Is a new consensus emerging in the consumer media and presidential debates about healthcare, insurance corporations, and single-payer in this post-Sicko world? We’ll take a look at this and more in today’s Guaranteed Healthcare Update, cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.
Did you catch the CNN analysis of last night’s YouTube Presidential debate? The single most popular answer of the evening was when John Edwards attacked insurance and drug companies. The audience meter went to 90% and stayed there.
The voters are begging candidates to attack these twin symbols of the failure of our health care system. And the candidates are complying—-up to a point.
How did this play out in the debate? Addressing the issue, John Edwards spoke of the personal tragedy of one man and repeated his belief that the only way to get to universal healthcare is through mandated coverage, which his plan provides for and includes a public insurance option. His attack on healthcare corporations: "We have got to stand up to the insurance companies and the drug companies that Barack just spoke about. It is the only way we're ever going to bring about real change."
While Edwards’ plan is not a single-payer system, and has been criticized as a potential boon to the insurers, Elizabeth Edwards used a different forum recently to emphasize the "single-payer component" of his healthcare plan, saying, "we expect over time there will be a general move toward" the single-payer option he offers to those mandated to get some kind of coverage.
Obama used his answer to implicitly blame Hillary for failing on healthcare reform, playing into his main theme that we need to turn a page from the Clinton & Bush dynasties. He claimed to achieve universal coverage and attacked the drug and insurance companies for their billion dollar lobbying budget, saying "They can have a seat at the table, but they can't buy every single chair when it comes to crafting the sort of universal health care."
Clinton clearly aimed the lowest of the three on the issues, explaining that she has the scars to prove her past efforts, and saying, "We have to quit being told the special interests, like the insurance companies and the drug companies, that, somehow, we can't do what most other developed countries do, which is cover everybody and provide decency and respect to every single person in this country with health care."
While the Presidential candidates were arguing over one version of conventional wisdom, respected consumer columnist Jane Bryant Quinn was reflecting another. In her latest column, she writes,
I do agree that we can't afford to cover everyone under the crazy health-care system we have now. We can't even afford all the people we're covering already, which is why we keep booting them out. But we have an excellent template for universal care right under our noses: good old American Medicare. When you think of reform, think "Medicare for all."
Medicare is what's known as a single-payer system. In the U.S. version, the government pays for health care delivered in the private sector. There's one set of comprehensive benefits, with premiums, co-pays and streamlined paperwork. You can buy private coverage for the extra costs.
We have voters begging for attacks on insurance companies, and consumer advice being given based on the obvious superiority of single-payer or "Medicare for all" health solutions to main-stream American families.
Rarely does such a national consensus exist. The country is ready for this change. We have to take advantage of it. And Presidential candidates need to aim even higher in their discussion of healthcare.
This Detroit News blogger is thinking the same way.
But a Newsday columnist warns us to beware false healthcare reform.
To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a "Medicare for All" or SinglePayer financing), visit with GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.