Majority of Americans support Single Payer----Why hire an "adviser" who wants to PRIVATIZE MEDICARE?

[Faryn Balyncd]

Poll after poll shows a majority of Americans support a Single Payer health care system.


2 recent polls have show between 53% and 65% of Americans support expanding Medicare or a public program similar to Medicare cover all Americans.

"...53% supported the idea of extending Medicare to cover all Americans, creating a government-run system; and 36% opposed it."

www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/blog/shum-preston/2007/10/29/another-poll-voters-want-single-payer

Howard Dean says expanding Medicare is essential to real health care reform:

Howard Dean: Real Health Reform ‘Rises And Falls On Whether The Public Is Allowed To Choose Medicare’



“If Barack Obama’s bill gets changed to exclude the public entities, it is not health insurance reform…it rises and falls on whether the public is allowed to choose Medicare if they’re under 65 or not. If they are allowed to choose Medicare as an option, this bill will be real health care reform. If they’re not, we will be back fighting about it for another 20 years before somebody tries again.”





VIDEO

So why does the corporate media ignore Single Payer?


And why do we hire a "White House adviser" who wants to PRIVATIZE MEDICARE with NO PUBLIC COMPETITION?






If you were an insurance lobbyist hoping to design a POISON PILL to destroy forever the possibility of public Single Payer Universal Healthcare, could you design a plan more effective than the PRIVATIZATION/(“voucherization”) of Medicare as proposed in the well-intentioned, but misguided, Emanuel/Fuchs “Guaranteed Healthcare Access Plan”?


And, if you were an insurance lobbyist, what would you fear more than Howard Dean’s proposal to allow younger Americans to opt/in to Medicare?






:kick:

[SoCalDem]

1. When the "people" send legislators who truly support our wishes, AND

when we get enough of them IN there to OVERRIDE a veto, and when they DO it..

That's when we get what we want..


Anti-people's wishes lobbyists PAY TO PLAY..and they PAY to WIN..and that's why we lose...and that's why we'll never get it..

Unless we had a national referendum (the way the Swiss got their health care plan in effect), we will always get lss than we want or need..

[FreakinDJ]

18. Bullshit - you should have been at the Union meeting last week

Memebers out of work for months asking about the Stimulus Bill and will it help cover their medical cost while waiting for work to resume

Universal Healthcare was shouted more then once.

But yes the business agent and his staff took the time to explain to everyone exactly how the plan works

[jody]

2. If I accept polls claiming they support "Single Payer" I really doubt that respondents understand

the full ramifications of what that means.

Absent less biased polls, I'll stick with my opinion that average blue-collar and gray-collar workers don't really know what they support.

[sandnsea]

3. Expanding Medicare does not equal single payer

It means giving people the option of buying into Medicare, and keeping private insurance as well.

[Faryn Balyncd]

15. But PRIVATIZING Medicare is perhaps the surest way to KILL eventual Single Payer.........

You are correct that expanding Medicare is not the same as single payer.

Single payer is the only option that will allow tapping the 31% administrative" cut currently taken by insurance companies and applying it to actual health services - - and give some relief to Americans and American industry from the spiraling medical costs which make many of our productive industries non-competitive.

I believe single payer should be on the table, not ignored by corporate media and all but ignored at the health reform summit.

While Howard Dean does favor Single Payer at this time, the expansion of Medicare he proposes is a ybrid system which will lead to an increasing number of Americans opting in to Medicare.

This would move the nation in the direction of Single Payer (without the shocks of immediate displacement of insurance industry jobs) and force insurance alternatives in the hybrid system to be more competitive.

This incremental free-choice expansion of Medicare is felt may be the most politically feasible incremental path to Single Payer.

The contrary proposal -- the Emanuel/Fuchs privatization plan with private insurance vouchers and no public option, would, by eliminating Medicare will make future adoption of a Single Payer much more traumatic, much less likely to be adopted, amd. by killing the prospects of eventual Single Payer, will enthrone private insurance corporations as the sole access points to medical care.

Seem like Howard Dean is the person we should be hiring, not Zeke Emanuel.

[leftofthedial]

4. It is not the goal of the Obama healthcare plan

to serve the majority of the people.


The goal is to win reelection. That will require producing something that the corporations can grudgingly support and that can be spun as an improvement to the common folk.

[blues90]

8. That's right .

That's all the politicians ever cared about and it is their primary personal gain goal even today.

[1776Forever]

5. When I think about this I always go back to Tricky Dicky Nixon - quote>>>

This is a transcript of the 1971 conversation between President Richard Nixon and John D. Ehrlichman that led to the HMO act of 1973:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Transcript_of_taped_conversation_between_President_Richard_Nixon_and_John_D._Ehrlichman_(1971)_that_led_to_the_HMO_act_of_1973:

John D. Ehrlichman: “On the … on the health business …”

President Nixon: “Yeah.”

Ehrlichman: “… we have now narrowed down the vice president’s problems on this thing to one issue and that is whether we should include these health maintenance organizations like Edgar Kaiser’s Permanente thing. The vice president just cannot see it. We tried 15 ways from Friday to explain it to him and then help him to understand it. He finally says, ‘Well, I don’t think they’ll work, but if the President thinks it’s a good idea, I’ll support him a hundred percent.’”

President Nixon: “Well, what’s … what’s the judgment?”

Ehrlichman: “Well, everybody else’s judgment very strongly is that we go with it.”

President Nixon: “All right.”

Ehrlichman: “And, uh, uh, he’s the one holdout that we have in the whole office.”

President Nixon: “Say that I … I … I’d tell him I have doubts about it, but I think that it’s, uh, now let me ask you, now you give me your judgment. You know I’m not to keen on any of these damn medical programs.”

Ehrlichman: “This, uh, let me, let me tell you how I am …”

President Nixon:

Ehrlichman: “This … this is a …”

President Nixon: “I don’t …”

Ehrlichman: “… private enterprise one.”

President Nixon: “Well, that appeals to me.”

Ehrlichman: “Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason that he can … the reason he can do it … I had Edgar Kaiser come in … talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because …”

President Nixon:

Ehrlichman: “… the less care they give them, the more money they make.”

President Nixon: “Fine.”

Ehrlichman: “… and the incentives run the right way.”

President Nixon: “Not bad.”



..........

And that is how they have run the damn HMO's ever since! The less care the more THEY make!

I can tell you right now my son used to work for CIGNA as a person who would decide whether or not the subscribers got the care they needed! He was told NOT to give 90% of those that needed it the OK and for that reason he quit and moved on to another career.

:banghead:

[Stinky The Clown]

6. I said it before .... the opposers of single payer are greedy, heartless motherfuckers out only ....

... for their own betterment.

[Gabi Hayes]

9. you mean capitalists?

you and jesus and all them other commies have a problem with that?

[stillcool]

7. That's easy...

the people may participate in a poll, but they don't participate in their government. However, the Insurance Companies do.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. The powers that be prefer trickle down healthcare.

[cooolandrew]

11. This one has to be met with full force by the people, no more poor substitutes the real deal or>

nothing. The market should in no way be deciding this issue ever again. If they ain't got a Dean they can darn well get a scream for what should be a given not even a question mark.

[daleo]

12. Single payer works fine in Canada

It amazes me that folks in the U.S. believe otherwise.

[inna]

13. rec #15, NT

[TBF]

14. K&R n/t

[Joe Chi Minh]

16. Seems to have the prints of Bart Simpson all over it.

[fadedrose]

17. K

[Occam Bandage]

19. Because he hires hundreds of advisors across the political spectrum.

Nobody would care about Zeke Emanuel if he weren't related to the Dread and Evil Rahm.