From Tracey Keij-Denton: Hey Mark,
Just throwing in my 2 cents here. I believe in single payer, but I don't think there's any way it's going to get passed as the first health care reform. It essentially puts the insurance industry out of business, and they won't let that happen with the current way they have their tentacles in the political system. I think the best health care bill is a campaign finance reform bill. In the meantime, if Obama can pass something strong, which would essentially start to make the private health care biz less profitable, then we chip away at their incentive to stay in this biz, and work towards single payer. And we should also be working toward full public funding of campaigns before single payer is ever going to happen. I'm not happy that single payer advocates have been shut out of the debate, but I can also understand the argument that if the Obama people know it won't pass Congress, and it's distracting from what they can do, then they want to focus on what they can get done. Laws and sausages, as they say. Tracey On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 6:30 PM, Mark Crispin Miller <<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]> wrote: From John Stauber: Obama and HCAN Marginalize Single Payer Health Care Reform (For internal links in this article click <<http://www.prwatch.org/node/8272>http://www.prwatch.org/node/8272> Most western democracies guarantee their citizens a right to medical services through their own version of government managed single payer health care. But such a system has been attacked in the US as "socialized medicine" since the 1950s especially by lobbyists for the insurance and drug industries who would see their profits decline. Although Barack Obama was elected on a health care reform platform, his version ignores single payer. Nor is it advocated by his allies in the well-funded coalition called Health Care for America Now, composed of MoveOn, USAction, ACORN, Americans United for Change, the unions SEIU and UFCW and other liberal heavy hitters. Journalist Russell Mokhiber, founder of the new group Single Payer Action, notes that no advocate of a single payer system was invited to the recent White House summit on health care reform. Only protests by Progressive Democrats of America and others won an invitation for Congressman John Conyers, sponsor of the United States National Health Care Act: H.R.676. Mokhiber quotes Dr. David Himmelstein of Physicians for a National Health Program: "The President once acknowledged that single payer reform was the best option, but now he's caving in to corporate health care interests and completely shutting out advocates of single payer reform," even though "the majority of Americans favor single payer, and it's the most popular reform option among doctors and health economists." (For internal links in this article click <<http://www.prwatch.org/node/8272>http://www.prwatch.org/node/8272> ------------------------------------------------------ John Stauber, Founder & Executive Director, Center for Media and Democracy 520 University Avenue #227, Madison, WI 53703 Phone (608)260-9713 Website <http://www.prwatch.org>http://www.prwatch.org Help fund our non-profit work: <http://prwatch.org/donate>http://prwatch.org/donate Subscribe to our free weekly listserv: <http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html>http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html Participate in our wiki reporting at: <http://www.SourceWatch.org>http://www.SourceWatch.org Books by John Stauber include: The Best War Ever <http://www.thebestwarever.com>http://www.thebestwarever.com Weapons of Mass Deception <http://www.prwatch.org/books/wmd.html>http://www.prwatch.org/books/wmd.html Trust Us, We're Experts <http://www.prwatch.org/books/experts.html>http://www.prwatch.org/books/experts.html Toxic Sludge Is Good For You <http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy.html>http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy.html --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to [email protected] OR go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
