ZNet hosted a column today called "Single Payer: The Top Ten Enemies" that I thought was extremely illuminating. Here's the list in alphabetical order:
- American Association of Retired Persons (AARP)
- American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP)
- American Medical Association
- Barack Obama
- Business Roundtable
- Families USA
- Health Care for America Now
- Kaiser Family Foundation
- The Lewin Group
- Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association of America (PHRMA)
We might add to the list media organizations like the Associated Press that consistently ignore Medicare For All as a possibility, or attack it when they do acknowledge it.
We have to come to terms with the fact that the public plan unveiled in the House probably can't be expanded into a universal public insurance system. It appears much too small for this, and so the amount of good it can do is pretty limited. Assuming the bill gets passed, we absolutely can't afford to wait out the ten years it contains funding for until moving for Medicare For All. This bill probably won't do much to reduce health care costs projected to reach 25 percent of GDP by 2025.
That means that the sooner we realize which politicians and organizations are ensconced in the current status quo, the better. The past six months demonstrates that these people will never change unless they are forced to do so. Politicians like Obama, Reid, Pelosi, and others will continue to ignore or even actively try to squelch Medicare For All--and we should assume that they will until they are simply voted out of office. It's possible that they may change, but not without so much political blood being spilled that unseating them might be just as natural.
Unseating Democrats from the left may seem far fetched, but consider what will happen to Obama if Congress winds up passing a lackluster bill. His approval ratings may plummet as people begin to realize intuitively that little real change has been accomplished and that it is mostly a sham concocted by "special interests." Even right now most people say in polls that the bill will have little effect on them personally--and they're probably right. Combined with the fact that the stimulus is much too small, it's possible that Obama may end up being a one term President.
The question then would be: can we nominate somebody who actually favors reasonable economics? And can we capture the fallout instead of the Republicans?
Organizations like Health Care For America Now, the AARP, and the army of corporate propaganda outlets like the Kaiser Foundation cannot help us plan for this event. They will not disagree with corporate America because in many cases they simply are corporate America. Similar statements hold for media organizations like the Associated Press, however many letters we may write to them. It's a hard fact to face, but if single payer is ever going to come to America it will demand constructing an organization that can compete with (not conciliate) organized business. It's a hard road, but it's the only one.
Luckily, we do have one group on our side: the public. Hopefully through organizations like Healthcare-NOW! we can actually exploit this.