Michael Moore has ratcheted the pressure for Universal Health Care with his film,"SICKO", along with his scathing bloodletting of Wolf Blitzer on Iraq and US healthcare several weeks ago on CNN. I'm sure the presidential contenders would like nothing more than to evade this issue for as long as possible. Fortunately, there won't be anything to stop the looming debates and collisions with health insurers.
Scarecrow, from Firedoglake, posted a piece about SCHIP:
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Originally conceived to provide coverage for children of families who are not eligible for Medicaid but still too poor to purchase private health insurance. It provides health coverage through a pooled, subsidized fund to pay for health care for children in families below a certain income threshold. By raising the threshold, and including other family members, millions more who are currently without care or insurance can receive care"
Despite bipartisan support in both houses for significant expansion of SCHIP, the Republican leadership has decided to block any major expansion and to support President Bush’s threatened veto.
Insurance companies are quaking from the eventuality that more Americans will select such a plan over their own bloated, inefficient,wasteful and duplicative system. Republicans just vote for the damn measure and call it bi-partisanship, yet knowing full well their own leadership will torpedo it anyway. . But, they can tell their constituents back home they voted for it.This has been the Republican modus operandi for years.
Michael Moore posts another piece on HuffingtonPost, and intones:
I am calling on each presidential candidate to pledge to refuse their free government health care until every person in this country also has it. I want every candidate who said they'd work for the minimum wage as president to work uninsured, too, until health care is universal. And I want the other candidates to join them. (Yes, I'm looking at you, too,
I will do you one better. Also, demand that the candidates transfer their health plans to needy Americans who have no coverage and are in desperate need of health services; preferably destitute by no fault of their own. Rub it in Romney's face.
Putting the screws to all the presidential candidates for a universal, and hopefully single payer plan, is going to change the dynamic of the race; particularly if it picks up steam. The entrance of health care into the debate could be devastating to the Republicans who have shown nothing but fealty to the insurance companies. And they won't like several million people watching a presidential debate with health care as a top issue.
Hilary, has and will, get an earful from the KOS community although she has recently made overtures and will appear at YEARLY KOS. (correct me if I’m wrong, here). Maybe this is good because up to now her health care vision looks pretty groggy, indeed. Unfortunately, nowhere on her web site is the mention of "single payer".
Neverthless, the hostility towards the insurance companies and for all private care, is most certainly understood by the senator.
There may be another battle. Universal care is one thing; single payer is another.
If there is any dent in the system, the insurance companies will want inclusion in a universal plan. Single Payer, on the other hand, would of course be devastating for them. But real great for us, with health gratuities on a par with my Congressman or Senator, perhaps. It will be extremely difficult in today’s hostile political climate to expect such legislation. But, not with an 08’ Democratic president and Congress to complete the demolition of the Republicans from the landscape.
The insurance companies and the entrenched hooliganism on the other side of the aisle, are gearing up together for a massive war against the advocates and ground swell for universal care-single payer.
By the way, how many terms does a Congressman have to serve before he gets the lifetime health care paid for by you and me?