Senator Max Baucus has told the Helena Independent Record that a single payer health care system is "off the table." President Obama has said pretty much the same. At a recent Washington conference on health care reform, only a few health care reformers were invited (and only after a major protest was threatened). They were not considered seriously despite the fact that a majority of Americans favor a single payer system (which would cut out the insurance industry). Indeed, the mainstream media has minimized the importance and support for single payer. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found the views of advocates of single payer have only been aired five times in the hundreds of major newspaper, broadcasts about healthcare reform over the past week. No single-payer advocate has appeared on a major TV or cable network to talk about the policy during that period.
In this diary, I present a completely different take on this issue.
I look at who funds Max Baucus (yes, it turns out that Max is bought and paid for by whom? Turns out that yes, the insurance and pharmacy industries own Max Baucus). I also look at Obama's numbingly stupid and unprogressive take on the issue.
First, let's look at Max Baucus. He's a senator from one of the least populous states in the country, Montana, but has an inordinate influence on this issue because he's the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. He may be a Democrat but like Tester his fellow Democrat from the same state, by label he is a Democrat but by belief and positions he is hardly a democrat who works for the people. I believe that it was Gore Vidal who once said that America really has only one political party: the corporate party and it has two wings: Republicans and Democrats. Baucus proves that Vidal is an astute observer of politics.
Here's what Max Baucus has said recently about the health care situation and single payer:
"And I think at this time in this country, single payer is not going to get even to first base in the Congress. I just—and we’re also—we’re a big—we’re a big country. It’s—you know, we’re a battleship. We’re an ocean liner. We’re not a PT boat. We’re not a speedboat. It takes time to turn those big, big ships. You just can’t just turn them overnight. And we are—United States of America, we’re a different country. We’re constituted differently than European countries, than Canada and other countries. We’re a younger country, where there’s more of an entrepreneurial sense in America than in those other countries. It’s kind of "go west, young man" in, you know, America and so forth.
So we’ve got to come up with our uniquely American result. An uniquely American result will be a combination of public and private insurance, but one in which everyone is covered. And just my judgment—and every member of Congress agrees with me, I think, at least those I’ve spoken with, that this is not the time to push for single payer. It may come down—it may come later. But it’s not going to happen in America, in my view. So I’m not going to waste my time pushing on something that isn’t going to happen."
Source: www.democracynow.org (11 March 2009 Amy Goodman program)
I guess that news travels slowly to Montana so the good senator doesn't realize that almost 100 Congressman have signed on the Congressman John Conyers single payer tax bill. Or perhaps he doesn't realize that we already have a single payer health system in Medicare which can also be considered "uniquely American." But I expect that the good senator's real reason for his stubborn opposition to single payer and his unwillingness to even consider it (although it would be the cheapest and most effective route by far) is because Max Baucus has been bought and paid for by the insurance companies and pharmacy companies which would lose out in a single payer system. According to the the website Opensecrets.org, the two BIGGEST contributors to Sen. Baucus from 2003-2008 where: Schering-Plough and New York Life Insurance. Moreover, by industries, Max Baucus took in $588,185 from insurance companies in the same period. Max Baucus also accepted $537,141 from "health professionals" (meaning, the people who have made the system the way it is now) and $523,313 from pharmaceuticals. Max Baucus is little more than a puppet for big insurance and big pharmacy and he does what they want. That's the real reason he has taken single payer "off the table".
Source: www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php%3Fcid%3DN00004643+max+baucus+insurance+contributio
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I regret to say (I was a big supporter of his) that President Obama has not been much better on this issue than the bought-and-paid-for-Baucus. As he has on lots of other issues (FISA, Iraq, doing away with tax breaks for those making more than $250,000; and, lobbyists "will not work in my White House") Obama has abandoned a progressive position that he once held and adopted a centrist, DLCer position. When he was still a state senator in Illinois in 2003, not so long ago really, Obama supported single-payer:
STATE SEN. BARACK OBAMA: I happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal healthcare coverage. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent—14 percent—of its gross national product on healthcare, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim’s talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out: a single-payer healthcare plan, universal healthcare plan.
Source: democracynow.org 11 March 2009 Amy Goodman show where you can hear Obama himself utter these words)
But over time, and also with the corrupting influence of money given him to him and his campaign by the same people who have corrupted Baucus, Obama now has a different take:
"Well, I’ve said this before. If I were designing a system from scratch, then I’d probably set up a single-payer system. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the terminology, single payer basically means that you’ve got one government-funded program. It doesn’t have to all be government-run, but it’s government-funded. Everybody—Medicare would be an example of a single-payer system, if everybody was in Medicare.
But the problem is we’re not starting from scratch. We’ve got a system in which most people have become accustomed to getting their health insurance through their employer. And for us to immediately transition from that, and given that a lot of people work for insurance companies, a lot of people work for HMOs—you’ve got a whole system of institutions that have been set up—making that transition in a rapid way, I think, would be very difficult. And people don’t have time to wait. They need relief now.
So, my attitude is, let’s build off the system that we’ve got. Let’s make it more efficient."
Source: 11 March 2009, Amy Goodman, democracynow.org
Obama got it wrong. He's against single payer not because "a lot of people work for insurance companies and...for HMO's" but because insurance companies and HMO's gave lots of bucks to him and his campaign and the last thing in the world they want to see is a single payer system (because it cuts them out). "Health professionals" gave the Obama campaign almost $11.5 million and insurance more than $2 million. http://www.opensecrets.org/...
That's not all. Lobbyist "bundlers" who gave to Obama included:
Alan D. Solomont of Solomont Bailis Ventures in Massachusetts represents Health Services/HMOs. As an Obama bundler, Solomont raised $200,000+. FEC records show that Solomont personally contributed $2,100 on January 26, 2007;[34] $2,500 on March 30, 2007;[35] (Rebecca Solomont at the same address made two $2,300 contributions on the same day); and $2,300 on March 30, 2007. Many other lobbyist bundlers, of course, also gave to Obama but they represent unclear clients. Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/...
Moreover, listed among the top 50 contributors to Barack Obama 2003-2004 as a Senator are found the following political action committees: Allstate Insurance PAC; AIA Ill Pac (American Insurance Association). Among his top 50 contributors in 2001-2002 were the Illinois Health Care Association PAC. Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/... While serving in Illinois, reports www.boston.com, "Obama was willing to accept campaign contributions from lobbyists. Obama's state Senate campaign committee accepted contributions from insurance companies and their lobbyists - including $1,000 from the Professional Independent Insurance Agents PAC in June 2003, and $1,000 from the Illinois Insurance PAC in December 2003 - while the Health Care Justice Act was wending its way through the Illinois General Assembly. Obama also collected money from the insurance industry and its lobbyists for his successful US Senate campaign in 2004."
Source: http://www.boston.com/...
The same article notes that: "Lobbyists praised Obama for taking the insurance industry's concerns into consideration.
"Barack is a very reasonable person who clearly recognized the various roles involved in the healthcare system," said Phil Lackman, a lobbyist for insurance agents and brokers. Obama "understood our concern that we didn't want a predetermined outcome."
It sounds like Obama is doing the same thing now that he did in Illinois. He has shifted away from supporting single payer health care even as he has taken in buckets of cash from insurance companies and big pharmacy. Dr. Quentin Young, a physician from Chicago who was Dr. Martin Luther King's doctor and who, as a leading advocate for single payer, advised a young Obama noted this recently on Amy Goodman's show:
Well, Barack Obama, as we know, was a community organizer, a very lofty calling, in my book, and he made the decision, when the opportunity came, that he could get more done politically, and he accepted the nomination for the seat in the State Senate. It’s not that long ago, really. It’s about a six, eight years ago.
Barack Obama, in those early days—influenced, I hope, by me and others—categorically said single payer was the best way, and he would inaugurate it if he could get the support, meaning majorities in both houses, which he’s got, and the presidency, which he’s got. And he said that on more than one occasion, and it represented the very high-grade intelligence we all know Barack has.
However, as his political fortunes went upward, including the campaign for presidency, the nomination and, finally, the election, he qualified his position from saying it’s the best system, but that given the past American history with employment-based healthcare, he would have a plan that—and he has put one forward—that encompasses other incremental approaches.
Confronted by Amy Goodman with Obama's statement on the presidential campaign trail (quoted above in full) where Obama says we're not setting up a system from scratch and "lots of people work for insurance companies and HMO's", Dr. Quentin Young was even more blunt:
DR. QUENTIN YOUNG: Well, it’s one of the few times when Barack has been dishonest. He knows and all America knows that our experience with employment-based insurance and these other Mickey Mouse things have been increasingly a total disaster. You have a $2.5 trillion industry with vested interests—the private hospitals that are for profit, the HMOs, the health insurance industry—making billions upon billions, and things getting worse. He knows and should act on the fact that time is running out.
The American people are hurting. Over a million Americans go bankrupt due to medical bills each year, and there’s a new study, incidentally, that will show that 50 percent of the bankruptcies are due to health costs; it will be 60 percent. So we have a worsening situation. And a man who wants to lead a country which is in great peril had best do some courageous things.
I really feel that we have to mount a national concern about this. As a doctor, up until a year ago, after sixty years of practice, I can testify that this system is—well, "broken" is a gross understatement. It’s wrecked. And it’s ruining people, and the public can’t put up with it anymore.
Source: democracynow.org
Poor Dr. Quentin Young was not even invited by Obama to the recent health care symposium. Like he has done to so many of his early supporters, Obama has basically cast him off (after using him to get where he is).
From Democracynow.org:
AMY GOODMAN: This brouhaha over the last week with the White House healthcare summit, 120 people, there were going to be no single-payer advocates. Congressman Conyers asked to go. At first, he was told no. He directly asked President Obama at a Congressional Black Caucus hearing. He asked to bring you and Marcia Angell—
DR. QUENTIN YOUNG: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. You weren’t allowed to go. Do you have President Obama’s ear anymore? You have been an ally of his for years, for decades.
DR. QUENTIN YOUNG: Well, it’s mixed. I think we’re friends, certainly. At this gala that you mentioned, which was embarrassing, he did send a very complimentary letter. And I appreciate that, but I’d much rather have him enact single payer, to tell the truth. And we did—it’s fair to say, after a good deal of protest, I think we were told there was a—phones rang off the hook. They did allow our national president, Dr. Oliver Fein, to attend with Dr. Conyers—Congressman Conyers. That’s fine, but we need many more people representative of the American people at large to get this thing through the Congress, and Baucus, notwithstanding, be overruled.
Dr. Young brought up several other important points on the single payer system. First, single payer is popular:
"A study, April 2008, a refereed study published in the very prestigious Annals of Internal Medicine had the very—for me, very happy return that 59 percent of America’s doctors now support a government-run national health insurance to pay for healthcare."
And this exchange between Goodman and Dr. Young:
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Quentin Young, explain. Over and over, you hear Senator Baucus, you hear President Obama, saying it’s not that they’re against this—at least Obama certainly was saying this—it’s that it’s impractical, and people won’t support it. What is the polling—what are the polling figures on single payer? We almost never see it discussed on television, unless an opponent brings it up.
DR. QUENTIN YOUNG: Well, let me say, we have single payer in this country. It was enacted in 1965. It’s called Medicare. And it was put through the Congress by Lyndon Johnson. And then, overnight—overnight, in one year, the system was put in place, and it’s probably the best insurance program in the whole country. The seniors of this country are highly dependent on Medicare. It’s kept them from penury, and that’s—it was done in one year, Amy. No drag-out, no problems. All the things that people worried about just didn’t happen.
Now we’re talking about—somewhat more complicated, but not much—giving single payer to everybody in the country. It’s its simplicity that’s its virtue. It entails one source of payment. Doctors don’t have to wait, as they do so often presently. There’s no hassles. There’s people who will be unemployed; let’s concede, the vast army of people that are dedicated to denying care in the present insurance system will be no longer needed.
And we—our bill, House bill 676, sponsored, first of all, by Congressman Conyers, but with ninety-two supporters in the last Congress—we’re up to sixty in this. It’s extremely popular. This bill will, once enacted, will take a year at the most to fully implement, and then the huge burden of fear of getting sick, which is the plight of almost all America—it’s not a poor person’s problem any longer; it’s middle-class America. And it has to be changed. I wish somehow Barack could see this as the thing that will give dignity and grace to his tenure at the very beginning. It’s very important that this be enacted.
The issue of public support for single payer is often one raised in opposition to it. However, polls show that Americans favor single payer (and Medicare is very popular which is also single payer), that doctors favor single payer and so do nurses. Here's what Russell Mokhiber of singlepayeraction.org said to Amy Goodman on the same program referenced above on Democracynow.org
Mr. Mokhiber:
And here’s the situation in Washington. According to recent polling, 60 percent of Americans support Single Payer/Medicare for All. The majority of the doctors support it. The majority of the nurses support it. The majority of health economists support it.
So why isn’t it happening? It’s not happening because the legislation, single-payer legislation, would put the health insurance industry out of business. So, to be a player in Washington now, you have to kowtow to the powerful health insurance industry, and you have to say the following six words: "Single payer is off the table."
Now, who’s saying single payer is off the table? The health insurance industry, the Obama White House, the Democratic-controlled Congress, and most disgracefully, even some so-called public-interest groups like Health Care for America Now!
Mokhiber also pointed out a potentially very effective populist-progressive campaign to take the issue to the people and put the heat on our government:
So that’s why we’re creating singlepayeraction.org. We want to get a million people to sign up, and we want to have a direct confrontation with the health insurance industry and their lackeys in Congress. Take my district, the Second District of West Virginia. Shelley Moore Capito, moderate Republican, she comes from a coal state. She kowtows to the coal industry, no question. She takes—over ten years in Congress, she’s taken $290,000 from the mining industry. But she’s taken $300,000 from the insurance industry. So we’re going to get people in front of her office in Martinsburg and in front of her office in Charleston, and we are going to protest the fact that she has buckled to the insurance industry against the interests of her own constituents throughout the Second District.
And this on a political strategy for single payer:
Now, there is an answer. The answer is not email campaigns. Congress is becoming immune to email campaigns. The answer is not letter writing. The answer is direct, face-to-face confrontation with the insurance industry and with Congress, with your members of Congress in your district. So we’re calling on Americans to sign up at singlepayeraction.org and to organize protests in front—get to know your district—your member of Congress district office. Probably less than five percent of Americans know where the district office of their member of Congress. Get to know it. Camp out there. Call the local media. The local media is going to love it. And let’s get this thing done. Let’s push through single payer for the American people, like the rest of the civilized world has.
Why do we actually need single payer? This is explained well by Luke Mitchell. He’s senior editor at Harper’s Magazine and wrote an article in the February issue called "Sick in the Head: Why America Won’t Get the Health-Care System It Needs." He explained to Democracynow.org's Amy Goodman the some of the benefits of single payer:
"In fact, there’s a bill—and this is the amazing thing. John Conyers actually wrote a bill several years ago, HR 676. It has 100 sponsors, more or less, on the Hill. And it’s also known as the Medicare for All Act. And it would essentially expand Medicare to every American.
The advantages of single payer are much more than just coverage, though. But it does solve the first moral problem, which is that there are 50 million Americans—now 46, because the Children’s Health Insurance Program has passed—46 million Americans without insurance. And it immediately solves that problem. But it also introduces huge savings into the system, because you don’t have this massive overhead.
And finally, it introduces smart incentives into the system.
Finally, several websites have been set up to discuss and provide information on single payer. They include:
Physicians for a National Health Program, pnhp.org.
singlepayeraction.org
California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, nnoc.net.
And of course, Michael Moore's website at michaelmoore.com (which also deals with other issues)
An excellent starting point is also democracynow.org's recent programs on these issues as indicated in the diary.
I also recommend FishFry's diary on single payer which can be found here: http://www.dailykos.com/...