NYC protesters tell PBS -- Put Single Payer Back on the Table

[PHIMG]

Run time: 05:07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltorFJLfo-4   Posted on YouTube: April 14, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: April 15, 2009 By DU Member: PHIMG Views on DU: 771

 

[Captain Hilts]

1. Tell the president! nt

[daleanime]

2. Loving it!

:toast:

[MedioGringo]

3. And keep the Medicare option on the table under Obama's plan

Backdoor single payer. Which actually might happen.

[PHIMG]

4. Show me where the public option is medicare?

Baucus and Grassley say there will be not public plan in the Senate bill. Will it survive the conference committee?

We don't know.

What effect do you think having Obama come out for single payer have on the movement for single payer?

Instead he endorsed this undefined "Public Option" which gets to be defined by Conservatives in Congress.

The Public Option is a scam.

The insurers will be able to undermine it.

What happened to putting American citizens first? Why is everything a compromise between deep pocket special interests and SANITY?

[MedioGringo]

7. Definately agree with you here

Q: "What effect do you think having Obama come out for single payer have on the movement for single payer?"

A: It legitimizes the issue and helps push public opinion towards a public option. On a side note, conservatives lose their minds, call for a revolution, further marginalize themselves. That last sentence would have been a joke a few months ago.

I don't think the public option is a scam in theory, I think people like Howard Dean really do want to use it as a backdoor to single payer, but I do agree that it could basically become a scam if we get some kind of token public option from congress.

But realistically, I think a public option is the only real shot we have at getting single payer in the near term. I mean HR676 has maybe 10% chance of passing in the next 4 years (even if it's the right thing to do), but getting a legitimate public option has maybe 50/50 chance. That's my main focus right now. If Obama lets the special interests water down the healthcare plan, my faith in him will be zero.

[PHIMG]

10. I agree with you that right now we have little chance

However if more and more people join the single payer movement (Healthcare Now, PNHP, California Nurses, PHIMG, Healthcare Not Warfare, etc) then we'll build to that point.

And I'd like to point out that California nearly had single payer had it not been for the Gropenfhurer. I wouldn't' be surprise if the bill out of Baucaus makes it illegal for states to do single payer at the state level.

If Obama would LEAD on this issue and come out for Single Payer, it'd be a great thing.

If we get to 100 cosponsors for HR 676.

If we pressure the media into covering it.

The thing is we get a bad bill out of the Congress and that's it. The politicians and the media will be telling us for 15 years how great our health care system is, even tho most of the problems will remain. The private insurers will get richer and richer, health inequities will be the same, hospitals will continue to shut down, Medicare and Medicaid will continue to whither on the vein, costs will not be contained.

You really have to look at Mass. The Mass bill is about 95% of what they are trying to get done in Congress.

The idea that the public option (if we get it) will be some huge win IS A SCAM. It's a scam.

As to Dean, sure he's a great guy, I'd be more trusting if he was in PNHP or he'd come address PNHP. But maybe he's misguided, or overly optimistic... or maybe he just want TO GET HEALTH CARE DONE, in any form. So the DEMS have that feather in their cap for the midterms.

Bottom line is, the movement to make health care a human right in this country must continue after 2009 and the destination is a real single payer health care system. We won't have health care equality without it. We won't have real cost control without it. We won't end the self-rationing of care with out it.

The public option is a distraction at the very least, a scam at the worst. The more I learn about it (and I read HCAN (pro) and PNHP (anti) everyday), the more I think it's a sorta (the fix is in) kinda thing.

If Democrats wanted to fix health care once and for all they'd fight for single payer (move to the left) instead they move to the right with the individual mandate and throw a bone to progressives with the public option.

Centrist democrats want to get it done to get that feather in thier cap and they don't want to get destroyed by the insurers and the drug companies. It never entered thier political calculus to help nurture a huge grassroots demand for a real solution. They don't want the people getting to uppity and demanding things from thier democracy. They don't want to unleash the "monster".

It was a huge life to the spirits of the single payer movement with Al Gore came out for Single Payer on his Current website. Why can't Obama do the same?
It's really a sad state of affairs.

[girl gone mad]

5. k & r

Good work!

[pleah]

6. K&R

[maryf]

8. K&R!!

we got single payer's back!!

[krkaufman]

9. kudos to those citizens... n/t