Without a debate the American public was never informed of what they could have had.

And that is a shame. Many if not most Americans probably have never been given decent information on the subject.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

55. I have simply never understood the argument that if you start

'too far left' in negotiations, Republicans will simply not do anything. He started with old Republican stuff and they STILL did nothing. Might as well have started much farther left, and at least TRY to end up somewhere farther left of where we did. Even if the end product was exactly what we got, the electoral optics for Dems would have been much greater.

[gwheezie]

3. We wouldn't have gotten single payer

The blue dogs weren't going for it.

[Orsino]

12. But if we'd had starships back then...

...we could have had single-payer on Alpha Centauri.

[jwirr]

17. The blue dogs and the insurance lobby.

[PedXing]

33. Quick, stop what your doing, it might be hard.

I wish my party had grand ideas and fought for them.

Oh well.

[Renew Deal]

4. I don't believe that.

There is always a reason to go to court.

[geek tragedy]

5. The stupid bully pulpit bullshit again?

Anyone who thinks Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman and Blanche Lincoln and Max Baucus would have supported single payer because Obama have a speech or two isn't living on Planet Earth.

Ditto those who think the Blue Dogs, and the Republicans on the SCOTUS would have given it a pass.

[Freddie]

7. ^^^this^^^

We got the best we could get. Certainly not perfect but it could be improved and work well, as similar systems do in Europe...if only the Repugs gave a shit about human lives above their Obama Derangement Syndrome.

[cheapdate]

26. Incredible that anyone believes this.

It's incredible that anyone who was conscious and living in the United States in 2009 believes that Barack Obama had the power to persuade GOP lawmakers and their conservative base to go along with a national health care system.

Nothing you can say to someone like that, really.

[PedXing]

35. Governing is hard work.

I remember a Shrub stating that once.

[madokie]

6. That failed as soon as Max Baucus was leading the pack

it never had a chance because if it had we'd have single payer today. If it'd been given its day in negotions like all the other options were we'd have it all about figured out how to and how not to run the program. It wasn't Obama's fault we don't have it, that lies with Max Baucus of Montana. He was the big cheese and his wedggy ass wasn't going to let it happen come hell or high water. Plus the dems and republiCONs went along with it so here we are, fucked but less so that before but still fucked. I'm lucky that I have the VA. Only up to the point of maintenance, when it comes for the the overhaul or rebuild whatever I'll have to check in with Medicare.

[annabanana]

9. yep

"complete control of Congress, both houses"

never happened.

[PedXing]

36. Amazing how the Republicans control both houses

Whether they are the majority or the minority.

What ever shall we do?

[annabanana]

39. Well lately it seems we're getting some

traction in the House...

[PedXing]

48. That is true

[bvar22]

63. So what did Obama do to Max for wrecking his heath care plan?

Max Baucus received a Presidential Appointment as Ambassador to CHINA,
a peach that most politicians would kill for.
Yep. Ole Max is filling up those offshore accounts now.


Sounds like something that would be given to trusted supporter
instead of a traitor......
unless the whole thing just Kabuki Theater to entertain the peasant class.

[iandhr]

8. For crying out loud some people here are dense.

It takes 60 votes to get something through the Senate. There wasn't nearly a majority for single payer

All it takes is one person to kill a public option which happened. The Whitehouse wisely thought that getting something was better the getting nothing.


But even if there was single payer the GOP would still try to kill it through the courts.


If you are among the all or nothing purists or to think single payer would have been a magic bullet that the Republicans would have tried to stop. I say to I fart in your general direction.

[PedXing]

49. And that makes sense seeing as how you are perfectly satisfied with crap legislation.

[iandhr]

60. I think it's good legislation

Uninsured rates lower than it's been in decades. Work finished? Of course not. The president would tell you that himself. But in my opinion the Number 19 million it's better than the number zero. These people are filing a lawsuit trying to take others access to healthcare away the president is not responsible for the inhumanity of others.

[PedXing]

65. So you championed it in 1994? Awesome!

I was stuck on HillaryCare at the time, though I had no real idea what it was.

[Octafish]

10. Absolutely, Stinky.

It would be a different world today.

Imagine if we'd prosecuted Bush and Cheney, PNAC wouldn't still be around pushing for war in Ukraine.

Think of the savings.

[ND-Dem]

11. kr

[jeff47]

13. Please explain how you get Lieberman to vote for it.

He knows he can not win another election. So you can't hold that over him.

He lives for getting on TV and playing a martyr, and taking away his committee assignments would give him lots more time to whine on TV.

His main campaign donors were the insurance industry. He was dubbed "The Senator from Aetna". He expected his after-the-senate job would be lobbying for the insurance industry. So he needs to keep them happy to get paid large piles of cash.

He proposed a half-ass public option plan (people over 50 can buy Medicare) as an alternative for the ACA at the beginning of the effort to pass the ACA. When his own proposal came up again towards the end of the effort, he killed it.

Now, explain to me how you get Lieberman to vote for single payer. Because without his vote, it does not pass. And not some hand waving "bully pulpit" crap, because Lieberman never gave a fuck about Obama speeches. A concrete, "this is step 1...." plan.

Once you do that, we get to move on to Ben Nelson, and how you get him to vote for it.

ETA: And just to help you out, there were about 30 votes for ending the filibuster at that time.

[stevenleser]

14. That's even giving the OP too much credit.

You are right of course, but the idea that enacting Single payer would have magically not caused the GOP to try to concoct legal challenges to it is amusing wishful thinking.

[jeff47]

15. There's one way that probably would have not received a legal challenge

Change the eligibility age for Medicare to birth.

It's difficult to see how Republicans could have attacked that via lawsuits. I'm sure someone could come up with some ideas, but I don't think they would be pursued by the Republicans - they'd have to attack all of Medicare, and their base would not allow that.

[stevenleser]

16. Oh the essential nationalization of a whole sub-industry would have produced tons of lawsuits...

... both public and private. The insurance companies, who all are clients of white shoe law firms, have billions to throw at this with no reason not to do it.

[jeff47]

18. Sure, the insurance companies could. But Republicans wouldn't.

And the insurance companies would have to balance the lawsuits against selling "Medigap" policies to everyone in the country. Being "the company that tried to destroy Medicare" probably wouldn't help with that.

[stevenleser]

19. I have no such faith in the Republican party. If anything, their whole socialism meme, remember that

would have been strengthened by the fact that this actually would have been socialism.

And we have a tangential example of what happens when a President attempts to nationalize an industry with Truman's attempt to nationalize the steel industry in 1952. The nationalization itself wasn't attacked directly, they attacked his ability to seize private property resulting in the SCOTUS decision Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngstown_Sheet_%26_Tube_Co._v._Sawyer

The Republicans would have found an angle to attack this in court, probably several. Of that I have no doubt.

[jeff47]

24. Except the attack would be against Medicare

And their base very much loves Medicare thanks to receiving benefits from it. They routinely ignore the hypocrisy in loving a big government program, or just ignore that it is a big government program - "get your government hands out of my Medicare".

I think some Republicans would have come up with an angle, but I don't think it would have proceeded to court, due to the harm it would cause to their base.

[stevenleser]

32. Your premise rests on the idea of Republicans acting rationally and as you expect.

And particularly regarding healthcare, that is a dangerous assumption. ACA was a total reach out to them and incorporated many Republican ideas and they still reacted as if we were asking them to swallow cyanide.

[jeff47]

38. The base isn't rational. The leaders are.

ACA was a total reach out to them and incorporated many Republican ideas and they still reacted as if we were asking them to swallow cyanide.

The leaders knew that if the ACA worked, they would have a problem. "Big government" would be helping people. And it is likely that the ACA will turn out to be very popular. So they went on offense to stop it before it became as unassailable as....Medicare.

Look at what they did when they attacked - they invoked protecting Medicare to attack the ACA. Because their base loves Medicare.

Attacking Medicare in its entirety would please a small, really insane portion of their base. But the vast majority of their base would hate them for it. So that really insane portion would come up with ideas, but be reined in by the party leadership.

[lumberjack_jeff]

21. None of the challenges made against the ACA could have been used against medicare for all. n/t

[stevenleser]

22. There are over 15 million lawsuits filed in the US every year with different angles and arguments.

The arguments aren't exactly the same in any one of them. Yet the lawsuits are still filed.

[lumberjack_jeff]

25. And I'm sure that, even today, some are filed to challenge the constitutionality of Social Security.

Yet none of them make it to the Supreme Court. Medicare for all is simply expansion of Social Security.

[JoePhilly]

37. Lieberman was pissed because McCain was going to make him SecDef or SecState.

This, plus your points ensured he was never going to vote yes.

These fools who think there was some path here can't be taken seriously.

[PedXing]

51. Governing is hard. Let's pass the other guys plans and call it our own.

[jeff47]

54. Dodging the question does not make it disappear.

How do you get Lieberman to vote for it? Your claim is it could have been passed. So lay out how it could have been done.

[PedXing]

62. You do what whips do, and you threaten his chairmanship.

I'm sure votes have been whipped in the past.

But, hey, I'm a purist, in that I think the Democratic Party has a point of view, not one size misfits all.

[jeff47]

64. So you didn't bother to read the post before replying.

I'll quote myself since apparently reading a post before replying is hard.

He lives for getting on TV and playing a martyr, and taking away his committee assignments would give him lots more time to whine on TV.

Again, how do you get Lieberman to vote for single-payer?

Be more like LBJ? Well LBJ literally failed to get single-payer. Medicare wasn't supposed to have an age floor. LBJ couldn't get it passed without one.

[PedXing]

66. I'm sorry, just because you assert it doesn't make it so.

But Leiberman's vote wasn't necessary.

[jeff47]

67. Then feel free to provide any evidence to the contrary

You asserting it doesn't make it so either.

But Leiberman's vote wasn't necessary.

At that time, there were about 30 votes to remove the filibuster. So yes, Lieberman's vote was necessary.

Reconciliation? Can't pass everything in the ACA through that. That's why there are actually two ACA bills. The first one passed with 60 votes, the second amended the first, and was passed through reconciliation when Lieberman would not vote for it. Because the second was passed through reconciliation, we were not able to tweak everything we wanted to tweak.

[PedXing]

68. Two things: Those who make the claims are responsible for the evidence.

Second, only fifty votes would be necessary to pass single payer, as it would be a revenue related bill.

And for a bonus, had the Democrats nuked the filibuster or forced the filibuster to be a real filibuster, they wouldn't need sixty votes.

Sixty votes is the fig leaf that the cowardly use to justify standing for nothing.

[jeff47]

69. Guess what? You're making a claim.

You are making the claim that taking away Lieberman's committee seats would be effective. Based on.......apparently nothing.

Second, only fifty votes would be necessary to pass single payer, as it would be a revenue related bill.

Nope. The entirety of the bill must be about revenue in order to pass via reconciliation. So you can't pass minimum insurance coverage. You can't pass must-issue. You can't pass community rating. And so on.

And for a bonus, had the Democrats nuked the filibuster or forced the filibuster to be a real filibuster, they wouldn't need sixty votes.

So you think the 30 votes to eliminate the filibuster in 2009 would be sufficient for it to pass? You do realize 30 is less than 50, right?

Sixty votes is the fig leaf that the cowardly use to justify standing for nothing.

60 votes was the reality in 2009/2010. 60 is stupid, but it is also what was in place at the time.

And for a bonus, single-payer supporters like Sanders said there was only about 10 votes for single-payer at the time. Do you need help figuring out 10 is less than 50?

LBJ, the greatest arm twister who has ever held the White House, with a much more liberal Congress, with insurance companies not able to donate unlimited money to political campaigns and PACs, could not get it done.

Single-payer was not possible to pass in 2009/2010. But the good news is if you want it to pass: the ACA moved the fight to your statehouse. Get to work.

[PedXing]

70. You asked how one could win Leiberman's vote.

Since I didn't think Leiberman's vote was necessary, I really didn't need to address it. However I posited a possible tactic, for your benefit, not mine.

I'm not sure of your 30 vote vs 50 vote reference concerning the filibuster, but you need a simple majority to change senate rules, so 50 of 58 senators certainly seems plausible.

As for whether it was even possible to get single payer, again, it is the job of the whip to whip the votes. One thing is certain, not trying guarantees failure.

Democrats seem quite comfortable not trying. But I'm not surprised. There seems to be no penalty for inaction.

[lumberjack_jeff]

20. Medicare for all would be unambiguously constitutional

This law has been challenged and dented and tweaked because it was a hodge podge of bandaids, designed primarily to protect everyone's profit interest.

All the posters upthread are annoyed that they perceive this as a criticism of Obama; it's not, it's a criticism of our government generally.

[stevenleser]

23. If you can control the SCOTUS justices as well as this implies, I have a laundry list of wishes for

you.

[PedXing]

27. But it was important to make the crappy the enemy of the good.

Democrats these days are all about small steps instead of grand ideas. And it's always the Republicans fault, even when we control it all.

But I beat a dead horse.

[RufusTFirefly]

28. Single payer is good for nearly everyone, including the majority of businesses

Unfortunately, not those businesses that control Congress.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

29. There is no question Public Option could not have been achieved, for a variety of reasons.

For the same reason the business community is urging the political activists on the SC (the 5 cons) to NOT gut ACA is the reason a PO was never in the cards, profit.

Money.

Etc.

How do we get to a medicare for all type system?

Votes....voting for any and all politicians who answer more to the people than they do Wall Street.

These politicians come in varying degrees. One Democrat may be more likely than another to push for single payer, but in the end I believe the Democratic Party is leaning in that direction.

They damn well better be because this bullshit system we have now is, well, bullshit.

Even with ACA (huge improvement) we are still all being fucked daily

[PedXing]

30. Exactly! Sweet dreams.

[treestar]

34. the bully pulpit is not magical

and the Republicans would be challenging single payer in the court, too. Even more rabidly.

[Doctor_J]

41. If the democrats had passed Medicare for all, there wouldn't be enough republicans left

to accomplish anything. Heritage Care brought the republicans back from the dead.

[treestar]

61. How does that follow?

Republicans would still be there.

[Doctor_J]

40. it was all theatre. big insurance and pharma fixed the game ahead of time, and siezed

the opportunity to completely destroy any hope for single payer, pretty much forever. Destroying the liberal wing of the democratic party was a bonus for them.

[Skittles]

43. pretty sad how many DUers don't that, Doctor_J

yup

[Doctor_J]

45. The Profit Preservation and Mandatory Middleman Act had two main goals besides the obvious

One was to actually make the profits and profiteers a permanent part of the system, pretty much impossible to dislodge. The second was to obliterate the coalition of hopeful liberals, populists, young people, and new voters who swept the Dems into office in 2008. It was an unconditional success on both fronts. We now have for-profit healthcare and huge right wing majorities that aren't going away any time soon.

[HereSince1628]

42. The "if-only" list can get unmanageable someone needs to be on this

because the Whitehouse has moved into the role of "let the chaos ensue".

I understand their logic...

but using millions, including 5 million children, as pawns in n-dimensional chess is going to offend first the senses of people who care about the poor and children. I'm not sure the left has the stomach to watch it develop to the point the right will finally give in.

[brooklynite]

44. If we had gone the single payer route six years ago, we wouldn't have single payer...

...or anything else.

There was no popular or political support for single payer. We made the progress we could and can now build on what we've got.

[Doctor_J]

46. Single payer was favored by more than 60% of the electorate

There was no popular or political support for single payer.

False

We made the progress we could and can now build on what we've got.

Except that the PPMMA was a step backward, not something we can "build on". It will have to be UNdone before we can move toward actual healthcare.

[brooklynite]

47. Not the point...

...there are many issues people say they care about; the issue is do they care enough. How many elected officials lost votes BECAUSE they didn't support Single Payer?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

53. You have your medicare...

which typically only covers 80%.

If we'd gone the single payer route, you might be 100% covered now. Sigh.

[Agnosticsherbet]

56. It is a fantasy to think that single payer was even in consideration.

Single Payer was not considered. We did not have a House or a Congress that would enact single payer, so it is a fantasy to even bring this up.

Worse, it would not have mattered what Health Care system was enacted, Republicans would have done exactly the same thing.

[HereSince1628]

57. If I'd a gone for a paper route 6 years ago I wouldn't be in this mess, either....

What? Well...anyway it's probably true...

Single payer doesn't have a chance until the exchanges are failures

[abelenkpe]

58. One of the three main reasons given for offshoring VFX

Medical costs. Who knew that countries with national health care plans meant businesses could save on employee costs? Well, the VFX industry figured it out and sent it's jobs to Canada, New Zealand and the UK. Cool, huh? Wonder how many other industries could save doing the same?

[1StrongBlackMan]

59. True, the ACA wouldn't be before the SCOTUS ...

But then, we'd have the same health care financing system that allowed denial based on pre-existing conditions, a life life-time pay out cap, unlimited med-loss ratios, and 19+ million uninsured.