h/t BDA in VA
I support improved and enhanced Medicare for All because it's the right policy for this country. Because it's not just the poor that can't afford private insurance, the middle class is getting slammed by rising premiums and health care costs. Because any market that requires third party payers is by definition not a free market. Because this is an essential service and the government can do it better than private, for-profit companies. Because the economy cratered this year, and everyone deserves some economic justice. Because building on the employer based health finance model in the face of near double digit unemployment is stoopid. Because health care should be delivered on an even playing field. Because health care should be apportioned by need not wealth. Because mandating people purchase private for-profit insurance at up to 12% of their income for premiums alone is not affordable. Because I don't think people should have to wait ten years to prove government financed health care works so we can expand a weak public option, when it's already been proven through Medicare. Because it's change I can believe in.
I will advocate for Medicare for All until the last dog dies because I listen to the 17,000 doctors and the 86,000 nurses who tell me it's the right policy for this country. I'll fight for it tooth and nail because I'm standing with 20 million activists who say we can do this, and we should. I'll advocate for it because leading policy journals keep writing it's good policy. I will advocate for this policy because I think the role of activists is to push the system from the outside, not for what is politically feasible, but for what is right, and I plan to heed the warning of MLK Jr. who cautioned against taking the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. I will argue everyday in every way for Medicare for All because we are having a national debate right now on how we should finance and deliver health care, so how could I not push for what I believe in?
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Except...
... the title is the "public plan." And the deliberate confusion between the "public plan" or "option" has been part of the bait and switch on this thing all along.
Without that headline, I'd love the video.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Huh?
What title? The YouTube title is "Why We Need Government-Run Universal Socialized Health Insurance". I'm lost.
Medicare for All is Civil Rights
Ah, sorry
I ran into it over at Kos; see the headline here.
Maybe somebody with a Kos account can go over there and clarify...
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Oddly, though it clearly advocates for
single payer, the poster at youtube says in the blurb:
"A cartoon explanation of why we need a public health insurance option.
If you agree that a public option should be part of the health care reform bill, make sure you let your representatives know!"
Maybe they made it for single payer, but figured it could be used for the public option.
Medicare for All is Civil Rights
one thing to remember
the 'public option' has been sold to a lot of single payer advocates as the stepping stone to single payer.
we're almost something of an echo chamber here, correnteans having spent more time and effort than almost anybody else digging into the details on this, so we all already know about the 2013 = day one, and only 4% of the population will get into the public plan, and that kathleen sebelius keeps reassuring the insurance industry that it will never ever morph into single payer, and....
pretty much everybody else has only heard one of 2 messages: the public option will magically keep the insurance industry honest, or the public option is going to magically become single payer.
I'm married to somebody who works to improve prisoners' care
in half of Texas. Literally. The healthcare you get in prison is pretty much a minimalist's paradise, because the budgets are so tight. Along with the prisoners' electronic medical records and the use of telemedicine to improve diagnostics and treatment options, though, the network backbone is providing infrastructure for rural clinics in tiny towns.
When you think about it, the VA and Medicare are government-run healthcare.
The healthcare available in Federal prisons -- for people like Madoff -- is better than the healthcare available to our nation's working poor.
They make too much for Medicaid, sometimes can't qualify their kids for SCHIP (even if they're eligible for WIC, in some states, which is why I argue passionately that you CANNOT turn this into another state-operated program or they'll raise barriers to save money), but can't afford a doctor either, never mind health insurance.
Have the Republicans no shame, at last?
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
Huh. Interesting.
My mother is a sociologist and she did a huge study on telemedicine in the prison population here in MA.
No, Republicans have no shame. They are like a disease, which is why I am so frustrated by the Democrats. Isn't it time that we debate policy on the left side of the spectrum? Have you ever been to Chile? I went there and saw what a Bush styled country would look like. It's scary, but the wealthy there(I was at there biz school) really do not see it that way. They really don't care. They really believe in the Chicago Boys. Eventually, we need to start debating policies left foot first or we are going to squander this moment.
Medicare for All is Civil Rights