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The backbone of our Utah Coalition for National Healthcare Reform of the early 1990s was the several Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers locals in the Salt Lake area (many of us UCNHR activists were also participating in the OCAW-led Labor Party Advocates movement). In those days there was no question that we were working for a single-payer universal health care system and an end to private profit health insurance (which is a mafia-style protection racket; they don't provide any healthcare they are just the goons at the door 'providing access' for those who have paid them). The Clintons privately worked out an oligopoly end state "reform" deal with the major health insurance corporations (Metropolitan, Prudential, Aetna, Cigna and Travelers at the time, MPACT) which was shot down in Congress by the power of the 600 remaining smaller, regional and local insurance companies still members of the Health Insurance Association of America after the elite MPACT group left to set up their new "Alliance for Managed Competition" lobby. I should say the power of HIAA in alliance with the more powerful major 'small business' lobby, the National Federation of Independent Business. The healthcare reform movement was in relative hiatus until Obama was elected and hopeful expectations picked up again. Unfortunately neither OCAW nor Tony Mazzochi were still around. Worse, the Obama administration ruled out _a priori_ any consideration of single-payer, even in Congress. We who had picked up the single-payer baton again found the going much rougher than in the 1990s. The public discourse about 'Obamacare' marked the corporate triumph of defining healthcare reform as providing 'access' to private profit health insurance for more people. I think it is unfortunate that Bernie Sanders has been so polite to the private profit health insurance corporations during this renewed campaign for single-payer, Medicare for All. My impression is that Sanders has been reluctant to graphically expose how the private profit health insurance corporations are ripping us off - and to explicitly call for an end to this racketeering. The result is that the corporate media has largely gotten away with confusing the public about 'how could we possibly pay for?' Medicare for All. Dayne On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 6:21 AM Andrew Pollack via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > > re the anecdote Dayne passed along (snipped quote below): Tony Mazzocchi > often used that story as evidence of the need for a Labor Party. And health > care was always at the center of the Party's activities. > IMO the corona virus catastrophe could put independent political action > back on the agenda, as unions and allies fight to make the bosses pay for > the crisis. > Dayne wrote: > "It was evident Hillary is thinking a lot about politics. Can you > realistically tell me, she asked, that there are any big powers that > support single-payer and that can take on the insurance industry’s lobbying > and advertising budget? “I said, ‘About 70 percent of the U.S. people > favor something like a single-payer system,’” Himmelstein recalls. “‘With > presidential leadership that can be an overwhelming force.’ She said, > ‘David, tell me something interesting.’” > > On Mon, Mar 9, 2020 at 9:12 PM Dayne Goodwin <daynegood...@gmail.com> wrote: > Jesse Jackson called the DLC "Defenders of the Leisure Class." Bill > Clinton resigned as DLC chair to run for president in 1992. The Clinton > administration promptly betrayed the wide-open opportunity to enact > single-payer healthcare: > David Corn reporting in The Nation magazine, April 26, 1993: > "Health Care Reform - Round 1 BIG PLAYERS VS. SINGLE PAYER" > . . . > "Several national advocates of a single-payer system, including Dr. David > Himmelstein of Physicians for a National Health Program, sat down with > Hillary Clinton in February. She listened attentively, asked smart > questions - how would such a system encourage more health providers to > perform primary care rather than specialize? - but she gave no indication > their presentations would make a dent in her plan, some form of managed > competition in which the health care delivery system is organized into > large purchasing cooperatives likely to be dominated by insurance companies. > > "It was evident Hillary is thinking a lot about politics. Can you > realistically tell me, she asked, that there are any big powers that > support single-payer and that can take on the insurance industry’s > lobbying and advertising budget? “I said, ‘About 70 percent of the U.S. > people favor something like a single-payer system,’” Himmelstein recalls. > “‘With presidential leadership that can be an overwhelming force.’ She > said, ‘David, tell me something interesting.’” > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
