The Democrats have been playing around with the word "affordable" for a long time... here in Minnesota, a Democratic State Senator tried to pawn of a healthcare scheme through legislation, first as "single-payer universal healthcare," and when he couldn't get away with this, he started calling it "affordable universal health care."
Well, when I kept asking for a clear statement as to what he meant by "affordable," he said, "About $750.00 to $850.00 a month."
Most working people would have a very difficult time considering this "affordable."
Its time for the healthcare reform movements to convene a conference to discuss just what the requirements of the American people are when it comes to health care reform.
In my opinion, what we need is a national public health care system that is publicly funded, publicly administered with health services publicly delivered to the American people for free. If there are going to be any fees or taxes involved it should be like Social Security... payroll deduction with a large employer contribution. There would be no reason for such a tax to be higher than Social Security deductions.
Inna Talantova In my opinion, Senators (US and State as well) should pay for their own health insurance. They are able to afford it.
Bowen Roberts @alan--we need true universal ( single payer ) health care. your senator was scamming you on both counts. but you knew that. of course we'll have to pay for it. but no middle men, kind of like going right to the factory. available preventative care for everyone might even bring our (US) health profile back up to 1st world standards.
Medicare covers app. 15% of the oldest and sickest among us, including most end-of-life care (by far the most expensive). It is paid for primarily with a 2.9% payroll tax on wages, not income. Some people believe another 2.9% could cover ...our remaining youngest and healthiest 85%, but I think it would take a bit more (but no where near the 16-17% of GDP we spend now). The same year the head of Medicare & Medicaid earned app. $180,000 to manage the largest, sickest group we have, the CEO of United Health Group walked away from his job with $1.6 Billion in unexercised stock options, not including the hundreds of millions of $ he'd already cashed out, or the hundreds of millions of $ in addition that he was paid in salaries, or his retirement package. Go figure.
6% would be way too much for most working people. The Canadians do it for far less with payroll deductions and private delivery of health care services.
The problem is, private delivery of health care services in Canada is beginning to create a problem and now many Canadians are saying they need a socialized health care system in order to cut out the profiteers.
With a national public health care system that would cover everything from all the general health care needs from pre-natal to death and including eye and dental, a group of county and state health care administrators I have worked with over the years on health care reform, they tell us that with publicly financed, publicly administered and publicly delivered health care through a system of about 800 major health care centers supporting about 30,000 community based health care centers the cost would be about 1.2% payroll deduction for employees and 2% for employers. (This would NOT include initial start up costs but there are many ways to reduce the start up costs by using closed schools, doing what Manitobans had done, placing dental facilities in every elementary school which we could include children's complete healthcare in public schools vey cheaply--- Manitoba, a relatively poor Canadian province was able to place complete dental care facilities in every elementary school for practically peanuts and the Conservative Party came in and dismantled them all.)
By the way... Howard Pawley, who was the New Democratic Party Premier of Manitoba who led these reforms for dental care etc., is writing a book about his life and times heading up the Manitoba government... an organization like PNHP should consider bring Howard Pawley on a book signing/speaking tour... we could all learn a lot.
We would never consider turning our public schools over to the private-for-profit free marketers because we know this would result in massive illiteracy in this country so why would anyone continue to push for health care that leaves private delivery of health care intact.
I have traveled extensively throughout the Midwest talking to people about health care reform; what I have found when this real "public option," a national public health care system is explained people will support this over everything, including single-payer universal health care.
And, by the way, I am not anti single-payer; I wrote the best single-payer resolution that has passed anyplace in the United States which was approved by 72% of the delegates to the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party's State Convention... but, in recruiting over 600 delegates to this convention by speaking in meetings and around kitchen tables in every single Minnesota County (87); I pushed "single-payer universal health care as a step towards socialized health care."
It was including viewing single-payer as a "step" towards socialized health care that convinced people to become active, attend precinct caucus meetings, get themselves elected as delegates and vote for this resolution. I would note, without waging this "campaign" in the way we did, we never even would have passed our resolution... three previous attempts failed although we got over 50% of the convention votes each time... but passage of a resolution in Minnesota's DFL requires at least 60% approval.
I don't think the single-payer movement has thought most of this through very well because, and I mean no offense to anyone, but it has been doctors providing the strategy and ideology behind single-payer and to be very frank, I think they are looking out for their own livelihoods in all of this... doctors in this country simply do not want to become government employees like public school teachers; they know their incomes would be drastically reduced to just a decent living wage or salary... anyone can see that doctors employed by the Indian Health Service--- the closest thing we have to socialized health care in this country (well, in fact it is socialized health care in the full sense of the term) receive "only" about $100,000.00 a year. Most doctors in the private sector make considerably more and the American Medical Association has seen to it that we don't get "too many" doctors in this country which is one reason why we have rationed health care working the best for the well-heeled. Even with some of the best group insurance policies, many working people are being denied adequate health care by insurance companies refusing to pay for many things.
PNHP has done a good job raising awareness about single-payer but it is still stuck in the AMA mode of "private delivery." As the Canadian experience over many decades has demonstrated, Tommy Douglas and Dr. Norman Bethune were correct, that only a fully socialized health care system would finally solve the problem... and further, I would note, and emphasize, Tommy Douglas was not a single-payer supporter--- he and his CCF/NDP socialists agreed to single-payer as a "compromise" because at the time they didn't have the political strength to win socialized health care.
So, let us bring complete honesty to this dialog, discussion and debate by broaching the need for a national public health care system.
Something to think about:
Here in Minnesota we couldn't even get a single-payer resolution through the State Convention of the DFL (Democratic Party) until we started talking socialized health care... now, consider this; had we been talking about socialized health care would Obama and the Democrats been able to pass the "Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010?" In my opinion, we probably could have, and still can win single-payer but ONLY as a compromise once socialized health care is brought into this discussion on a national level.
I would also note that Frances Perkins advocated for socialized health care as part of the New Deal Reforms... the AMA killed it then and we must have the moral and political courage to stand up to these free-enterprising profiteers if we are going to achieve real health care reform.
I would also note that the right-wing intentionally labeled single-payer as socialized health care; it is time we teach the right-wing what socialized health care really is...chances are they will collapse in heart failure in an honest debate because the American people will insist on socialized health care just as they fought tooth and nail for Social Security, the best socialized system in the world... and what the right-wing really hates is that people will fight like hell to save Social Security.
