Obama to Single Payer Advocates: Drop Dead

[Postman]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/03-15

Maybe a way forward to single-payer healthcare is to allow anyone the option to buy into Medicare?

[pnwmom]

1. I read somewhere recently that that would be one of the options under

Obama's plan.

[TBF]

2. If that is the case why will he not allow single-payer in general to be part of the

discussion? I've read in the press many times that Obama likes to look at a issue from all angles, and here on DU his avid supporters talk excessively about the importance of "bipartisanship", yet on this issue he will only talk with the insurance companies.

Why is that?

[annabanana]

5. Add your voice to the call:

White House
(a live person takes the comments)

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: [phone]

[TBF]

7. Thanks annabanana - I did my letter last night after reading davidswanson's

latest blog. I think we're supposed to make a concerted call effort tomorrow, correct?

[Postman]

6. Really?

his avid supporters talk excessively about the importance of "bipartisanship"....

Bipartisanship would be nice but it's not the end game. How can you be bipartisan with a bunch of lunatics?

I don't give a damn about bipartisanship at this point. The other side has so screwed this country up why even pay attention to these clowns....

[TBF]

8. I don't have any interest in working with those thugs either. If you discount

the sort of respite during the Clinton years (but he was still damned conservative in my view) we've been dealing with this crap for nearly 30 years by my count. Reagan sure wasn't interested in bipartisanship, and neither am I. Time to cut them loose and do our own thing.

[pnwmom]

10. I guess he must think that allowing anyone to buy into Medicare would

be politically more feasible than to immediately cut out all private insurance.

I'd be happy to enroll in Medicare, myself. And I think private insurers wouldn't be able to compete and eventually would "wither away."

[Bread and Circus]

3. 2 things:

1.) Obama won't discuss it, much to his discredit imo, because he thinks it is politically untenable. However, I think he's tone deaf on this. The country and the medical community is ready for single payer.

2.) Obama feels his "back door" to single payer will be purchasable federal health insurance (being able to buy medicare coverage).

[Zen Democrat]

4. Single-payer doesn't require a commission or advocate to figure out.

Single-payer is always in the background, and every insurance-based program can be measured again it. I think single-payer is inevitable, just as nationalizing the banks is inevitable -- it's the speed of getting there that we're haggling about these days.

[TBF]

9. Yeah, agreed. I tend to be impatient when people are dying. nt