Reading the headlines this evening in the New York Times, and two, one on top of the other, jump out at me "Obama May Lack Votes on Health, Democrat Says" on top and "In Poll, Wide Support for Government-Run Health" just below it. Does this not say it all? can we please have just a little democracy? please? What the fuck is wrong with these people, Do they want to continue living in the dark ages? Are they worried the government may be further in debt? (SO WHAT!) Hasn't anyone figured out how much better off the economy would be if we had all that health care money to spend in other places besides the medical industrial complex? I am just fucking sick of this, literally!!! Every opportunity i get, when asked, i call my congress people and senators and tell them if the don't fully support a public if not single payer health care plan for this country and our districts i will do everything in my personal power to see they are unseated come the next election. I really hope you do the same (and if you live in New York keep trying Schumer's office please 'cause i can never get through, and i've hit my re-dial button hundreds of times). we gotta be relentless, this could happen, and at least we must begin now. thank you.
Glen ---
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan (prob. got turned onto you waaay late via Jon Resh) and became a bigger admirer when you posted about the need for a single-payer system. I'm an organizer in Florida for s-p. You probably know already, but this "public option" thing will help some folks (10 million?) get insurance but it does nothing to control costs & expand coverage for those ~200 Million *with* insurance. It's just another layer on our fucked up patchwork system that doesn't work for the insured or the uninsured.
Add in the $300 billion price tag (we don't have to spend more money for single-payer, just eliminate the insurance companies and their profits, denials of care, advertising, etc) and it's possible that this "public option" will make it harder to win single-payer.
http://www.pnhp.org -- physicians for a national health program has a great site & talk about this
http://www.healthcare-now.org -- the national coalition working to win H.R. 676/Single-Payer... our group in Gainesville is a part of HCN.
keep kicking butts!
Thanks Mark, the fucking language is confusing sometimes and i believe that most people including myself thought that public was a form of single payer ... thanks for the clarity. and good luck to us all.
ReplyDeleteThat poll undersamples Republicans by a full 10pts. Don't believe the hype... thsi bill is dying because of exactly what you suggest... people calling their representatives to tell them not to destroy the healthcare system with this bill.
ReplyDeleteShould we do something? Yeah. Should we do govt. takeover of the industry? Well, just look at Medicare and I believe you have your answer.