This is an extremely important edition of Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" in which Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich and Amy Goodman share their views on health insurance/care reform.
I strongly urge everyone who hasn't already watched it to do so and to pass this program on to everyone you know.
Please watch.....
http://www.democracynow.org/...
My own view is that Kucinich properly held out and got his face time with President Barack Obama.....then did/is doing the right thing in supporting the current compromise bill that Obama is offering.
Having said that, anything that passes will be woefully inadequate in terms of fully addressing the systemic failings of the current model.
As I see it, the best reasons to support passage of this bill are that there is a POLITICAL need to pass this in order to keep the issue on the table and to give the Democrats a big victory over the Republican lies and distortions and terror/fear tactics they have employed in their misrepresentations of this relatively weak bill.
The day after this passes, the real fight for real reform begins. The Republicans are not going to fold up their tents and go away on this....they will continue to try to poison the well of public discourse re this bill and the impending implementation of it over the next four years.
The antidote to that poison will be a full and thorough national exposition of what single payer is and of how it will be a great improvement over both the status quo and the bill now before us.
It is my firm conviction that, when enough people actually understand what single payer/medicare for all actually IS there will be a massive groundswell of popular demand for real reform....that will then empower Democrats to follow the lead of the people in 2012 and passing a single payer bill over the lies, distortions, feat/terror tactics of the Republicans/Insurance Industry.
Both party establishments are, to some extent, bought and paid for by the same insurance interests....but I believe it is the Democrats who are the more reluctant whores and who will come back to their progressive ideals when there is a sufficiently large and forceful mass movement.......and that's the job of ordinary people.....not professional politicians (with extremely rare exceptions like a Kucinich).
Also, there is a subset of people who will get the beginnings of some fairly immediate relief under the bill as it is......the way that is implemented will also provide an ongoing basis for the exposition of the far better single payer option.
Bottom Lines: Single payer is the best option out there and there is NO ONE from the Republican Party or from the insurance industry or from the "think tanks" they pay for that can go toe to toe with a qualified single payer expert in a genuinely free and fair debate (i.e. equal time, real rules, no interrupting each other etc). The single payer advocate will win every time......not so much because the folks on our side are so much smarter, or better debaters.....but because our positions is so much more easily defensible and theirs so weak on the objective merits.