Alan- What are the chances of single payer or any meaningful health reform initiative making it back to congress when in all likelihood, the dems will have a lesser majority? When do you see the next round happening?
My answer:
Kevin, I think the next "round" has already begun. I think it is unfortunate that PNHP is leading the fight for single-payer universal healthcare by default because these docs just want in on some the action the insurance companies have been getting.
In my opinion, the next "round" in the struggle for healthcare reform will not begin in earnest until PNHP is willing to join efforts with some kind of coalition willing to do two things:
1. Make single-payer the first step towards socialized healthcare/public healthcare; and,
2. Insist that single-payer be part of a reform that includes a vastly expanded public healthcare sector along the lines of VA and the Indian Health Service--- both fine examples of socialized healthcare.
As a member of the Minnesota DFL State Central Committee and state convention delegate to the 2006 Minnesota Democratic-Farmer Labor Party's 2006 State Convention, I was the author of the resolution for single-payer universal healthcare which 72% of the delegates voted for and just about every single Democrat running for public office in Minnesota denounced--- including U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar who, quite literally, walked out of the convention in a fit of rage announcing to the media she would never support such a resolution. The resolution only passed after two other attempts which saw it defeated. I took 6 years just to get one resolution passed. Over these six years I visited every single county in Minnesota at least two times--- once to find supporters of single-payer, then to bring its most ardent supporters together to win delegate positions at the State Conventions.
All of this began with one little leaflet distributed widely door-to-door followed up by dozens of gatherings in people's homes which led to a resolution passed unanimously at our Lake Township precinct caucus and then taken into the Roseau County Convention, where it again passed unanimously after a long extended debate where state officials of the MN DFL attempted to have it defeated to no avail.
This resolution stated very briefly what I think most people in this country are really looking for in healthcare reform if given the facts:
"No-fee/no-premium, all-inclusive, comprehensive, cradle-to-grave, single-payer universal healthcare as a first step towards public healthcare--- publicly financed, publicly administered and publicly delivered paid for with funds cut from wars and the military budget with any other needed funding to come from taxes on the rich."
On our previous two state convention votes this resolution got a very narrow majority two times... however, to get a resolution passed requires at least 62%.
To achieve this 62% threshold, we needed to severely compromise our language and what we were advocating to support for outright single-payer universal healthcare based upon the Canadian model--- and, we found out real quick that we were not even going to get the language based upon the Canadian model so we had to omit that.
However, we were able to fight off attempts to include language suggesting "affordable" healthcare. Real single-payer has nothing to do with "affordable" because people pay on their income just like with Social Security.
I have tested the language in our very first resolution among the general population in Michigan, Wisconsin and Michigan and the support is overwhelming.
One letter to the editor I wrote was published in 87 newspapers--- large and small--- with a number of editors asking me for permission to publish my letter at the time Obama started pushing his healthcare initiatives which I refuse to call "reforms" because reforms always make something better--- never worse like the Democratic Party initiatives will do.
Liberals, progressives and most importantly--- the left, have failed to become fully engaged in this struggle for healthcare reform with many of these people and the unions selling us out as they helped Obama kill single-payer.
Personally, I think single-payer by itself is dead; it will have to be combined in some way--- at least in a limited way--- with a vastly expanded public option because the reality is that these more than thirty-million people without access to healthcare right now, if placed on single-payer would probably bankrupt this country.
The Canadians definitely have the very best single-payer system in the world; but, keep in mind, their total population is less than the more than thirty-million people in our country without access to healthcare and the Canadian system is beginning to develop serious problems because too many profiteers have their greedy fingers in the till.
Tommy Douglas, the "father" of the Canadian healthcare system which was a compromise with what he wanted--- socialized healthcare--- warned the Canadian people in a speech he delivered to thousand after rising from his death bed for his last speech, that unless Canadians moved quickly towards socialized healthcare they were running into problems--- today, Canadians are beginning to have to confront those problems, and we should develop a movement with or without PNHP that gets us off on the correct path to real healthcare reform.
I have no illusions, this is going to be a fight which will most definitely require a new kind of political party in this country--- probably something along the lines of the New Democratic Party in Canada.
Consider this; if we continue to work inside the Democratic Party, it took us six years to get one resolution passed that the Democrats running for public office denounce... in my opinion, we are wasting precious time not "declaring our independence from the Democratic Party" as Terri DeMatteo has been suggesting.
Socialized health care would create almost ten million new jobs in this country; single-payer would create just under three-million new jobs. Socialized healthcare is more cost-effective than any other healthcare system while serving the healthcare needs of the most people.
Peace = healthcare reform + jobs...
A very simple formula the socialist Albert Einstein who was for peace and socialized healthcare would have appreciated
The sooner we stop bending and bowing and caving to Barack Obama and the Wall Street interests the sooner we will win real healthcare reform.
Keep in mind, that Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor advocated that socialized healthcare should have been part of the New Deal reforms... Perkins was called a "communist" and a "Bolshevik" by the reactionary Democrats and the American Medical Association.
Are we going to let these Wall Street coupon clippers, vultures and parasites rob us of our chance to attain real healthcare reform, again?
We need to find a way to get socialized healthcare on the table where it belongs so the American people have all the choices on their plates... this is what democracy is all about.
Check out my blog:
http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/united-states-hass-800-military-bases.html
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