--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "do.rflex" <do.rf...@...> wrote: > > > > "In Washington, where the insurance industry > and medical establishment hold sway, the idea > gets short shrift." > > > The likelihood of single payer passing the Senate is almost nil. In the > meantime, Sen. Sanders provides a mechanism for trying single payer out at > the state level: > > > ---"If we move to a single-payer system, we can provide quality, > comprehensive health care to every man, woman and child in this country > without spending a nickel more than we're currently spending. > > With 15,000 physicians supporting the concept of single payer, with single > payer being the only system that can provide comprehensive health care to > every man, woman and child, single payer should obviously be on the table. > > With the American public, the idea is extremely popular. An overwhelming 59 > percent say the government should provide national health insurance, > according to a New York Times/CBS News poll earlier this year. > > In Washington, where the insurance industry and medical establishment hold > sway, the idea gets short shrift. > > While some single payer advocates think the only thing worth fighting for is > single payer, what I have also introduced is a five-state option. That would > mean five states would have the option of running pilot programs in universal > health care but one would have to be single payer. > > I think it's possible this will never happen in Washington, D.C., but that > this country will join the rest of the industrialized world when a state, > maybe like Vermont, implements single payer and does it well. > > And then New Hampshire will be looking over our shoulders, and they will > adopt that, and so on through the country. > > That's in fact how national health care came to Canada, it started in the > Saskatchewan province." > > ~~ Politico: http://snipurl.com/jp608 >
Ah, Bernie. Perhaps one the most honest, well intentioned Senators we have in office. Too bad there aren't more like him. Let's see...who is on the insurance and pharmaceutical industry's payroll? Oh yeah! Max Baucus, head of the Senate Finance Committee who currently controls the discussion on health care, has received tons of money from pharmaceutical companies and says single payer heath care in off the table. Furthermore, he wants to tax health care benefits employees get from their employers, which affects me personally and royally pissed me off since it was one of John McCain's stupid ideas during his campaign. Guess, who agreed with Max Baucus that taxing employee health benefits was a great idea two weeks ago but is in full White House straddle mode on the issue today? Yep. Obama. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hriv3YGa_SuVkRpGJE3ts_kTEvoQD98LU42O0 "[Obama's]Changing positions: In 2003, while campaigning for the U.S. Senate, then-candidate Obama told an audience at an AFL-CIO conference that he is a proponent of single-payer health care. "I can see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent...of its gross national product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody," Obama said. Obama said he wanted to see single-payer be enacted, but that in order to do so Democrats would have to control Congress and the White House. Three years later, in an interview with liberal political columnist, pundit and author David Sirota a former chief political advisor for Gov. Brian Schweitzer Sen. Obama backed off his support for single-payer. In a 2006 article in The Nation magazine, Obama told Sirota that although he "would not shy away from a debate about single-payer," right now he is "not convinced that it is the best way to achieve universal health care." "His political preconditions have been met, he said he would never shy away from the debate, and that's exactly what the administration via Max Baucus is doing," Sirota said." http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20090519/NEWS01/905190301 David Sirota has some interesting questions about single payer health care for Obama: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/05/16/sirota/
