A second way to get to single payer

(I diaried a first one a while back, which was swamped by up to four comments.)

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  1. Polls indicate that most people under 50 years of age are in favor of major health care overhaul.
  1. These polls also indicate that a large fraction, possibly a majority, of those over 50 are concerned about it; some are opposed.
  1. The Obama administration, so far, has been weak on advertising and educating the public about health care, and what the changes would actually mean.
  1. There is a lot of (admittedly anecdotal) evidence that many older folks do not even understand that Medicare is a government-run program.
  1. Most people on medicare are quite happy with it, although some have private insurance as a supplement to it.
  1. Therefore, the administration could <now> push a program of "Medicare for all." This needs no educating nor much advertising. People will understand it.
  1. Such a program would work, in practice, similar to the way social security works now: Most people would get it, some would depend on it completely. There would still be a place for private insurace, in providing so called "medigap" insurance, as congress would continually have to deal with the actual cost of the program. And, its very existence would help hold costs down.