Posts Tagged ‘single payer insurance’

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Forbes: Single Payer Is Good for Business

April 19th, 2012

You know something is up when a national business publication allows the words “single payer” and “socialism” to grace its pages – and in a good way. In his column for Forbes, “A Dose of Socialism Could Save Our States – State Sponsored, Single Payer Healthcare Would Bring in Business & Jobs,” Rick Ungar writes:

In what strikes me as the greatest combination since chocolate met peanut butter, it makes nothing but dollars and sense for clever state governments to shift to a single-payer state healthcare system as the key driver for attracting business to their struggling domains.

Ungar goes on to explain how single payer would benefit businesses, especially small businesses, by reducing labor costs and making them more competitive with foreign companies. He implores conservative state legislators to drop their ideological (and I would add, irrational) fear of creeping Communism, and be open to an idea that would spark economic prosperity. These legislators should listen.

But in America, ideology often trumps common sense – especially when that ideology provides some people a lot of money and power. Since the business community is so powerful here in America, it’s frustrating that more small businesses and corporations don’t join the Medicare-for-all movement. Businesses would rather not shell out the increasingly high cost of health care benefits for their employees. But you don’t see many businesses begging the government to take over the responsibility. You don’t see many of them using their powerful lobbyists to persuade conservative lawmakers to vote in favor of a public healthcare system. Instead, many businesses prefer to shove more and more of the costs onto their employees. Or they drop coverage altogether and create more uninsured people, which ends up shoving the costs onto taxpayers.

In America, anything that smacks of the dreaded “S-word” is to be automatically dismissed. In America, government is bad; privatization and profit are good. People are all forced to play the free-market game, even when it doesn’t make sense. If businesses can’t or won’t provide health coverage, then Americans should purchase private insurance in the open market (the more deregulated, the better), or they can just go without. A public healthcare system that will actually cover everyone and save money continues to be a non-starter. I hope more positive articles about single payer in the business press can change these outdated attitudes.

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

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Media Coverage of April Ghoul’s Day Event

April 10th, 2012

KPFK interviews California OneCare board member, Alberto Saavedra, before the April 1 march:

insightoutnews:

Univision 34:

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

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Single Payer Responses to the Supreme Court Hearings

April 6th, 2012

Thanks to Dr. Don McCanne of Physicians for a National Health Program who compiled the bulk of this sampling of articles reacting to last week’s Supreme Court hearings examining the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. At the bottom, I have added a few more. The articles run the political spectrum – liberal, conservative and in between. You can either read one, a few, or all of them. What is clear is that everyone acknowledges what we single-payer activists have been saying all along – that Medicare for all is the least expensive and most equitable way to provide health care to all Americans.

Paul Mulshine, The Star Ledger, March 25, 2012 – Obamacare health-insurance exchanges are set up to fail

Julian Pecquet, The Hill, March 26, 2012 – Kucinich: Single-payer healthcare on its way regardless of how Supreme Court rules

Peter Morici, SunSentinel, March 26, 2012 – Overturning health care law could lead to a single-payer system

Robert Reich, The Huffington Post, March 26, 2012 – Health Care Jujitsu

Reid Cherlin, GQ, March 27, 2012 – Take It From Me: Defending Obamacare is Super-Hard

George Zornick, The Nation, March 27, 2012 – If the Mandate Fails, Single Payer Awaits

Ezra Klein, Bloomberg, March 28, 2012 – Individual Mandate Is Ryan Tax Credit by Other Name

Meghna Chakrabarti, WBUR, March 28, 2012 – Lawmakers Propose Single-Payer System For Mass.

E.J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post, March 28, 2012 – Judicial activists in the Supreme Court

Emil Guillermo, San Francisco Chronicle, March 28, 2012 – My Mom, the Supreme Court, and the Affordable Care Act

Michael D. Shear, The New York Times, March 28, 2012 – If Health Law Is Overturned, What Will Liberals Do?

Josh Barro, Forbes, March 28, 2012 – How Obamacare’s Rejection Would Lead to Single Payer

Timothy Noah, The New Republic, March 28, 2012 – Single-Payer Briar Patch

Cathy Young, Newsday, March 29, 2012 – What’s really wrong with Obamacare

Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post, March 29, 2012 – A stronger prescription for what ails health care

Renne Landers, Health Affairs Blog, March 29, 2012 – On The Individual Mandate: Towards A Single-Payer System Or Public Option?

Ezra Klein, The Washington Post, March 29, 2012 – If Obamacare is overturned, will that lead to single payer? And would that be a good thing?

Scripps Howard News Service, March 29, 2012 – RedBlueAmerica: Will ‘Obamacare’ survive?

Mark Mardell, BBC News, March 29, 2012 – What if Supreme Court strikes down Obama healthcare act?

Maggie Fox, National Journal, March 29, 2012 – After the Ruling

Emily P. Walker, MedPage Today, March 29, 2012 – ACA Alternatives Waiting in the Wings

George Lauer, California Healthline, March 29, 2012 – Experts: Medicaid Expansion Will Stand; Mandate’s Fate Unclear

Noah Rothman, Mediaite, March 29, 2012 – Chris Matthews, Ezra Klein Identify Strategy To Impose ‘De Facto Single Payer System’

Beth Hawkins, MinnPost, March 29, 2012 – Growth & Justice lays out its case for Minnesota single-payer health care

David Frum, The Daily Beast, March 29, 2012 – The Wall Street Journal: Unwitting Advocates of Single-Payer

Karen Dolan, The Huffington Post, March 29, 2012 – If Health Care Reform Falls, Look in the Mirror

Steve Erickson, The American Prospect, March 30, 2012 – Single-Payer or Bust

And…

Uwe E. Reinhardt, The New York Times, Economix, March 30, 2012 – The Supreme Court and the National Conversation on Health Care Reform

Reader Comment:

By Don McCanne
San Juan Capistrano, CA

The intense attention being given to the constitutionality of the individual mandate and the severability of guaranteed issue and community rating and to the constitutionality of the Medicaid expansion superficially seems to have detracted from the fundamental issue of whether or not the Affordable Care Act itself should serve as a durable model for health care reform.

With the best possible outcome of the Supreme Court deliberations, we’ll still be faced with uninsurance (at least 26 million uninsured), underinsurance (low actuarial value plans with spartan essential benefits) and unaffordability (lack of effective systemic cost containment).

Right now we are seeing a surge in commentaries declaring that we will end up with single payer (Medicare for all) if the mandate and guaranteed issue and community rating are struck down by the Supreme Court, simply because that’s the only rational financing option left for us.

We will, in fact, end up with single payer, but not because of the pending Supreme Court decision. We will adopt a single payer system simply because we will not be able to continue to tolerate uninsurance, underinsurance and unaffordability.

Additional articles…

Scott Keyes, ThinkProgress, March 30, 2012 – GOP Attorney General Suing Over Obamacare Supports Single-Payer: ‘I Trust The Government More’

Sahil Kapur, TalkingPointsMemo, April 2, 2012 – Why Overturning ‘Obamacare’ Could Lead To Single-Payer

Miles Mogulescu, The Huffington Post, April 3, 2012 – Conservatives and Liberals Agree: Medicare for All Would Be Constitutional

Robert I. Field, The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 5, 2012 – Is public option the last one?

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

 

 

 

 

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Could Repeal of the Affordable Care Act Propel America Toward Single Payer?

March 20th, 2012

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Many believe the outcome will be a watershed moment for health reform, and could even affect the November presidential race. Attorneys general from 26 states with Republican-controlled legislatures are suing the federal government to repeal the ACA. At issue is the individual mandate, the requirement that all Americans purchase private health insurance if they aren’t covered through an employer or eligible for Medicare or Medicaid. The opposing states argue that the mandate is an unconstitutional expansion of Congress’ power to regulate the economy. The Obama administration counters that the mandate is necessary to bring everyone into the system so as to prevent taxpayers from being burdened with the hospital costs of those who don’t have insurance. The mandate doesn’t go into effect until 2014, when the state health insurance exchanges are scheduled to start.

However, some single payer advocates, are siding with the ACA’s Republican opponents, arguing that the public shouldn’t be forced to buy private health insurance. Unlike GOP critics who want the ACA replaced with either vouchers or health savings accounts, single payer advocates instead want Medicare immediately expanded to all Americans. Fifty doctors and two non-profit groups – Single Payer Action and It’s Our Economy – have filed a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of striking down the individual mandate.

“It is not necessary to force Americans to buy private health insurance to achieve universal coverage,” said Russell Mokhiber of Single Payer Action. “There is a proven alternative that Congress didn’t seriously consider, and that alternative is a single payer national health insurance system.”

The national arm of the Green Party has also called for the justices to strike down the individual mandate.

“America needs real universal health care, not a direct public subsidy in the form of a health insurance mandate to sustain the private insurance industry,” said Barry Hermanson, Green candidate for Congress in California’s 12th District (San Francisco) (http://www.barryhermanson.org). “President Obama and Democrats in Congress could have introduced a Medicare For All bill, which would cover every American and drastically reduce medical costs by removing insurance companies from control over our health care. Instead they acted in the interests of insurance and other corporate lobbies. Even with the mandate, the ACA leaves 23 million Americans without coverage and many millions more with inadequate health care.”

If the Supreme Court overturns the individual mandate, thus crippling a key provision of the ACA, or strikes down the law entirely, could we see a renewed demand from the public to expand Medicare? Would the United States be forced to adopt single payer sooner rather than later? Single payer advocates who oppose the ACA certainly hope so. It’s possible that the public will give national health insurance another look, especially since Republican alternatives like vouchers and health savings accounts don’t lead to universal coverage and don’t control costs. The cost of health care will continue to spiral out of control. Thousands of people will continue to die prematurely. Thousands more will continue to go bankrupt. This much is clear: expanding Medicare to all doesn’t involve a mandate and threat of a fine. Membership is automatic. Should the ACA be repealed, the case for national health insurance will be stronger than ever and lawmakers will have to listen.

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

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