Even though single-payer, "Medicare for All" is the most effective economic solution to the health care crisis (I'm putting aside the moral question for the sake of this discussion), our political leaders (with the exception of HR676 advocates) and traditional media chattering ideologues do their best to ignore the basic facts. Which is why I was astonished yesterday that CNBC's Maria Bartiromo--one of the most visible knee-jerk promoters and defenders of the so-called "free market--agreed with me that single-payer makes sense. No, I'm not kidding.
I was asked to come on to debate whether taxes should be raised on the wealthiest Americans to pay for "universal" health care. I am in favor, generally speaking, of raising the dues the top one percent of Americans pay in our society so we can pay for lots of things, whether schools, "green" projects, assisting states in dire budgetary crisis and a whole host of important needs.
But, trying to frame the debate about raising taxes to pay for health care avoids the truth: if we enacted single-payer, you would not have to raise income taxes on anyone because single-payer would save $300-$400 billion A YEAR simply because we would eliminate the private insurances industry which wastes billions of dollars in administrative overhead primarily aimed not to deliver health care but to deny people health care.
And those numbers are even too startling for Bartiromo to dismiss, as you will see here:
As I argue for single payer throughout this segment, she says:
1:32 "it’s a very good thought"
3:32: it makes perfect sense....
4:46: what you’re saying sounds like it is the most sensible...
I don't want to suggest that Bartiromo has become an enthusiastic single-payer supporter. Rather, that it is quite clear that (a) the economics cannot be disputed and (b) therefore, the only reason we are not moving to a single-payer system is because of the deep corruption of the political process that allows the insurance industry to continue to control and manipulate politicians who do not have the backbone to say clearly, "it's over for you, health care will never be about profit again".