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Helen Thomas: Obama Making "Big Mistake" Ignoring Single Payer

mass's picture
Submitted by mass on Wed, 08/12/2009 - 4:21pm
Tags: 
obama
hillary clinton
health care
helen thomas
Truman
single payer
Medicare for All
LBJ
health insurance reform

How Johnson did it.

Via Helen Thomas

I covered the battle to create the Medicare system back in the 1960s. The cries of "socialized medicine" worked for years until President Lyndon B. Johnson rammed Medicare through Congress in 1965.

Johnson signed the Medicare legislation on former President Harry Truman’s desk in Independence, Mo. Truman had first proposed a health care program for the elderly back in the 1950s.

Truman, still feisty at age 81, was all smiles.

I remember a newsman went up to Johnson and told him "my mother thanks you." Johnson turned to him and said: "You should thank me," meaning Medicare would help families with the increasingly heavy financial burden of caring for seniors.

How Obama is screwing it up.

President Barack Obama is making a big mistake by ignoring the single-payer proposal....In 2003 before he became a U.S. senator from Illinois, Obama actually called himself a single-payer "proponent." But now that he is president, Obama has buckled to Republicans and conservative Blue Dog Democrats in pursuit of consensus. My question is if Congress passes a watered-down version of health care that doesn’t truly cover everyone, is the result worth it?

The president has given no hearing to the advocates of a single-payer system and neither has the media.

He also had worked out a deal with the drug manufacturers not to use the federal government’s massive bargaining power to negotiate lower drug prices -- although now the White House appears to be having second thoughts.

Single payer works; it is not code for substandard medical care.

How Canadians do it.

Diana Beeson, an American friend from Ohio who now lives in Canada, wrote me that three years ago she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and received treatment "unrivaled by anything I can imagine even with my fairly decent coverage as a state employee in the U.S.

"I have had surgery, chemotherapy and closely followed my oncologist and the family doctor of my own choosing. It has not cost me a dime," she said.

Beeson said she wanted to share her "wonderful experience with health care in Canada."

How Obama should do it.

President Obama should lay down markers for real health care reform -- meaning we all kick in to a national program instead of fattening the pocketbooks of the insurance financiers.

Instead, the president has given up on Medicare for all, calling single payer "impractical."

He still has time to do the right thing and nothing to lose.

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Aeryl's picture
Submitted by Aeryl on

But it wasn't far fetched before he announced his run for president either, so what's changed.

lambert's picture
Submitted by lambert on

An entirely reality-based fear that a lot of Presidents have and why we have a Secret Service. (Note that the danger is not the motivation of a malefactor, no doubt racism, but their competence. Is there any reason to think, then, that real danger has changed?)

And there's plenty of fear to go around.

mass's picture
Submitted by mass on

didn't propose single payer out of fear for his safety. That's highly speculative reasoning. It's a huge leap from ones fear of personal safety as President, to not advocating a particular policy out of that fear. Further, is that a reasonable excuse? No. Bush ran and hid after the 9/11 attacks because the secret service told him his personal safety was at risk. That was cowardly, and inconstant with the duties of the office. NOTE: I actually do not think Obama avoided single payer out of a concern for his safety, but if he had, that course of action would be cowardly.

TreeHugger's picture
Submitted by TreeHugger on

out there may not be entirely focused on Obama/Dem health care kabuki, so assasination fears based on advocating single payer don't resonate for me. I do think it is a general concern for this particular president in view of still smoldering racial bias and the failure of his administration to bring solutions to the table that people can see are helping them find jobs, keep their homes. and not end up on a breadline.

Let me elaborate. I am remodeling my kitchen and the terrific fellow who has done a lot of the non-licensed type of work told he likes country western music, so I have had the country music station on for the past few days while he has been mudding and sanding.

Hoo Boy. I had forgotten what a good indicator country music can be of the mood of much of the non-coastal country. In addition to the usual songs about wimmin...finding them, losing them, being two timed by them, yada yada...there was a fairly large number of songs having to do with patriotism....and, most notably, about being asked to BAILOUT WALLSTREET while their own problems are ignored.

Submitted by jawbone on

Too bad it's, as lambert notes, the Repubs and undefined public option supporters against us.

vastleft's picture
Submitted by vastleft on

(To the tune of "Ring of Fire")

Health is a vital thing
But insurers want to live like kings
So, they'll try to scare
Y'all from Medicare

Medicare for All
Is what we desire
Now, let's throw out
The damn claim deniers
Their rates, rates, rates
Climb ever higher, climb ever higher

Medicare for All
Is what we require
No one out, all-in
It'll lift us higher
Granny knows it's good
Let's join the choir
For what we require

lambert's picture
Submitted by lambert on

I ask you only because geographically you're a lot closer to the Merle Haggards of this world than I am up here. Roots!

My thought is record it, get it out there, and see if anybody picks it up.

Submitted by jawbone on

Just a little something you whipped up?

What style of music does Susie do? She's a singer, right?

Oh, and works for me just fine--more the Formula One race fan. Arugula only with other mixed greens. NASCAR, no way. Indianapolis 500, yes, for nostalgia.

(I'm watching America's Got Talent and the trio called the Texas Tenors was on--they'd do. Cool Old West type suits, great hats, not at all bad voices.)

vastleft's picture
Submitted by vastleft on

In order to protect himself.

I can't find the link right now, but I've written previously about the heightened risk he faces because progressives won't come forward about what a corporate stooge he is.

Any president is at risk, and of course the danger to him is surely heightened because of race hate. That's heightened further still by the mythology of him as a transformational progressive.

The more of us who acknowledge that he's, basically, George H.W. Bush's Hawaiian son, the safer he will be.

If we're all going to have to suffer under his corporatist, anti-Constitutional, war-mongering policies, the least we can do is sound the all-clear to worried, angry conservatives.

Davidson's picture
Submitted by Davidson on

It's common sense that if you're interested in protecting someone you avoid discussing threats, let alone create them out of thin air and hype them. What Obama did last year, via Gibbs, was incredibly reckless: it increased threats against his own safety (OMG! Obama! Assassination attempt!) and that of Clinton's (Burn the witch!).

Honestly, the fact that the right-wing base consider Barack Obama of all people a socialist lets you know that he can never satisfy them. He must know that. What's driving him isn't his fear of being shot, but afraid of making his corporate backers upset. Oddly enough, the best way to cut down the influence of the hate brigade is by passing liberal policies. Most people, regardless of party, would welcome the results. Just look at how popular Medicare is.

Submitted by jawbone on

appearance yesterday--especially whether the MCM* has covered it and the guy involved.

Well, Susie posted this article from Salon about the guy's pretty dicey interests and web presence. Bet the guy admires Tim McVeigh as well as Randy Weaver?

Now, let's pretend: An Arab looking guy with a background of working with political action groups and writes admiringly of grous which espouse violence to achieve true freedom shows up to picket Obama wearing a gun strapped to his thigh. He has made several veiled comments about the illegitimacy of Obama's presidency. The Secret Service...

1. checks that he has a carry permit and leaves him alone.

2. advises him to leave the area unless he gets rid of his gun.

3. detains him as long as Obama is in the vicinity as a possible threat to the president.

4. detains him for questioning and he ends up in Gitmo or a naval brig.

vastleft's picture
Submitted by vastleft on

She says Obama is deep-sixing single payer in his pursuit of consensus with Blue Dogs and Repubs.

All evidence suggests he's driven by getting "consensus" with his corporate overlords.

a little night musing's picture
Submitted by a little night ... on

That's a great interview. All the right questions, all the right answers. (Well, I don't quite agree that Obama is "listening to everybody", but that's a small quibble.)

mass's picture
Submitted by mass on

It was fantastic. Actually, for me, after I saw that, there was no going back to accepting the public option. I simply do not believe, even under the best scenarios, it's viable.

CMike's picture
Submitted by CMike on

Obama will be held responsible for the failure, just as Clinton was, it will be seen as a failure of legislative tactics ---- that's how liberal politics is discussed. (I do it too, of course, just like every other political blowhard.) This is especially true of health care, which has been exclusively seen and mapped out as a tactical challenge since Harry Truman failed to pass comprehensive reform in the 1940s. It's why we got health care for the elderly when Johnson had the liberal mandate rather than universal coverage.

Submitted by admin_hipparchia on

the one that bugs me is that the same people who complain that johnson's settling for half a loaf [medicare only for the elderly instead of for all] is the reason we don't have universal health care today are the same people who will turn around later and tell you that we have to support hr 3200 and its wimpy public option [or even no public option] because half a loaf is better than none.

::headdesk::

mass's picture
Submitted by mass on

the most vulnerable age demographic is not much, or something. very weird. She also refuses to understand that what Obama is offering is NOT social insurance. Also, strange. Those who think Obama will pass individual mandates for private insurance and be hailed in history as the President who delivered national insurance are smoking something. If this passes, Obama's "legacy" will be wiped out by the first President who passes national(social) health insurance.

Bryan's picture
Submitted by Bryan on

The mnemonic plague™, AKA Santayana Syndrome, i.e. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

LBJ could have passed whatever he wanted. I was there, I remember. He went with Medicare because he also wanted the War on Poverty. He wanted to help those in the worse shape first, because you could afford health care in the 1960s, even if you had a minimum wage job. Without a high school education, you could get a good, high paying job in a factory.

When Truman started we still hadn't recovered from the shift of production after World War II, and times were hard.

The need wasn't there in the '60s, and because it was cheap, businesses started providing it to employees to attract them.

Times have changed, but Democrats haven't.

George Santayana also defined fanaticism as "redoubling your effort after you've forgotten your aim", which is HR 3200. It doesn't fix any of the problems, but they are going all out to support it.

Before you go looking for support from Blue Dogs and Republicans, you had better produce something acceptable to the majority of the country and the Democratic base.

a little night musing's picture
Submitted by a little night ... on

Thanks for this reminder. And Helen Thomas is my hero for sticking to her guns and continuing to remind of of where we've come from. Yes, one big reason Johnson was effective was that he was very clear in his mind what his goals were and how they were connected to his underlying values.

There's a lesson here for the current administration.

(I'm on my first cup of coffee, so my cynicism hasn't kicked in yet. I'm still attributing good intentions to the administration. One may, perhaps, be permitted to hope for the best.)

Submitted by jawbone on

this article about Obama's behind the scenes work on health care legislation. Read, and then recall his behind the scenes whipping for TARP, his comments to private, closed fund raisers during the primaries and election. He tends to do his most revealing work "behind the scenes."

So much for transparency. So much for open negotiating. So much for what he says in public....

I've had my coffee and my skepticism is on a roll:

This is a NYTimes article, so one can wonder why they're letting this out: To reassure the corporate overlords?

In pursuing his proposed overhaul of the health care system, President Obama has consistently presented himself as aloof from the legislative fray, merely offering broad principles. Prominent among them is the creation of a strong, government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers and press for lower costs.

Behind the scenes, however, Mr. Obama and his advisers have been quite active, sometimes negotiating deals with a degree of cold-eyed political realism potentially at odds with the president’s rhetoric.

Last month, for example, hospital officials were poised to appear at the White House to announce a deal limiting their industry’s share of the costs of the overhaul proposal when a wave of jitters swept through the group. Senator Max Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman and a party to the deal, had abruptly pulled out of the event. Was he backing away from his end of the deal?

Not to worry, Jim Messina, deputy White House chief of staff, told the lobbyists, according to White House officials and lobbyists briefed on the call. The White House was standing behind the deal, Mr. Messina said, capping the industry’s costs at a maximum of $155 billion over 10 years in trade for its political support.

Some Democrats and industry lobbyists now argue that, in negotiating deals through Mr. Baucus’s panel with powerful health care interests, the White House was tacitly signaling as early as last spring that it might end up accepting something more modest than the government insurer the president has said he prefers.

The Finance Committee, for example, appears to be coalescing around the idea of nonprofit insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run plan. It is a proposal the health care industry prefers, but many liberal Democrats oppose, in both cases because cooperatives are likely to have less leverage over health care prices.

SNIP

Asked whether the president would accept the weaker co-op, Mr. Emanuel declined to comment. “I am not going to fast-forward the process,” he said.

Industry lobbyists and moderate Democrats in both chambers, though, argue that the White House’s actions behind the scenes show a recognition that the finance panel’s anticipated compromise is the most likely template for any final legislation.

“The House has largely been a sideshow,” said Representative Jim Cooper of Tennessee, a member of the so-called Blue Dog caucus of conservative Democrats. “The Senate Finance Committee is where it really matters. That’s the bottleneck.”

Members and staff of the four other committees say the White House has largely stayed on the sidelines. “They have been — what is a good way to put it? — available for consultation,” Mr. Cooper said.

Mr. Obama and his top aides have immersed themselves in the Senate Finance Committee process. The president talks to Mr. Baucus several times a week, people briefed on their conversations say. Mr. Obama has also held a few calls with the panel’s ranking Republican, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa.

Skepticism enough? Need cynicism? BOHICA, babeee!

a little night musing's picture
Submitted by a little night ... on

after my second cup...

I treasure those fleeting moments between sleep and waking, in which I can hold onto the idea that my elected officials have good intentions.

Then I wake up, and I get to work.

gqmartinez's picture
Submitted by gqmartinez on

And not just because you imply liberals have "forgotten their aim", which is my view.

You also talk about important historical differences (i.e. being able to afford stuff a long time ago compared to now). The way liberals forget the past, including the recent past, and scapegoat "Blue Dogs" to save face is annoying. It doesn't help either.

Turlock