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Single Payer Healthcare? Know anything about it?


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England has a single payer system. I believe France also. I think Germany as well. Canada has one that allows for additional private insurance I think. Please correct me on any of this if you can.

Here in the U.S. the folks who wanted to discuss this issue at the recent Obama round table on the future of healthcare in America were not invited and when they showed up anyway they were arrested. So much for the so-called level playing field. Go to www.democracynow.org to find out what's going on.

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England has a single payer system. I believe France also. I think Germany as well. Canada has one that allows for additional private insurance I think. Please correct me on any of this if you can.

Here in the U.S. the folks who wanted to discuss this issue at the recent Obama round table on the future of healthcare in America were not invited and when they showed up anyway they were arrested. So much for the so-called level playing field. Go to www.democracynow.org to find out what's going on.

First off, who are these "folks" :huh:

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well all i know is the father-in-law can't get approval from his insurance company for his recurrent cancer treatment back in the states...so he waits...

here in norway, they won't even accept our u.s. tricare insurance for my kids...because all kids are covered here, they won't even consider applying for payment... :blink:

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First off, who are these "folks" :huh:

This entails a little reading but is very important to the future of healthcare in America. Most voters in this country have zero knowledge regarding the single payer option as the mainstream media has essentially blacked out all discussion or reference to it. Follow these links to begin to understand what it's all about.

www.democracynow.org/

www.singlepayeraction.org/

The following conversation is a good introduction.

AMY GOODMAN: Baucus’s raucous caucus. Five people were arrested yesterday at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on healthcare reform and charged with “disruption of Congress.” They were protesting Committee chair Senator Max Baucus’s refusal to include any advocates of a single-payer healthcare system in a series of hearings on healthcare. Last week, eight doctors, lawyers and activists were arrested as they sought to put a single-payer advocate at a table of fifteen witnesses. At yesterday’s hearing, none of the thirteen witnesses testifying was an advocate of single payer.

Senator Baucus, a Montana Democrat, opened the hearing on a cautionary note, warning against any disruptions.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: I respect the views of everyone here, including everyone in the audience. And that respect, in turn, means listening and not interrupting when others are speaking. I sincerely hope that everyone here today, including our guests, especially guests in the audience, will afford these proceedings with that level of respect.

AMY GOODMAN: As Senator Baucus spoke, a group of about thirty nurses stood up and turned their backs on him. They wore red scrubs with signs on their backs that said, “Nurses Say: Stop AHIP, Pass Single Payer.” AHIP stands for America’s Health Insurance Plans, a lobby group for the health insurance industry. After standing for a few minutes in silent protest, the nurses walked out of the hearing to applause.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: But the current tax exclusion is not perfect. It is regressive. It often leaves people to buy more health coverage than they need. [applause] We should look at ways to modify—[applause] we should look at ways to modify the current tax exclusion so that it provides the right incentives.

AMY GOODMAN: After the nurses walked out, a group of five doctors, nurses and single-payer advocates stood up one by one and spoke directly to Senator Baucus before being led out by police.

DEANN McEWEN: I am a registered nurse. Registered nurses have a legal duty to advocate to change circumstances that are against the interests and wishes of our patients. Today is the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birthday. Florence Nightingale said—

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: Committee will be in order. Comments from the audience are inappropriate and out of order. Any further disruption will cause the committee to recess until the police can restore order.

DEANN McEWEN: Florence Nightingale said—sir—

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: Committee will be in order. Committee will stand in recess until the police can restore order.

DEANN McEWEN: Florence Nightingale said, “Were there none that ever hoped for better, there would never be any better.” Until there’s a single-payer healthcare system in this country, there will never be safety for patients that need access to [inaudible]—

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY: Mr. Chairman—

SUE CANNON: The people at this table have failed Americans for thirty years.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: Committee in order. We will stand in recess until the police can restore order.

SUE CANNON: We want single payer at this table. Healthcare is a human right. We want guaranteed healthcare. No more Blue Cross’s double crosses. We want guaranteed healthcare. No more Aetna or—thank you. No more Aetna or CIGNA bosses. We want guaranteed healthcare. We want to see our doctors when we need and get our pills that are guaranteed. We’re tired of private insurance greed. We want guaranteed healthcare. In California, SPHK means guaranteed healthcare. And HR 676 guarantees healthcare.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: Let me just speak a few minutes.

JERRY CALL: Senator Baucus, my name is Jerry Call. I’m with PNHP.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: Sorry.

JERRY CALL: Sixty percent of Americans—

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: Come to order. Committee will recess until order can be restored.

JERRY CALL: —and 60 percent of the physicians want a single-payer system. Why do you insist on spending more money, when the single payer would give it to us at the price we’re spending now? Sixty percent! Why not 60 percent of the people in front of you representing single payer? Sixty percent of the people want single payer. This is a sham! All you’ve got is special interest groups up there.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: This committee will recess until the police can restore order. I’ll ask for the police, please come more expeditiously.

DR. JUDY DASOVICH: Why aren’t single-payer advocates at the table? Healthcare should be for patients, not for profit.

DR. STEVEN FENICHEL: My name is Dr. Steven Fenichel. And it is a sense of outrage that brings me to your Senate chambers. You have been entrusted in doing the people’s work, and yet [inaudible]—

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: We will stay in recess until the police can restore order.

DR. STEVEN FENICHEL: —special interest groups, the insurance companies, the hospitals for profit—

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: And I’ll say to everybody else out in the audience who may be similarly inclined: believe me, we hear you. We deeply respect the views of everyone here. We have an extremely open process, and I just urge everyone to respect the views of others by not interrupting those who are speaking. There will be plenty of time to meet with everybody. This is a long, involved process. And so, those of you in the audience who are not panelists and wish to be heard, I urge you just to contact my office, and we’ll figure out a way to talk to you. I’ll figure out a way to listen to you. I’ll be there, personally, to listen to you. So I urge you to take that option, rather than interrupt and be rude to our panelists here, who have come a long distance and spent a long time trying to make very thoughtful presentations to the committee. But I will meet with anybody who wants to meet with me.

AMY GOODMAN: All five protesters were arrested outside the hearing room and taken away for booking.

Russell Mokhiber is the founder of the group singlepayeraction.org . It’s been organizing the protests. He was the first person arrested last week at the Senate Finance Committee hearing on healthcare reform.

RUSSELL MOKHIBER: …in this room right now who are willing to take a seat at that table to testify in favor of Medicare for All, single payer. They should be at the table. You can’t exclude what the majority of Americans want and the majority of doctors want.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: Committee will be in order. Committee will stand in recess.

AMY GOODMAN: Russell Mokhiber joins us now from Washington, DC. He’s also editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter. And joining us from Baltimore, Maryland, is Dr. Margaret Flowers. She’s a pediatrician and co-chair of the Maryland chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. She’s speaking today at a rally in Washington, DC, as part of a national day of action for single-payer healthcare. Other speakers include independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Michigan Congress member John Conyers, the chair the House Judiciary Committee.

I want to start with Dr. Margaret Flowers. You were arrested last week, the first doctor to be arrested. Why?

DR. MARGARET FLOWERS: Well, for so many years, doctors and nurses have been trying to deliver quality healthcare in this country, and it’s become increasingly difficult. We have tried to have our voice heard. We really requested to Senator Baucus that he include a single-payer advocate at these roundtable discussions, and we were told very clearly that there would be no invitation coming. And so, we felt that and I felt that we couldn’t be silent any longer. We needed to stand up on behalf of our patients, on behalf of our colleagues, and speak out.

AMY GOODMAN: Russell Mokhiber, talk about these actions. So the last week, there have been two Senate Finance Committee hearings, thirteen people arrested. As we just heard, Senator Baucus said, “I will meet with you.” He talked to the people in the audience as he was being interrupted, one after another.

RUSSELL MOKHIBER: Well, first of all, good morning, Amy, from corporate-occupied territory, Washington, DC, where the drug companies and the health insurance companies control every nook and cranny. You know, Senator Dick Durbin last week said that the banks own Congress. That, too, where Obama and the corporate Democrats are engaged in what Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, called “the futility of piecemeal tinkering.”

Everybody knows that single payer is going to be here sooner rather than later. The question is, are—sixty Americans die every day from a lack of health insurance, and are we going to get it done sooner rather than later?

So, the problem was that you have this lockdown on Capitol Hill, where the corporations, the health insurance industry is in control. Senator Baucus has had twenty-eight witnesses over the span of these two hearings, not one of which was a single-payer advocate.

And as Dr. Flowers said, the majority of Americans, majority of doctors support single payer. Get rid of the private health insurance industry. Save $400 billion in administrative costs and profits, use that money to insure everyone. You have a card, an Americare card, when you’re born, and you can go to any doctor, any hospital in the country. So this is what the American people want. Insiders say this is what we’re going to get, sooner or later. Why not just have it now?

Well, the reason is because the health insurance industry will be put out of business, and they control Senator Baucus and the senators on the Senate Finance Committee.

So, all we wanted that day last week was to pull up a seat at the table and put Dr. Flowers there so she could explain to the American people what single payer was about. And Senator Baucus, instead of allowing us to do it and listening—having one out of the fifteen a single-payer advocate, Senator Baucus called the police and had us put in handcuffs and hauled out.

You know, the faxing, the phone calling, all of that’s not working anymore. We have to use a battering ram to break what’s going on, break down what’s going on in Congress. That’s why we started Single Payer Action. You know, when we launched it, the Democracy Now! audience was incredibly generous, went to our website, signed up, donated. And we’re doing now a creative civil disobedience all over the country, because we’re getting locked out by the mainstream media, we’re getting locked out of Congress. And the only way that this is going to happen now is people to—people all over the country to directly confront their members of Congress.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Russell Mokhiber and Dr. Margaret Flowers. We’re going to come back to them. I want to ask Dr. Flowers about these polls that Russell cites indicating people’s support for single payer.

And then we’re going to be joined by Howard Zinn, the legendary historian, here in our studio in New York. A new film is being made that will be aired on History, the new history channel, called The People Speak. And among those who are in this are, oh, Eddie Vedder. He’ll be our break.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Yeah, that’s Eddie Vedder singing “Masters of War” by Bob Dylan. In a few minutes, we’ll find out why and what this film Let the People Speak is all about.

But right now we’re joined by Russell Mokhiber in Washington, founder of singlepayeraction.org. He’s editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter. And Dr. Margaret Flowers in Baltimore, a pediatrician there, who is co-chair of the Maryland chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Doctor Flowers, the issue of these polls, who supports single payer in this country? And then explain exactly what it is, since it’s so rarely talked about in the media, except as a reference to be criticized.

DR. MARGARET FLOWERS: Right. Thank you. So we have numerous independent polls done by groups like CBS, New York Times and Yahoo!, that have consistently shown that 60 percent or more of the American people favor a national health program based on single payer.

And recently, there was a poll taken where they used the term “socialism”—“Would the country be better off if we had socialized medicine?”—which is, you know, the worst word we’re supposed to use. And 46 percent of the public said, yes, we would be better with socialized medicine. Thirty-nine percent said they didn’t think we would be better. But clearly, 60 percent or more of the American public favors this type of system.

And then, if we look at the doctor polls, we have a physician poll from two years ago, where they used the American Medical Association database. And the AMA tends to be a fairly conservative group of physicians. They represent less than 30 percent of physicians nationwide, but they tend to be the more conservative. And out of that group, 59 percent favored a national health program. And if you looked at the primary care specialties like pediatrics, it was much higher, in the seventies and eighties.

So there’s clearly support from the public and from physicians for single-payer healthcare. It’s just Congress who’s having a hard time coming around.

And the reason we support it is that single-payer healthcare would create a national health system. We don’t have a system right now. Everything is very fragmented and very confusing. It would create a single system where every person is included, and it covers all medically necessary care. It frees doctors and patients to make medical decisions without interference from the insurance companies, insurance companies who are only trying to profit off of this situation and are making it very, very difficult to provide quality care in this country.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask about President Obama. Monday, standing with the—well, all of the health industry leaders, saying that, you know, they were going to be voluntarily shaving some $2 trillion off US healthcare costs over the next ten years. Among those gathered were executives from HMO giants Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and HealthNet, Inc., and the health insurance lobbying group America’s Health Insurance Plans, from American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, from medical device companies, and from the pharmaceutical industry, including the president and CEO of Merck and former congressman, Billy Tauzin, now president and CEO of PhRMA, the massive industry lobbying group. Russell Mokhiber, your take on this meeting?

RUSSELL MOKHIBER: Well, Amy, you had Dr. Quentin Young on your program in March. He’s the founder of Physicians for a National Health Program and a friend of President Obama, when he was in Chicago as a young politician and when he supported single payer. And Quentin Young called President Obama dishonest, and he is dishonest, because—and the corporate Democrats are dishonest, because they know that single payer is the only way that’s going to solve this problem, and yet they’re keeping it off the table, and yet they’re cavorting with the health insurance industry, which should be put out of business. So this is the problem.

The problem is not a question of—everybody in this town knows what the answer is and knows this is going to be the answer. The problem is, they don’t want to confront it. They don’t want to confront it because of the political power. And so, we’re going to force them to confront it. The enemy is no longer the health insurance industry or the pharmaceutical industry. The enemy is the corporate Democrats, the liberals and the corporate liberals in Congress, who say they support healthcare for all, but are opposed to the only thing that will get us there. So that’s why we’re doing these actions, because we’re directly confronting the corporate liberals, Max Baucus, President Obama, Senator Chris Dodd—and we’re going to be doing this all over the country—and saying to them, “It’s time now that you put aside your ties to the corporate industries, to the pharmaceutical industry, and that you do the right thing for the American people.”

AMY GOODMAN: What are those ties?

RUSSELL MOKHIBER: Well, for example, Senator Baucus, over his career, has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry and from the drug industry. And so, from my point of view, when Senator Baucus says single payer is off the table, he’s speaking on behalf of the industries. He is not speaking as a representative of the people.

Same for President Obama. I mean, President Obama, why not have an advocate, a doctor advocate, at the White House speaking for single payer? When he held his first summit, at Single Payer Action we wrote about the fact that he was excluding the single-payer advocates. There was a protest scheduled, and he threw the single-payer advocates a bone by having Congressman Conyers there and someone from PNHP there, and the protest was called off. We will not call off the protests. We will continue to engage in creative civil disobedience until this is delivered, sooner rather than later.

AMY GOODMAN: And if the hearings are closed, Russell?

RUSSELL MOKHIBER: Well, they’re going to close the hearings to mark up the legislation. But it’s not just going to be in Congress. We’re going to be doing this all over the country. We’re going to be doing it in congressional districts, and we are doing it in congressional districts.

The regular means of communications have been shut down. Congress is not listening. Congress is only listening now to the big industries, to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. And so, we have no choice now. When we stood up—and this is going to take doctors and nurses. And that’s why this is a winnable issue now, because doctors and nurses are so frustrated that they’re starting to see that this is the only way to do it.

One of the doctors that we were arrested with last week, Dr. Carol Paris, is a psychiatrist in Maryland. And while we were sitting there in jail, she was telling me that one of her specialties is disturbed doctors. These are doctors who are so frustrated with the system that they’re taking it out on their patients. So she sees a way to relieve the pressure on doctors as single payer, so that doctors can once again focus on their patients. Right now, they’re being distracted by insurance. I have a doctor friend in Maryland right now who’s setting up his own business, and it’s a total nightmare. He’s got to deal with all these insurance companies and the bills and setting up the system—no time to focus on the patients.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Margaret Flowers, the number one issue that is often raised in the media is people like choice, and people who have healthcare plans that they like, they want to keep them and be guaranteed of that. What do you think of the public plan next to keeping private plans, something that it sounds like President Obama is supporting?

DR. MARGARET FLOWERS: Right. Well, I agree that Americans want choice, but I think Congress is confused about what kind of choice Americans want. What they really want is a choice of healthcare provider, the choice of where they can go to seek their healthcare, and the choice of their treatment, because health insurance doesn’t provide healthcare, it doesn’t cover healthcare at a time when you’re the sickest, is when you run into the difficulties in trying to work with the health insurance.

And the problem with the public-private option and the public plan that they’re offering is that it keeps so many of the problems that we currently have. It keeps this next to the public option, yes, but you still have all of these thousands or over 1,500 private insurances that you still have to deal with. And so, in terms of savings, we’re not going to see the savings that we need to see if we have a public-private option. We only save about one-seventh of the money that we could save with a single-payer system.

And we know with all the money we can save going to single payer, we can provide more healthcare. We need to change the conversation and stop talking about health insurance and start talking about creating a system that provides healthcare.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Russell Mokhiber, this latest news today of Social Security and Medicare being threatened, going bankrupt, not being solvent? We have just thirty seconds to go.

RUSSELL MOKHIBER: Well, it’s interesting that, you know, the health insurance companies got passed so-called Medicare Advantage, where we, the taxpayers, pay the health insurance companies to undermine Medicare. Medicare is single payer.

You know, one of the propaganda pieces of the health insurance industry and Max Baucus and President Obama is they want a uniquely American solution to healthcare, by which they mean not single payer, because it’s so-called “socialist.” But it’s interesting that The New Republic ran an interview with the guy who created the Taiwanese single-payer system. They looked all over the world, and they modeled their single-payer system on our Medicare, a uniquely American solution.

So this is what we need. We need single payer, Medicare for everyone, single payer, and we’re going to get it done with creative civil disobedience. Go to singlepayeraction.org, sign up and donate, and we’ll get it done with a million active Americans.

AMY GOODMAN: Russell Mokhiber, founder of singlepayeraction.org, also editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter, and Dr. Margaret Flowers, speaking to us from Baltimore, Maryland, a pediatrician and co-chair of the Maryland chapter of the Physicians for a National Health Program.

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Well, the European style healthcare is a lot different.

I would say going to the doctor in Europe is sort of like getting medical care at the DMV (division of motor vehicles) in the states, and we all know all that experience is. :slapface:

But, the problem with this sort of healthcare in America is that Americans are generally extremely unhealthy, and don't give a crap about it either.

Just go to the food store and watch what people are pushing around in their cart.

I don't want my taxes to go up in order to pay for people who bring medical problems upon themselves.

In Europe, they are more health aware. They eat better and exercise more.

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Well, the European style healthcare is a lot different.

I would say going to the doctor in Europe is sort of like getting medical care at the DMV (division of motor vehicles) in the states, and we all know all that experience is. :slapface:

But, the problem with this sort of healthcare in America is that Americans are generally extremely unhealthy, and don't give a crap about it either.

Just go to the food store and watch what people are pushing around in their cart.

I don't want my taxes to go up in order to pay for people who bring medical problems upon themselves.

In Europe, they are more health aware. They eat better and exercise more.

I'm seeing that people are really uninformed on this issue. Read the following and get up to speed because the mass media has misled and misrepresented the issue greatly. Today, May 29th there will be demonstrations all over America demanding a seat at the table for single payer healthcare-its a human right in the worlds riches country!!!!!!!!!!!

BILL MOYERS: So just who has been getting the chance to testify before Congress? A quick look at this panel of witnesses appearing before the Senate Finance Committee, it tells you all you need to know. The Business Roundtable. The U.S. Chamber Of Commerce. The conservative Heritage Foundation. Representatives of the insurance industry, including Blue Cross Blue Shield - all in favor, more or less, of the status quo.

Progressive groups have been heard from, too - the Center For American Progress, the labor union SEIU, Families USA - those who largely support President Obama's goal of a public health insurance plan to compete with the private sector. Hopefully this competition would create a real market that would bring down costs.

Once upon a time, a young Barack Obama thought single-payer was the answer. Listen carefully:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan.

BILL MOYERS: That was State Senator Obama, who said there was just one big obstacle standing in its way.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: We may not get there immediately, because first we've got to take back the White House, and we've got to take back the Senate, and we've got to take back the House.

BILL MOYERS:Fast forward six years. President Obama has everything he said was needed - Democrats in control of the executive and both houses of Congress. So what's happened to single-payer?

For one thing, as President, Obama is now looking for consensus, peace among all the parties. There was a big pow-wow in Washington last week. The president asked representatives of the health care business to reason together with him at the White House. They came, listened and promised to cut health care costs voluntarily over the next ten years.

Some of us looking on at this charm offensive - some of us who'd been around a long time - were scratching our heads. We've heard this call for voluntary restraint before.

Way, way back in the 1970's Americans were riled up over the rising costs of health care. As a presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter started talking about how the government would be clamping down.

JIMMY CARTER:We've built a haphazard, unsound, undirected, inefficient non-system, which has left us unhealthy and unwealthy at the same time. So we must plan, and decisively phase in, simultaneous reform of services and refinancing of cost.

BILL MOYERS:When Carter got to the White House, the very industry that only a decade earlier had tried to strangle Medicare in the cradle, seemed uncharacteristically humble and cooperative. "You don't have to make us cut costs," they promised. "We'll do it voluntarily." So Uncle Sam backed down, and, you guessed it, pretty soon medical costs were soaring higher than ever.

By the early 1990's, the public was once again hurting in the pocketbook. Now Bill and Hillary Clinton, feeling our pain, tried once more.

HILLARY CLINTON: Universal coverage has to be the bottom line and do not let anybody tell you any differently.

BILL MOYERS: This time the health care industry acted more like Tony Soprano than Mother Teresa. It came after the Clinton reforms with one of the most expensive and deceitful public relations and advertising campaigns ever conceived.

MAN: Find what you like in the President's plan?

BILL MOYERS: Who could forget America's sweethearts, Harry and Louise?

WOMAN: It doesn't have the choice we want, look at this. The government picks health plans, then we have to pick a plan from their list.

BILL MOYERS: Paid for, of course, from the industry's swollen profits.

As the health care business dumped the mangled carcass of reform into the Potomac, they said once again, "Don't worry, we'll cut costs voluntarily." Sure. Now health care costs are rising 6 percent a year. Anyone with a memory could be excused for raising their eyebrows at these latest promises.

But leaving nothing for granted, the industry is pouring big money into lobbying, more than half a billion dollars last year alone, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. They're also shelling out megabucks for a publicity blitz and ads attacking Obama's public plan or any health care reform that threatens to reduce the profits from sickness and disease.

TV ADVERTISEMENT: With Congress starting on health care, let's remind the politicians, Americans know what works.

BILL MOYERS: This is from a group calling themselves Conservatives for Patients' Rights. They've been spending more than a million dollars on ads like this in the month of May alone. They've hired a conservative public relations firm called CRC. You remember CRC - the same high-minded folks who brought you the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the gang who savaged John Kerry's service record in Vietnam. Just who runs Conservatives for Patients' Rights?

RICHARD L. SCOTT: Let's have real reform that puts patients first.

BILL MOYERS:The guy in the ads. His name is Richard L. Scott, an entrepreneur who took over two hospitals in Texas and built the largest health care chain in the world, Columbia/HCA.

In 1997, Scott was fired by the board of directors after the company was caught ripping off the feds and state governments for hundreds of millions of dollars in bogus Medicare and Medicaid payments, it was the largest such fraud in history. The company had to cough up $1.7 billion dollars to get out of the mess. Scott got off - you should pardon the expression - scot-free. According to published reports he waltzed away with a $10 million dollar severance deal and $300 million worth of stock. So much for lower overhead.

Rick Scott and other like-minded industry representatives have made their views known. Meanwhile only a handful of expert witnesses in favor of the single-payer option have been allowed to testify in the many congressional hearings on health care reform held this year...

One of them was Dr. David Himmelstein, who is with me now. Dr. Himmelstein is on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and serves as head of the Division of Social and Community Medicine at Cambridge Hospital, where he practices as an internist.

He and his partner Dr. Steffi Woolhandler founded the advocacy group Physicians for a National Health Program.

Also with us is Dr. Sidney Wolfe, the acting president of the non-partisan group Public Citizen. He's been director of that organization's health research group since its creation in 1971. Dr. Wolfe also teaches internal medicine at Case Western Reserve and is a senior associate in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins University. He edits the website worstpills.org.

Welcome to you both.

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: Nice to be here.

BILL MOYERS: Dr. Wolfe, I am puzzled as a journalist as to why this subject of single-payer, whether one is for it or against it, seems totally out of the debate in Washington. It's just not on the table. And it's not in the- on the radar screen of the press. Why do you think that is?

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: I think the reason is, unfortunately, simple and frightening. Which is the power of the health insurance industry. Whereas, only about one out of 14 people trust the insurance industry as being honest and trustworthy.

BILL MOYERS: That's a poll?

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: It's a Harris poll last fall. One out of 14 people think that the health insurance industry is honest and trustworthy. On the other hand, in Washington, they're in bed with the health insurance industry. Just as Wall Street and the banks have bought the Congress to get what they want in terms of the bailout, the health insurance industry has bought and influenced members of Congress and the President so much that they don't even consider the possibility of a plan that doesn't have a health insurance industry.

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: That's the big problem here is people want to find a solution that they can get through without a big fight with the insurance industry. Unfortunately it's economically and medically nonsensical - you can't actually have a health care program that works, if you keep the insurance industry alive.

BILL MOYERS: Well, then how do you account for the fact that so many people in other polls say, "We're satisfied with what we have for health care, and we don't want it taken away from us"?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: Well, people are satisfied many times with their doctor and with the hospitals they go to. And most Americans aren't sick and don't actually have experience of their health insurance. But when you get sick, and actually have to use your insurance, that's when people find out the dark side of the policies they have. Huge co-payments, huge deductibles.

We did a survey of people filing for bankruptcy in courts around the country. Half of the bankruptcies are medical bankruptcies in this country. And of those medical bankruptcies, three quarters of those people had insurance, at least when they first got sick. But people have insurance that goes away after they actually need it.

BILL MOYERS: But why in the dozen or so hearings that I've tracked in Washington recently on health care reform have there been so few advocates of the single-payer?

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: The seats at the table, or the witnesses at the hearing are, in a sense, controlled by the health insurance industry. They don't want someone essentially saying, "We don't need a health insurance industry. We can do what most other countries in the world have done. Have the government collect the money and pay the bills and get rid of all these people who are wasting $400 billion a year on excessive administrative costs."

So, we have got a fragmented health insurance industry. And it thrives on being fragmented. The drug countries make much more money with the fragmentation, because there's no price control. The insurance companies make much more money, 'cause they can push away people who aren't going to be profitable. The only people that suffer are the patients.

It's- 1968, I was one of a group of physicians that disrupted the American Medical Association's convention, because they were saying then, and in, for all practical purposes it's still true, "Health care is not a right. It's a privilege." And we said, quietly, as we took over the microphone, "That's wrong." We're now 41 years later, and it's still a privilege. And too many people in this country don't have that privilege. It's resulting in huge numbers of people being ill, sick, and almost 20 thousand people dying a year because they don't have health insurance.

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: And there's big money being made. I mean, that's the basic problem here. There are billions being made from the private health insurance industry, from the drug industry, and that gets spread around Washington. The biggest recipients of insurance money, of drug money, are the powerful people who chair the committees, who decide what witnesses testify. President Obama himself received huge amounts of insurance money.

BILL MOYERS: But then let's establish what single-payer is. Can you do that succinctly?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: It's what we used to call national health insurance. So government collects the money for health care from taxes, you don't pay premiums, instead you pay taxes, and pays all the bills. Hospitals remain privately owned and operated. Doctors remain mostly in private practice. But their bills go to the government insurance program, just as they do today with Medicare, but we'd be able to streamline the payment system if we had only one payer instead of Medicare being one among many.

So a hospital would get paid like a fire department does today. You have one check a month that pays for the entire operation. And that means you can eliminate the huge billing apparatus of the hospitals and the doctors offices where we're employing many people to do our billing. And fighting with insurance companies. You save $400 billion a year that way.

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: Here's an example of what David's talking about. Over the last 30 plus years there have been maybe two and a half, three times more doctors and nurses. Pretty much in proportion with the growth in population. There are 30 times, 3-0 times more health administrators. These people are not doctors. They're not nurses. They're not pharmacists. They're not providing care. Many of them are being paid to deny care. So, they are fighting with the doctors, with the hospitals to see how few bills can be paid. That's how the insurance industry thrives by denying care, paying as little out as it can, getting the healthiest patients, and yet getting reimbursed as though these patients were sicker than they really are.

So, it's a system that is guaranteed to waste a lot of money. And what we've said is that the amount of money that's just being wasted in one year is enough to pay for more than enough of the premiums for those that are uninsured and the people that are underinsured. So, it's not a matter of bringing more money. I mean, the industry is now saying, "We could save $2 trillion over the next ten years. Let us. Trust us. We will lower our costs and everything." The amount that can be saved over the next ten years by just eliminating the health insurance industry is $4 trillion, in one fell swoop.

BILL MOYERS:I've heard you say that several times. I've read you're saying it. We can do away with the health industry. I mean, them's fightin' words, a very powerful part of the economy, and they're a powerful part of the political statute, as David said.

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: It absolutely is. And in Canada, back in 1970 or so, they were spending the same percentage of their gross national product as we were on health. They had huge numbers of uninsured people. They had the same insurance companies. Blue Cross Blue Shield. They decided to just get rid of the health insurance industry. That it was the only way to go. They had experimented with it in Saskatchewan ten years earlier. It worked so well, they couldn't wait to do it nationally. So, where there's a will, there's a way. There is no way we are ever going to get to having good health insurance for everyone, as long as there's a health insurance industry, in the way, obstructing care.

BILL MOYERS: What do you say to the argument, though, of people who've gone to Canada, and looked at that system. "Well, there are long waiting lines. You can't choose your doctor." In fact, conservative critics say that this will lead to what they dread which is socialized medicine. Would single-payer in fact mean I could not choose my doctor?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: Well, in Canada, actually, you can go to any doctor, any hospital in the country.

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: Much more choice than here.

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: Yeah, Canadians have better choice than we do. They spend half as much per person on health care as we do. And if you're going to cut our budget by 50 percent, we'd have to have some waiting lines. But if we're willing to keep spending at our current levels, we could cover everybody with first dollar coverage with terrific access to care.

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean first dollar coverage?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: No co-payment, no deductible. You go to the doctor. The whole bill is paid. Any doctor, any hospital in the country. That's the model. And that's not just me who says that. The Congressional Budget Office has said that in the past. The Government Accountability Office says we're spending enough to do that. And we're really talking about social insurance, like Medicare is social insurance. But doctors and hospitals remaining privately owned.

BILL MOYERS: That's a good point. Because we're struggling to manage Medicare's costs. Great alarm bells going off about the rising cost of Medicare. And are you here proposing more of the same?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: Well, Medicare actually takes care of the sickest, most expensive parts of the system. And in a way, they subsidize the private insurers. They take the unprofitable patients off the private insurer's hands. But also Medicare has adopted the private insurance method of paying for care. So, instead of paying hospitals in a lump sum, without the bureaucracy, they subcontract with Blue Cross, basically, to pay the bills, band aid by band aid, aspirin by aspirin. And that's an inefficient way of doing it, that we ought to do away with. We could save Medicare huge amounts of money, as well as the rest of the system.

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: I mean it's interesting, aside from the obvious health benefits keeping 18 thousand or 20 thousand people from dying every year, because they don't have insurance, they also- it's good for business. Because they are essentially taking some- it's not like a bailout for business, but its money that is going to relieve business of worrying about escalating costs, having to drop workers.

I mean, in this country, the response to these escalating costs is a number of employers say, "We just aren't going to have health insurance anymore." So, Canada has been a very good model. It's been going on for 38 years. Canadians would revolt, literally, if someone said, "We're going to take away your health insurance system."

BILL MOYERS:Am I correct in thinking on the basis of what I've read that with single-payer, the benefits would be publicly financed, as you just said, but that the health care providers would, for the most part, remain private?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: They certainly would. As would the hospitals.

BILL MOYERS: They wouldn't work for the state.

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: No, no.

BILL MOYERS: They wouldn't get their salaries some...

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: In fact, private practice is more common in Canada than it is here in the U.S. And in the U.S., we're seeing more practices being taken over by big corporations. And people, basically, doctors becoming employees of large bureaucracies. In Canada, private practices remain the norm. And that's what we're saying ought to continue in the U.S.

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: I mean, essentially it's socializing the financing. So, I mean, when people use this scare word "socialized medicine" I don't know what they mean. We have socialized libraries. We collect taxes, and we have libraries, we have socialized police. The financing is socialized. In those cases, they are working for a city. In this case, the doctors are in private practice. The hospitals are operating privately. And any patient- it's interesting the system is called Medicare, and so, everyone in the country has a Medicare card and that allows them to go wherever they want. They don't have this limited number of providers, which is getting more and more limited, as everyone who has health insurance in this country knows.

BILL MOYERS: Let me show you a video of what President Obama said in New Mexico the other day.

BARACK OBAMA: If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think the idea of moving towards a single-payer system could very well make sense. That's the kind of system you have in most industrialized countries around the world. The only problem is that we're not starting from scratch. We have historically a tradition of employer based health care and although there are a lot of people who are not satisfied with their health care, the truth is that the vast majority of people currently get their health care from their employers, and you've got this system that's already in place. We don't want a huge disruption as we go into health care reform where suddenly we are trying to completely reinvent 1/6th of the economy.

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: When I hear something like that, you sort of have to say, "What about all the people whose health care is so disrupted that they can't even get in the door at all? What about the people that are underinsured?"

It's interesting, because before Medicare passed, which is in 1965, we had older people, either uninsured or going to private insurance. And within a year of the time Medicare passed, the disruption, meaning that they were actually able to disrupt not having health insurance or having under insurance, 90 percent of them were already in Medicare. So, we already have a model in this country of how non disruptive it is.

When you hear the word "disruptive" what you're really hearing is code for "it would disrupt the health insurance industry." And that's exactly what needs to be done. So, disruptive is the wrong word.

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: And for doctors, patients, nurses, it's not disruptive. It actually frees us to do our work. But for the insurance industry, for people making $225 thousand a day as CEOs of insurance companies, yes, it's disruptive for them.

BILL MOYERS: You are both doctors, but are there many doctors like you in support of single-payer? Is there any evidence of their numbers?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: Well, we actually started our group, Physicians for a National Health Program with just a few of us. But we now have 16 thousand members. So, there are a lot of doctors who are activists on this issue. But more than that, surveys are showing that most doctors support national health insurance-

BILL MOYERS: Why?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: ...at this point. Because our lives every day taking care of patients drive us to it. The paperwork, the bureaucracy, the game of mother may I we play with the insurance companies. All of those are not what we went into medicine for. We went into medicine, most of us, 'cause we wanted to take care of people. This system doesn't let us do that. And even my conservative colleagues, our organization has Republicans in it. There, at this point, single-payer supporters, 'cause they say "Let me practice medicine."

BILL MOYERS: I want to get your thoughts on President Obama's plan. As I read it, it's very difficult, at this moment, to know the details of it.

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: 'Cause there aren't any details.

BILL MOYERS: There aren't any details. But he seems to be advocating a public option that would compete with the private insurance-driven sector, as a way of lowering the cost. What do you think about it? Is that- am I reading his plan correctly?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: Well, most of the cost savings he's talking about are really illusory, I think. And my research group has done most of the research work on administrative costs in health care. And the administrative costs he's talking about saving are a tiny fraction of the potential savings under single-payer. 'Cause hospitals have to keep their bureaucracy, if you're dealing with hundreds of different plans. And doctors have to keep the bureaucracy in our office. You don't actually get the streamlining that you get from having one payer that has one set of rules and can pay lump sum budgets to hospitals. But more than that, we're worried that the public plan actually becomes a dumping ground for the unprofitable patients. As it's happening in Medicare.

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean? How would that happen?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: Well, the private insurers have all kinds of tricks to avoid sick patients, who are the expensive patients. So, you put your signup office on the second floor of a walkup building. And people who can't navigate stairs are the expensive people.

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: Get rid of the heart failure patients.

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: Or you have your signup dinners in a rural area at night, where only relatively healthy people are able to drive and stay up that late. So, there's a whole science to how you sign up selectively healthier patients. And the insurance industry spends millions and millions of dollars on that. And would continue to as they've done under Medicare. Selectively recruiting healthier patients, who are the profitable ones, leaving the losses to the public plan.

And there's really, despite regulations in Medicare that says you can't do that, that's continued to happen. And it means that every time a patient signs up with a private plan under Medicare, we pay 15 percent more than we would pay if that same patient were in the Medicare program.

BILL MOYERS: We the public?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: We the public. But it's not been efficient. It's been effectively a subsidy. And that's what we fear will happen with this public.

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: Well, we also have some experience. Because in seven states, ranging from Washington to Minnesota, to other states, Maine, they have tried what amounts to a mixture of a private and a public plan. And it's way too expensive as David mentioned. As long as you have private plans in there, everybody still has to do all the bookkeeping.

So, it has failed. I mean, as Einstein has said, the definition of insanity is doing something over and over and over again, and expecting to have a different result. We've seen the same unsatisfactory, unacceptable result, in state after state after state after state after state, why mess up the whole country with it?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: And I'm suffering through it as a doctor in Massachusetts, where we've done really the closest model to what Obama is proposing. And our plan is already starting to fall apart. They're already draining money out of the community clinics and public hospitals that have been the safety net.

BILL MOYERS:Let me read you a quote from this current issue of "National Review," which is quite critical of a public plan. "That failing Massachusetts experiment, like the failed Clinton health plan of 1994, relies on coercion, mandates, price controls, and government rationing. If comprehensive health care reform happens in 2009, it will follow suite and perhaps go even farther..." Here's the concluding punch line. And it seems to me to go to the concern of many people. "Universal coverage is impossible without coercion..."

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: Well, if coercion means, just as for libraries, the policies you have to pay, hopefully progressive taxes. That is a minor amount of coercion. In return for which you get: everybody covered. I mean, it isn't as though the United States is right and all the countries that have provided health insurance as a right are wrong. We are wrong.

So the right wing can be all kinds of scare tactics everything, sounds exactly like what the same groups were saying in 1964. If we provide health care for older people in Medicare it's going to lead to socialized medicine and pretty soon we're going to have coercion and all that kind of stuff. They've lost that argument but so far they've won for the last 44 years in keeping it form going farther and farther means everyone needs to be covered. As Tony Mazzocchi, a former friend, who died a few years ago, said, everybody in, nobody out. And that's what we're talking about. And right now...

BILL MOYERS: Everybody in and nobody out.

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: Nobody out. Right now we have millions, tens of millions of nobodies, our friends, people who need health care, who are out. That's unacceptable.

BILL MOYERS: I don't want the two of you to get out of here without wrestling with this very fundamental question. We're going to have to set limits, are we not? I mean, President Obama said recently that a decision was made to go forward with a hip replacement for his grandmother, even though she was in the last stages of life. But he knew that whether a hip replacement, when people are terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question. He was saying we have to make some tough choices about limiting care, don't we?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: Somewhere down the line, we do. But at this point, we do so much useless and even harmful medical care. And we waste so much on bureaucracy. That we could actually do everything that we know is useful for every American for what we're now spending. Ten years from now, with my colleague's inventiveness in figuring out expensive new things to do. We're going to have to come to grips with that. But right now, we could reform this health care system. Do everything that's helpful for every American for what we're now spending.

BILL MOYERS: So, what would you like to see in Obama's plan?

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: Well, we'd like to see Obama remember where he came from. And not only say, "If we were starting now from scratch, we would have a single-payer, but it's too disruptive." Instead of saying, "We are starting out from scratch, because we need to start out from scratch. There are too many people dying, being sick, ill, because they don't have insurance." And so, we would like Obama to espouse a single-payer program. The majority of people in the Congress would vote for it, if there were some leadership. Instead of saying, "It's politically impossible." It's politically impossible if everyone agrees that it's not possible, it won't happen.

If instead they say, "It's not only politically possible, politically feasible, and it's the only practical way it would happen." Anything short of that is essentially throwing billions of dollars at the insurance industry. And if you're afraid of the insurance industry, than you're afraid of doing the right thing.

BILL MOYERS:What makes you say, Sid, that the Congress would vote for this? Because there is a bill in Congress, under 100 members of the House have signed it and not very many Senators. And just this week, you mentioned Maine, Olympia Snowe, Senator from Maine, says, I think we ought to take any public option off the table for several years. I mean, what gives you the confidence that Congress would go along?

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: If we had leadership. If Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama said, "Let's be realistic. The only realistic way of taking care of this problem is to have a single-payer." We would get it. There is absolutely no barrier other than the insurance industry.

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: I guess the question is: do politicians actually want a legacy that's more than we got elected and made a lot of money for our later lives. So, you know, Tommy Douglas, who started the Canadian national health insurance program, his grandson is Kiefer Sutherland, the well known actor, was recently, in a Canadian survey, voted the greatest leader in Canada's history.

BILL MOYERS: The founder of the national insurance program?

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: Yep.

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: And that's the kind of legacy that Barack Obama and the leaders of this Congress have an opportunity to create.

BILL MOYERS: So, what are you up against? Where is the balance of power in this fight in Washington right now?

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: What we're up against, essentially, is the health insurance industry. They pick who sits at the table. They pick who votes. And so forth. I mean, we have a real absence of leadership. John Conyers, to his credit, has introduced HR676, which is a single-payer bill. Bernie Sanders has introduced a single-payer bill in the Senate. But the people who are on top, who could have an enormous amount of influence are too afraid of the insurance industry, the health insurance industry. And in some serious ways, they are as in bed with them as Wall Street and the banks were in bed with the Congress and have gotten their way, with their kind of bailout.

BILL MOYERS:What do the politicians have to fear from the industry? Does it come down just to the power of to the power of money? To the fact that campaign contributions really determine how elections go in this country?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: Well, I think there are going to be campaign contributions. There are going to be massive TV advertising campaigns. There is going to be an avalanche of resources put into the field to try and protect the billions of dollars of profits they make each year. So, I think the politicians really are afraid that they're going to lose their elections. And lose the pot of gold at the end of their political careers.

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: Money buys Washington, as you know. So I think we need a whole new culture there, we need a culture of courage, as opposed to a culture of cowardice. We need people who feel the pain of families who lose 20 thousand, 18 thousand people a year. And those are probably conservative estimates, which are probably much higher right now. This is a serious thing. It is a war on the American public being conducted, orchestrated, and thus far won by the health insurance industry.

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: I've been working on this for 30 years, and the encouragement is that the American people are much more mobilized than they were the last time we debated this issue. I'm old enough to remember that it looked like civil rights legislation was a lost cause, until we had Presidential leadership on it.

BILL MOYERS:Given that hope and these realities, what do you think will happen between now and August when Congress said it's going to act on health care reform? What should happen between now and then?

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: Well, I think the American people need to be very vociferous in standing up for what they need and what they want. And that means calling their Congressmen. It means demonstrations. It may mean civil disobedience. It means doctors in white coats coming down to Washington and letting them know that, in large numbers how we feel. And frankly, we need the President and we need the Speaker of the House and the Leader of the Senate to find their voice for the American people.

BILL MOYERS: Sid, you've been watching this and involved in this since 1971. What happens if they pass comprehensive health reform that is really just more of the same in disguise? What happens to health care after that?

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: Well, the country, whether it's the employers who have to pay for it, or the patients who are paying for it, is going to go bankrupt much more quickly. It is not economically feasible to pass anything other than a single-payer, government collecting the money and paying the bills, and provide health care. It's never been done in any country. Taiwan, of all places, said, we don't like the fact that 40 percent of our people are uninsured. They passed, essentially, single-payer plan and within a few years 90-95 percent of the people were covered.

So, we have lots of models to draw on. Learn something from Canada, learn something from Taiwan, from a number of other places. It's inexcusable that we do anything but that. Anything that passes is not going to work. I guarantee that, 100 percent. And David will agree with me.

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: Well, and what happens is that the health care system gets worse and worse, fewer and fewer people can actually afford the care they need. And we will be having this debate again, unfortunately, relatively soon. And I guess I fall back to Winston Churchill's quote that you can always rely on Americans to do the right thing after they've exhausted every other possibility. So, that's what we're working on.

BILL MOYERS: David Himmelstein and Sid Wolfe, thank you again for being with us.

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: Wonderful talking with you.

DR. DAVID HIMMELSTEIN: Thank you.

JULIE ROVNER: The supporters of single-payer health care point out that their plan is not on the table.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: That's true. They do. They make that quite clear.

JULIE ROVNER:And, as they... so what do you say to them as they point out that they have significant support, and yet their plan is the one thing that is not on the table at the moment.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS:Well, just to be honest, it's not on the table - the only thing that's not - because it cannot pass. It just cannot pass. We can't squander this opportunity. We can't spend - we can't waste capital on something that's just impossible.

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Are you saying I am uninformed?

Listen, in a perfect world, everyone would have healthcare, but we need to be realistic.

I have seen so many arguments on healthcare, that are very convincing on both sides. I've seen a lot of differing numbers. I don't know what to believe.

I personally don't think the cost savings outlined by the doctors in your post are realistic. I think they are more of a dream.

You're also forgetting that this system would likely create an even bigger bureaucracy than what currently exists. Maybe not, but anything run by the government scares me.

As much as I would love to be compassionate and think with my heart, I personally think national healthcare is un American.

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Yes, we humans are smart enough to take care of each other. We humans are not smart enough to take care of ourselves.

I don't want 40 million more people going to the doctor for an aspirin. I don't want 40 million more people going to the same amount of doctors we have now.

This is just a liberal wet dream, they lost the race for racial equal right, womens rights, and can't get gay rights going. They can't defend this country base on talk, they can't keep American jobs from going oversees based union loyalty. They need a win.

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Yes-the USA needs SINGLE PAYER! It is so long overdue it's a joke!

People have been trying to get Single Payer in this country for decades.

In the early 90's I worked for a non profit call center. I called members of (a client) Oregon Fair Share. They were trying to get Single Payer in that state and eventually nationwide. I don't even know how many insurance companies/hmos I've had over the years, or how many times I've gone on Cobra between jobs. I've also had MA. It drives me NUTS to have to be changing all the time. Every plan has it's own network of providers, etc. I can't remember the horror stories I've heard from citizens for years, because

we don't have Single Payer.

Especially in this economy, we need Single Payer. It would SAVE so much money, as well as provide a permanent safety net for every citizen, regardless of the type of employment they have. You'd think corporate America would be pushing for it as well, because it would remove the expense of paying medical benefits for employees! But there's still opposition to it

based on the false statements that it would take away choice (would give you MORE choice!) and would be "socialized" medicine. The vast majority of providers in Canada are private employees, not government. It's only the INSURANCE that would be "socialized". The people who are currently making a profit from private insurance/hmos want uninformed citizens.

We have "socialized" K-12 education in this country. Can you imagine where we'd be today if K-12 had been run by corporations, and only those who could afford to pay tuition got an education? Yes the public schools aren't perfect, but they are still the only guarantee of education for all citizens in this country regardless of income, gender, religion (or non-religion), disability etc. It's about time we decided that health care is a right in this country too! Rep John Conyers has a Single Payer Bill-I think it's HR676. So far President Obama has said Single Payer is "OFF THE TABLE". He needs to hear that is unacceptable. I'm going to write a letter about Single Payer and send it to The President, my Senators & Representatives, & others.

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So glad to see Amy Goodman/Democracy Now mentioned!!!

She is a genuine hero-one of the very few progressive voices in media who will speak the truth, even if it's unfavorable to the Democratic Party. Another great source is Greg Palast.

He's a US citizen, but I think he moved to England because he couldn't get published here.

I had a hard time voting for Obama, because he doesn't support Single Payer. I voted for Nader in the previous 2 elections. But I voted for Obama, because I was tired of Nader/Nader voters being blamed for Bush, and I thought McCain/Palin could be even worse than Bush/Cheney! Good old Dennis Kucinich supports Single Payer, and is not accused of "spoiling" elections like Nader. But that's because he stays in the party, and WILL NEVER get the endorsement of the Democratic Party/be on the ballots. If we can't vote for him in the General Election, what's the point? If Nader hadn't been kept out of the debates/off the ballots by the DEMOCRATS, Americans would have learned that Nader supports instant runoff voting. There are no spoilers with that kind of voting (You vote for your first choice, and if they don't wind up in the top 2, your vote goes to your second choice. That way you can vote for a 3rd party candidate/someone the media tells you "can't win", without worrying that the candidate you dislike most will win.).

Anyway...it's touchy to talk politics with people. One of the great things about (talking) music is that it crosses all boundaries, including politics!

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It would be nice to have health care for those who cannot afford it, but knowing a few things I know about universal health care, I don't think I can say I'm for it.

I have a good friend who is Canadian, and she said that even with a life-threatening disease, if you don't have the cash to pay for a private doctor, you may as well have NO health care.

It would be nice to have something that gives those who don't have a job that offers it an affordable alternative. I just don't know what that is without screwing over the doctors who have huge student loans to pay back and who work many, many hours in order to make their career.

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Are you saying I am uninformed?

Listen, in a perfect world, everyone would have healthcare, but we need to be realistic.

I have seen so many arguments on healthcare, that are very convincing on both sides. I've seen a lot of differing numbers. I don't know what to believe.

I personally don't think the cost savings outlined by the doctors in your post are realistic. I think they are more of a dream.

You're also forgetting that this system would likely create an even bigger bureaucracy than what currently exists. Maybe not, but anything run by the government scares me.

As much as I would love to be compassionate and think with my heart, I personally think national healthcare is un American.

Wow. I don't know where to start. National Health Care un-American? As for bureaucracy, Single Payer is much LESS costly! With Single Payer, you eliminate the multiple administrative/billing systems, and advertising costs.

Canada pays LESS per capita on health care than the US, while covering every citizen! And Canadians have THEIR choice of Doctors (not their health insurance/hmo's choice), and Canadian Doctors report higher job satisfaction, because they don't have insurance companies/hmos telling them what kind of treatment they can prescribe.

It's "American" because it would level the playing field, by covering people working more than one part-time job, employees of small businesses & the self-employed!

I have a disability from birth that limits my ability to exercise, and other medical conditions.

I didn't choose any of them. While some medical conditions can be prevented, many cannot.

You can't assume all medical problems are caused by the people who have them.

Your last statement is puzzling. You say you "would love to be compassionate, and think with your heart", but imply that you can't. Why not? It's not un-American to be compassionate!

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Yes, we humans are smart enough to take care of each other. We humans are not smart enough to take care of ourselves.

I don't want 40 million more people going to the doctor for an aspirin. I don't want 40 million more people going to the same amount of doctors we have now.

This is just a liberal wet dream, they lost the race for racial equal right, womens rights, and can't get gay rights going. They can't defend this country base on talk, they can't keep American jobs from going oversees based union loyalty. They need a win.

Was this intended of a joke? If not, I'm a-scared.

How awful of people to work for those pesky rights established in our Constitution, for all Americans!

Not everyone feels safer since we started wars in Afghanistan & Iraq. Not all jobs that went overSEAS were union.

I think I'll go curl up in a blankie now.

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Yes, we humans are smart enough to take care of each other. We humans are not smart enough to take care of ourselves.

I don't want 40 million more people going to the doctor for an aspirin. I don't want 40 million more people going to the same amount of doctors we have now.

This is just a liberal wet dream, they lost the race for racial equal right, womens rights, and can't get gay rights going. They can't defend this country base on talk, they can't keep American jobs from going oversees based union loyalty. They need a win.

Was this intended of a joke? If not, I'm a-scared.

How awful of people to work for those pesky rights established in our Constitution, for all Americans!

Not everyone feels safer since we started wars in Afghanistan & Iraq. Not all jobs that went overSEAS were union.

I think I'll go curl up in a blankie now.

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Yes, we humans are smart enough to take care of each other. We humans are not smart enough to take care of ourselves.

I don't want 40 million more people going to the doctor for an aspirin. I don't want 40 million more people going to the same amount of doctors we have now.

This is just a liberal wet dream, they lost the race for racial equal right, womens rights, and can't get gay rights going. They can't defend this country base on talk, they can't keep American jobs from going oversees based union loyalty. They need a win.

Was this intended of a joke? If not, I'm a-scared.

How awful of people to work for those pesky rights established in our Constitution, for all Americans!

Not everyone feels safer since we started wars in Afghanistan & Iraq. Not all jobs that went overSEAS were union.

I think I'll go curl up in a blankie now.

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Are you saying I am uninformed?

Listen, in a perfect world, everyone would have healthcare, but we need to be realistic.

I have seen so many arguments on healthcare, that are very convincing on both sides. I've seen a lot of differing numbers. I don't know what to believe.

I personally don't think the cost savings outlined by the doctors in your post are realistic. I think they are more of a dream.

You're also forgetting that this system would likely create an even bigger bureaucracy than what currently exists. Maybe not, but anything run by the government scares me.

As much as I would love to be compassionate and think with my heart, I personally think national healthcare is un American.

I dont mean to imply your not informed and I'm sorry for that. The government would not run heathcare, doctors and healthcare providers would and privately so. Government would pay through taxation (our costs individually would decrease with the absence of primiums and co-pays). Think of the peace of mind we would all enjoy not fretting about losing our insurance do to job loss or the possibility of a serious illness like cancer bankrupting us financially which happens so often as healthcare is administered presently.

Please explain to me how garrenteed healthcare is un-american? You don't mean it's un-american because historically in America the status quo has been "dog eat dog" or "survival of the fittest" do you?

I brought up this issue recently at a gathering and the individual I was talking with said, "what do you mean, everyone in America can get healthcare if they need it". He was talking about medi-cal which requires one to not have a car worth over $1500, have no bank account or other assets, and basically be desitute. Not a satisfactory situation in my opinion.

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I like the idea of corporate grants for healthcare, much the way the scholarship foundations are run.

A corporation can give and the government can allow a tax deduction for the gift.

A foundation can accrue interest and continue to fund healthcare organizations, and at the same time, reduce the cost of healthcare to the consumer.

I think the National Center for Disease Control could facilitate the outreach by regionally evaluating the health concerns that are most pressing and responding to them at no cost or low cost to the consumer.

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I don't know why so many of my posts wind up on these forums more than once. Sorry about that. Many times when I click on active buttons on websites (for ex. to "submit" things), nothing happens at all! We have a crappy old iMac with snail speed internet. Hopefully one of these days I'll be getting a new PC with high speed.

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I don't know why so many of my posts wind up on these forums more than once. Sorry about that. Many times when I click on active buttons on websites (for ex. to "submit" things), nothing happens at all! We have a crappy old iMac with snail speed internet. Hopefully one of these days I'll be getting a new PC with high speed.

Try checking with the administrator (admin) who has helped me plenty as I'm all thumbs near any computer :slapface: . You can PM from your controls. Hope that helped. :)

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It would be nice to have health care for those who cannot afford it, but knowing a few things I know about universal health care, I don't think I can say I'm for it.

I have a good friend who is Canadian, and she said that even with a life-threatening disease, if you don't have the cash to pay for a private doctor, you may as well have NO health care.

It would be nice to have something that gives those who don't have a job that offers it an affordable alternative. I just don't know what that is without screwing over the doctors who have huge student loans to pay back and who work many, many hours in order to make their career.

The issue here with single payer Mandy is that the Canada Health Act specify's that any Federal money, which comes in the form of transfer payments, be used for health care only. Some provinces receive more money than other's. It depends on the economic ability and how much each individual province contributes to it's own health care through it's own taxation. What some provinces have done over the last 20 yrs is take that money and put it into general revenue. Other's have deliberately not contributed to their own cause forcing the Feds to give more. Either way you look at it, the provinces have made a conscious effort not to fund the system properly. Waiting lists for surgery have been created by this and some privatization has occured.I guess the question really boils down to what the real costs of public health care are and can they be sustained. I happen to feel that in this country at least, a little less free money being handed out to able bodied people and

a restructuring of government spending priority would easily cover the costs. Having said that, we do need more doctors and it's the doctors presently in practice who are standing in the way of that. Because of this, we see way too many people going to the hospital emergency when a visit to the clinic would do just fine. I would normally say charge those people a fee but if there aren't doctors availible it just doesn't seem fair to me. The question really isn't about the quality of doctor single payer produces, we don't lack quality. It's more a question of do you think your tax dollars are going to go where they should. That my friend is something all of you in the USA are going to have to ensure should single payer ever be the way of things

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The issue here with single payer Mandy is that the Canada Health Act specify's that any Federal money, which comes in the form of transfer payments, be used for health care only. Some provinces receive more money than other's. It depends on the economic ability and how much each individual province contributes to it's own health care through it's own taxation. What some provinces have done over the last 20 yrs is take that money and put it into general revenue. Other's have deliberately not contributed to their own cause forcing the Feds to give more. Either way you look at it, the provinces have made a conscious effort not to fund the system properly. Waiting lists for surgery have been created by this and some privatization has occured.I guess the question really boils down to what the real costs of public health care are and can they be sustained. I happen to feel that in this country at least, a little less free money being handed out to able bodied people and

a restructuring of government spending priority would easily cover the costs. Having said that, we do need more doctors and it's the doctors presently in practice who are standing in the way of that. Because of this, we see way too many people going to the hospital emergency when a visit to the clinic would do just fine. I would normally say charge those people a fee but if there aren't doctors availible it just doesn't seem fair to me. The question really isn't about the quality of doctor single payer produces, we don't lack quality. It's more a question of do you think your tax dollars are going to go where they should. That my friend is something all of you in the USA are going to have to ensure should single payer ever be the way of things

I totally agree "Ally" the majority of Americans feel their tax money is wasted on the very things they oppose. Insuring the proper disbursement of tax dollars is of highest priority in this country. The lobbyists in D.C. have incredible budgets and far to much influence representing the few at the expense of the many-this fact is considerably problematic and will require something quite drastic to alter. The struggle for universal healthcare will no doubt be as difficult as any other civil rights (an many do consider it a civil rights issue) struggle of the past with many untold sacrifices by the few brave souls yet to be realized.

If you could elaborate more on how private practice doctors are standing in the way I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks

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There has always been the belief that the "sin tax" was used to cover much of Canada's health care. How much of this is true I don't know. Cigarettes and beer are very expensive there as I need not remind you. But the health care here now is a joke. A very bad joke. Even if you have the best, you are getting pounded with co pays and the cost of many services and meds billed by hospitals are far higher than they should be. Something must be done and done fast.

Think of it as one big group insurance policy. The only question that has to be asked is, how much are you willing to pay for that insurance. Clearly competition in the US hasn't created a cheaper system and I would even go further and say that it hasn't created a better system of care . It's created an unequal system. What you in the US have sitting right in front of you is an opportunity to

fine tune the single payer idea. My suggestion is that you take that opportunity and be heard. Oh yeah, they weren't invited

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