The Public Option Was Not A Compromise For Single Payer...

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Monday September 07, 2009 · 12:53 PM PDT

2009/09/07 · 12:53

unless you were compromising with yourself. I'm sick of hearing the "public option was the compromise". No, it wasn't. You can't compromise on something when it's the only policy for which you have advocated. The public option, not single payer, is the demand. A compromised public option is likely to be the compromise. Improved and Enhanced Medicare for All, or single payer, was never on the table. It was never part of the negotiations, thus it was never a policy up for compromise.

Imagine you and your spouse plan to go to dinner(for the vegans out there, assume the meat entrees I use to illustrate my point are tofu based. Let's stay focused). You want steak(Medicare for All). Your spouse gives you two options, A) hamburger(Medicare-like, national public option), or B) beef jerky(limited access public option, w/out many market advantages of traditional Medicare). If you choose to drop your desire for a good steak dinner, and go all in for the hamburger, that's fine. However, you have not negotiated with your spouse. You've made a conscious decision to limit the dinner discussion to hamburger over beef jerky.

This is how it went when advocates of a single payer system-turned public option advocates didn't insist that Medicare for All be part of the national health care debate. They limited their compromising position between a national, medicare-like public option within the context of a market-based, for-profit health insurance system and a limited or even non-existent public option. Single payer was never on the table and thus could not be compromised upon. That was a strategic decision made by a good many activists, bloggers, and left-leaning advocacy groups. For my part, I could have settled on the Medicare-like, national public option, but I understood from the outset, that was the compromise. And, to make that compromise, one must argue for something more, ie to get a national, Medicare-like public option, single payer had to be on the table.

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