I am a Bernie Sanders Democrat.
The progressive ideals and principals of the independent Senator from Vermont are the ideals and principals I'd like to see at the core of the Democratic Party. I wish we had more elected officials who had Sanders willingness to take on corporate interests, and champion the interests of the working class and the public good..
Could you imagine instead of one lone Senator advocating a single payer system, we had other Senators fighting on behalf of a single payer system? You know a system that is supported by a majority of Americans, a system that would be both more just and freeing* for millions of Americans & businesses.
(* I know I would have more freedom in my life if I didn't have to pay almost 300 dollars a month to my for profit health insurance company. I have some medical conditions so I can't afford not to have health insurance but it is embarrassing that I'm in twenties and I still need financial support from my parents to help cover my health insurance)
We need to move toward a national health care program that guarantees health care to all as a right, not a privilege."
According to the World Health Organization, the United States ranks 37th in terms of health system performance and 72nd in overall population health.' Only in America do we have an industrialized nation that has capital punishment but not a national health plan.
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There were two recent interviews pertaining to Sanders and his take on health care. The first one is from the Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel
This week, Senator Bernie Sanders has been firing on all cylinders as he continues his advocacy for real healthcare reform that controls costs while extending quality care to every American. Monday he held a town meeting in Burlington to discuss what we can learn from other countries that have developed cost effective universal health care systems. On Tuesday he met with President Obama along with other members of the Finance and Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committees responsible for drafting the Senate's healthcare legislation. Yesterday he arranged a meeting between single-payer advocates and Finance Chair Max Baucus--Baucus had previously not only denied them a seat at the table for his hearings but even had some arrested.
Q: Tell me about the purpose of the meeting with Senator Baucus today?
Senator Sanders: The truth of the matter is--and I say this not ideologically but just from an objective analysis of the health care situation--the only way you're gonna provide comprehensive, universal, and cost-effective healthcare to every man, woman, and child in this country is through a single-payer system. That's just a simple reality. And the reason for that is that to pay for universal comprehensive healthcare you have to deal with the enormous amount of waste that is currently within the private health insurance industry. The estimate is about $400 billion a year in administrative costs, in billing, in profits, in CEO compensation, in advertising--all of those things which have nothing to do with the provision of healthcare...
In California, my understanding is that 1 out of every 3 dollars of premiums goes to administration. If we are gonna address the very rapid and dangerous increase in healthcare [costs], then the only way to do that is through a single-payer system which wrings out all of the waste that private health insurance creates.
So, you gotta put that issue out on the table and that's what we're trying to do.
The meeting with Senator Baucus is an effort to allow all of the people in this country--including 15,000 physicians, the largest nurses organizations--to at the very least begin to get a hearing [on] what is the most sensible proposal out there. I'm going to be talking to Senator Dodd--who for a while has taken over the leadership of the HELP Committee--about the possibility of a hearing within the HELP Committee. I don't know if that would happen but I'd like to see that.
I just think it's very important for the American people to understand why our system is the most expensive, the most wasteful, the most bureaucratic in the entire industrialized world. The only way you can do that is through the analysis that single-payer provides.
Q: Your bill that would allow five states to administer a single-payer system (S.898) --is that an incubator to move towards a national single-payer system?
Senator Sanders: That's right. And we're gonna push for that. We are absolutely gonna push for that. That came up at the meeting with Senator Baucus and it's something that I want in the bill.
The other interview was with Ezra Klein and it covers similar ground...
Such as Sanders making the point that health care reform is not reform if it does penetrate the "root cause of why we have 46 million uninsured and, at the same time, we pay more for health care per person than any industrialized country on earth".
And the reason why Washington won't address the root cause is because too many elected officials are "unwilling to take on the role of private insurance companies" which are the "reason our system is so wasteful, inefficient and bureaucratic."
I found this part of the interview interesting.
Question: You've introduced the only single-payer bill in the Senate. As far as I know, you're the only sponsor. That's in contrast to the House, where the cousin to your legislation has dozens of co-sponsors. Why do you think the Senate is more resistant to this proposal?
Sanders: Well we have two cousins in the House. Conyers and McDermott. And we're more related to McDermott.
Questioner: Fair enough. Why do you think the Senate is more reluctant to embrace this?
Sanders:I think in general the Senate is a more conservative institution. I was in the House 16 years and I founded the House Progressive Caucus. In the House, you'd have 30, 40, 50 strong progressives. Percentage wise, we don't have that in the Senate. The reason why is the topic for another long discussion, but that's just the way it is.
Questioner:For all the talk of the Congressional Budget Office lately, I haven't seen the CBO taking on your legislation or Rep. Conyer's. Have you submitted it to be scored?
Sanders: We have not submitted it to be scored. If we can we surely will. It's not clear they would score it.
Questioner: Why wouldn't they?
Sanders: These studies don't take five minutes. If I were the chairman of the HELP Committee they'd score it.
I understand the Senate is a conservative institution, but it is still sad commentary when a common sense proposal supported by a majority of Americans does not have one co-sponsor. Even my other favorite progressive Senator Russ Feingold is lukewarm on a single payer. "I don't think a single-payer system could possibly pass in the Congress at this time. I don't even know if it would be my first choice. I think a little better approach would be to pass a law guaranteeing every American has to be covered"
But Sanders understands even if single payer doesn't pass it is important
the importance of the hearing is not that it will change minds but that the American people -- and Congress -- should hear the facts about the enormous waste and bureaucracy and profiteering associated with private health insurance. Not to deal with that is mind-blowing.
Lastly Sanders is pragmatic in a good sense of the word.
question: You've implied here that single payer may be the long-term goal. In the shorter-term, what should single payer advocates be looking to get out of the health care process Baucus is running? Are there any concessions that could make that a win?
Sanders:I am sure that there are some single payer advocates who think the only thing worth fighting for is single payer. What I have also introduced, which we will be fighting for, is a five-state option. That would mean five states would have the option of running pilot programs in universal health care but one would have to be single payer.
I think it's possible this will never happen in DC, but that this country will join the rest of the industrialized world when a state, maybe like Vermont, implements single payer and does it well. And then New Hampshire will be looking over our shoulders, and they will adopt that, and so on through the country. That's in fact how national health care came to Canada, it started in the Saskatchewan province.
The second area of less importance, but important nonetheless, is the fight for a strong public option. In my view, if you had a level playing field and a pubic program and a private insurance program providing the same level of benefits, people would come into the public program because the public program would be substantially more efficient. I think we can make that case, and I will advocate for it in the legislation
I agree with Pluto