I appreciate your support on single payer. This could be a major event not just for health care (which is big enough) but also for a lot of other issues because getting single payer comes down to what every other issue comes down to — the status quo corporate interests vs. what is best for the country.
Health care is one where we have very broad support in the public for single payer. It is one where we have well organized nurses on our side and doctors have totally switched from 15 years ago as they have experienced the insurance industry and HMOs in their medical practices and hospitals.
And, on the other side the corporate control is blatant. The committee chair in the Senate is known as the “Senator for K Street” rather than Montana. Outside the committee room of the Finance Committee is “Gucci Gulch” because of all the wall healed corporate lobbyists that hang out there. And, then to keep spokesperson from single payer — the most popular choice — out of the hearings.
This overstepping is a big error that has given us an opportunity to stoke the outrage… Wherever health care town halls were held across the country (there were four) single payer was noted it everyone — inside and outside the town hall.
When Obama held his White House health care summit he received thousands of emails and phone calls and let a single payer doctor in — of course, he did not get to talk while the insurance industry opened and closed the meeting. And, in the Congress they are making things worse than Obama — they are talking about taxing health care benefits as income to pay for it and mandating that everyone buy the corrupt insurance that is available.
The public option alternative that Obama is pushing but that the Congress is unlikely to include is a actually a step backward. All the problems of the current system will stay in place and the insurance industry will use the public option to their benefit. They will raise rates on the chronically ill and high risk patients to force them into the public system. Then, they will use their lobby power to whine about how it is unfair competition to compete with the public option and push it to be under funded.
The result the public option will have the greatest cost and inadequate resources and will become evidence of how the government can’t run health care. Of course, the insurance industry profits will increase because they will have the consumers who don’t need health care but keep taking their payments.
So, we are up against very powerful interests who are allied with both parties. If we can overcome this in health care it will be a milestone in American democracy. It will take stopping the pro-health insurance legislation being worked on and then pushing forward the single payer
