"Finding Common Ground Between Public Option Advocates and Single Payer Advocates"
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Ian Welsh asks a good question:
A Question for Single Payer Advocates
Are you willing to fight for a public option which could eventually lead to single payer or a comprehensive system like the French one? If not, why not?
I answered:
That's a hypothetical, since the original public option as conceived by Hacker is not on offer [see here]; I don't regard HCAN's principals as meaningful, since they they could turn out in legislation to mean anything or nothing.The true comparison is between HR676 and S703, and HR3200 watered down to whatever the Senate will pass.
Now, if a public option advocate wants to outline a plausible path from point A (9 million covered) to point B (130 million covered) -- and put some skin in the game by whipping for it and continually posting on it -- I'd be glad to listen, but so far I've seen nothing at all like that.
In simpler language: If the "public option" advocates want to back up their claim that public option would evolve into single payer -- or, heck, Germany -- then show me!
I'm still willing to listen, although bloggers that everybody hates and nobody reads* don't expect answers.
But OpenLeft is a perfectly respectable blog that's read by a lot of people.
So the failure to respond to Ian's post by our "public option" "progressives" is rather curious.
Or not. I suppose I'm forced to draw my own conclusions...
NOTE * Irony! Plenty of people read Corrente. It's just that they don't want to help pay the server costs by actually linking to us. "Progressives"....
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Eventually? When?
"Robust" public option or not, how much longer can we honestly remain on the non-single payer path? I don't think we have much, if any, time. It feels like we're in the middle of a fire and we're being asked whether we want a fire extinguisher or don't mind pushing for some sprinkles of water that could maybe someday turn into a downpour.
I don't troll cycle
I already explained how a good public option can lead to single payer. First article I wrote for Open Left, as you know. The current bill is not good, the point is to get it to good.
But that's not going to happen, so whatever.
How do we get it to good?
My way is to keep asking for the whole enchilada. But I do have a response to your request here: there is a bottom line for me, I'm willing to work for something that will lead to single-payer down the line. (I did not post my comment at Open Left because I have an irrational resistance to creating new logins. Silly of me, I know, but there it is.)
I'm also concerned about this, which is receiving almost no discussion.
Not saying you troll cycle
And the only definition I can find doesn't help a lot.
I saw you as asking a good honest question and trying to open a dialog. No answer, hence no dialog.
Yes, I know your post on the "how." So far as I know, it's the best one out there. Heck, so far as I know it's the only one out there. And I don't see you as a "public option advocate" (because you're not out there whipping for it, or on the other hand doing the trench warfare in comments, the way that single payer advocates are).
So we're disagreeing how?
Ian, the French system
is basically Medicare for All. A baseline of coverage paid with taxes, and supplemental insurance, so if we were headed toward a French system, why wouldn't we just be expanding Medicare down?
OMFG, is he an idiot or what
That Webb guy over there.
"Go read the bill, lambert." He keeps crying. If he'd done any research whatsoever, he would realize the entire text of the bill is right here on Corrente, being deciphered. Dumbass.
He keeps calling you on "appeals to authority" and demanding you read the bill, but I don't think he's really read the bill. He's read the subsection titles, sure, but I think what's within those sections is just all in his head. I think he's using his skimming of the bill as his own appeal to authority.
Plus, by his own claim, he's only read the first 75 pages. That's like 7.5% of the bill. But we're supposed to believe he know better. And he still hasn't demonstrated how we get from this public option, to single payer.
He also has absolutely no concern for the "insured" either, like me who pay for insurance we can't use. Who would like to get on a public option, in the hopes of accelerating our switch to single payer, but can't because my employer offers me insurance. But that's because, by his own statements, he thinks insurance is what's important, not the access to care. He completely ignores the fact that those 30 million who may be covered under this reform, will probably have the same junk insurance I do. So that really isn't helping them, is it?
But getting those 30 million to shell their hard earned money for a "product" they can't even use, is what we have to do, to avoid the moralizing guilt trips.
Do you think, with all his in depth reading of the bill, he's even aware that the plans don't kick in till 2013? I mean, since he's so concerned about the uninsured getting coverage?
To be fair...
... I put up the Senate Bill, not the House bill -- 1000 pages way too much for me to process.
But yeah, he's a troll. I gave him a good deal of time -- always good to make the points, regardless of the context.
If we're really trying to get to SINGLE-payer
then we should have ONE public option - i.e., Medicare.
What is the point of having working people in one system, retired and disabled people in a second, children in a third, veterans in a fourth and destitute people in a fifth (have I left anyone out?) - all with different features, rules and bureaucracies and all competing for the same dollars - while another group of people falls through the cracks and can't get into any of them?
This is insane. There is no good reason that I can see for doing this.