Bernie Sanders is not afraid to talk about SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE

[ljm2002]

33. One thing is for sure...

...it will never pass until there is someone in a position of power who is willing to fight for it.

Sadly, President Obama was not that person. Yes, the ACA is a big improvement over what we had and I do believe he deserves a lot of credit for getting us that far. But he caved on the public option, trading it away behind closed doors, and many of us at the time were dumbfounded how quickly and how easily he did that. Remember, that was one of the key policies where he had differentiated himself from Hillary Clinton during the primaries.

Also, he and the Democrats did not even allow single payer advocates at the table -- they clearly did not want those dangerous ideas to be discussed openly. That tells me their agenda was not quite in the right place. They were too beholden to the private insurers and did not want to be seen as "unfriendly" to business. IIRC, right about that time one of our major car manufacturers decided to put a plant in Canada rather than in Michigan, in part because they did not have the burden of health insurance for Canadian employees -- but that never got any play during the ACA policy debates. A President who wanted to advocate for single payer could have made a lot of hay with that fact, but our President didn't say a word about it.

It's hard to say what might have happened if someone had advocated strongly for a single-payer system. If the rabid right wing can be successful in persuading people of things that go against their best interests, who's to say that a committed left wing cannot be successful in persuading people of things that are in their best interests? And how will we ever know if we DON'T EVEN TRY?