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If the ACA Is Abolished, Then It's Pure Battle between Private Health Ins. and Single Payer
There will be no more compromises. If the individual mandate is unconstitutional then so too will an employer mandate be as well. That means that we will be left with the current system that we have which is not sustainable.
As health insurance premiums rise faster than the rate of inflation, employers will drop the benefit. As more employers drop the benefit, the premiums will rise, and on and on.
Then insurance companies will begin hiking deductibles, refusing coverage for even more procedures, etc. etc.
Soon, the clamor for a Single Payer system will, and it could upset the Democratic party as the base of the party will demand that its leaders fight for a pure Single Payer which means that the more conservative Dems will be in complete conflict with the base.
Ending the ACA will either be the path to Single Payer or no insurance at all for the majority of Americans.
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freshwest
(53,661 posts)CAPHAVOC
(1,138 posts)The GOP has no real answer.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Voting for Repubs won't bring about anything but more privatization and selling off the commons. That has always been their policy. And they've just about stolen everything, the next generation will be so hedged in, they will never know there was anything different.
TheWraith
(24,331 posts)When they're busily trying to destroy Medicare, you're going to imagine that they're going to pass a Medicare for all type bill? Why? Because people want it? What people want has absolutely NOTHING to do with what the Republicans actually do.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)I see them as lock-step lacks for the oligarchy. They will 100% vote as their lords and masters tell them. They have drawn the line in the sand because they have nothing. They were chosen because they have nothing. They are figuratively slaves. They have but one mission at this point. Enslave the commoners.
Johonny
(20,851 posts)it will continue to be their answer so long as Americans vote for Republican candidates expecting them to act and then after the election Republicans not having to act on this issue. They ran on removing health care and won in 2010. That doesn't sound like a party concerned with having an actual plan or voters concerned that the party they are voting for has a plan.
librechik
(30,674 posts)Now they will allow the death of thousands in order to repudiate their own plan. Can they get any more insane? I don't want to know.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)of heart on this. I have heard some of them now acknowledging that we need universal coverage but the only way they see is through "increased competition." Or at least that is what they are saying now. The basic flaw with the "competition" argument, IMO, is that you simply cannot provide universal health care in a for-profit system, because a company cannot make money off of insuring sick and/or old people. This is why I was originally so excited by John Edwards plan and his rationale, way back in 2007. He said that you can't sit at the table and negotiate with these insurance companies, because they will take "all of the food"!
Besides, the GOP is in the pocket of the health insurance industry big time. I don't think they want to cut themselves off from the hand feeding them...
however, I am interested in hearing your ideas on this...
CAPHAVOC
(1,138 posts)Who vote for them. If presented as an alternative and explained in the right non-confrontational way the people would force them to or vote them out. Medicare is without a doubt Constitutional.
Medicare eliminates Big Insurance. Not even Republican voters like the Big Insurance Companies.
Health Care is no longer an insurable interest.
It could be sold as getting rid of Medicaid and all the other hodge podge of Federal Health Programs the Republican Voters hate.
Medicare has no Pre-Existing conditions.
It is already in place and requires no 20,000 pages of insane regulations.
It is an easy sell and everyone would want it.
If only the Democratic Party could shake the Insurance Lobby and propose it in a United Front.
The GOP would go with it or cease to exist.
Medical Providers are still private and people can seek treatment anywhere they want.
There are so many positives. I think it is doable.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)ministrations of Joe Lieberman? Joe got that baby strangled in its crib IIRC. What is to keep them from not doing the same thing again? I suppose you could imagine a more strongly Democratic Senate and I would certainly agree but that is something of a tall order at this point.
Sometimes I get depressed when I see so much of what the public says it wants NOT make it through the Congress. It often seems like we, the people are just fighting an uphill battle. How do we overcome Citizens United, ALEC legislation infecting our state lawmaking bodies, and lots of control of the MSM?
CAPHAVOC
(1,138 posts)What the heck is he doing?
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)impossible, i.e. Medicare for all. If it either something or nothing, he wanted that something, in part, I believe, because it would make him a transformative president. And, he could have seen that his "compromise" ACA would be a first step to single payer.
What I have been wondering, ever since the 08 dem primaries, is why the public option never was even considered? There was Joe Lieberman, standing in the way. Every single Dem running in the primaries in 08 had a public option in their plans. Every one. Yet it never even got to be discussed as part of Obama's plan. Was every Democrat running just naive? I can't believe that Hillary or Joe Biden were naive. They were after all members of the Senate, just like Obama. They knew how the game was played. Was it all just a big show for nothing?
But if you are from Conn. There are a lot of big Insurance Companies there. Dodd and Leiber are from there too. I think the whole thing was a disaster and a money grab. Obama laid low and cut deals. Hardly a peep out of him. Lets hope the court gets rid of the Albatross and we get another chance.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)He and Blumenthal would be terrific, two CT progressive Dems! And also, hopefully, they will work with the new Senator from MA, Senator Elizabeth Warren!
CAPHAVOC
(1,138 posts)Have not heard of him. Tell him to go for medicare.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)I think he is VERY electable, esp. against that horror Linda McMahon, who is back like chewing gum stuck on your shoe for another round of wasting her own money.
Here is info from Murphy's web page: http://chrismurphy.house.gov/
karynnj
(59,503 posts)that would do the opposite - eventually eliminate Medicare as single payer?
CAPHAVOC
(1,138 posts)And with that plan they probably will. Ryan thinks he is a real genius.
NYC Liberal
(20,136 posts)Yeah, that's been said about countless issues over the years. The GOP was done after Watergate; they were done after the stolen election in 2000; they were done after Iraq; they were done after Katrina; they were done after the economic collapse in 2008. Etc., etc. Yes, they SHOULD have been done, but yet here they are.
So I present a third choice: the GOP goes all out in opposing it, the insurance companies pull out all the stops doing the same, and the corporate media plays along. Catapult the propaganda often enough and plenty of people will be convinced to oppose it.
There are plenty of gullible people in this country who easily fall for right-wing propaganda. There are plenty of right-wing "true believers." There are plenty who will vote against their own interests. And there are plenty of just plain dumb people.
In a perfect world, the right wing of today would be relegated to ranting on cable access channels at 2AM and no one would take them seriously. But they do. So here we are.
karynnj
(59,503 posts)He said there were no more than 10 Senators for it. John Kerry, one of those who is for it, was ambushed by a single payer advocate and asked why they wouldn't fight for it - the answer was that it didn't (and couldn't) get the votes. When pushed as to why, he said that too many were ideologically against it.
That doesn't change. Look at the fact that Ryan is actually pushing to move Medicare in the OPPOSITE direction. You might remember that very few (if any) House Republicans were against that - and most Republican Senators voted for it.
CAPHAVOC
(1,138 posts)Like Obama. Loud and clear. He needs to get off the Green and get to work.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)There are around 10 senators who would vote for single payer, and 49 who are guaranteed to filibuster it. How do you propose to move that dial when the senators who would filibuster would be primaried by other Republicans if they abandoned the filibuster?
How would you convince vulnerable Democratic Senators in swing or red states to vote for Single payer when it guarantees their defeat?
How would you convince several Dozen Republican house members to vote in favor of it when they are universally against changing the status quo? What would you give up as a bone or compromise?
Let me guess, your response will include something about magical arm twisting and hypno-trance techniques from the bully pulpit.
CAPHAVOC
(1,138 posts)The Bully Pulpit. Not the cross-fire like mess we have in the media and politics today. Get the polls to 70% for it. When the polls speak the pols listen.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)are opposed to the idea. Lets see how effective it is in a few limited situations.
CAPHAVOC
(1,138 posts)Health Care is no longer an insurable interest. So eliminate Insurance Companies. Entirely and once and for all. Let them insure something else.
Medicare is already in place and it would be easy to expand it to all citizens. It works.
It would be fair. Everyone would have the same treatment. Even the Congress. The low income. Everyone.
It would be affordable. By eliminating the Hodge Podge and Mumbo Jumbo of Insurance, Medicaid, and all the various nefarious Federal, State, County, and City programs much money could be redirected to it and it would simplify the insanity.
Doc's and Hospitals would be able to spend their time treating the sick rather than dealing with managed care insurance pests.
People could go to any Doc they want. No networking etc.
Just a few.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)Unfortunately, many of them are far more worried about somebody getting an abortion or two men kissing.
Also, they are tired of the federal government constantly raising taxes. I have even heard Liberal Democrats complain about that. And they looked at me like I had just grown a second head when I pointed out that the federal income tax has been lowered a dozen times in my career and only increased once. In fact, they immediately changed the subject because what I said was so far outside what everybody "knows" to be true that they apparently could not process it.
karynnj
(59,503 posts)I saw some who were FOR the healthcare bill argue that it was NOT "government take over of healthcare" I think this is what Senator Kerry meant when he spoke of "ideologically against it".
One way to think of it is that in the United States there are two competing visions of what government should be. For us, the government can and should provide for the needs of citizens. The most extreme small government person I have known took the position that only defense should be done by the federal government and he felt the states should be very limited too - to the point where he was against public elementary and secondary education.
When you say that a huge percent of people would be for single payer if they understood it, you are assuming that they share your values. First, you need to define what "Medicare for all" means. If you think it means that everyone is now on Medicare, you need to consider that you need to now pay for that. To ask the question seriously, you would have to ask whether they would agree to a new tax and in return have all people suddenly on Medicare, possibly with income determined copays.
In addition, in the polls I looked at in 2009, one thing that impressed me was that many who were satisfied with their own insurance still responded they were in favor of universal healthcare. However, one of the things that polled the highest was being able to stay on their own plan. It would take a major effort - that might be unsuccessful - to convince the lucky people with good insurance that single payer would be at least as good - and the Republicans have been out there for the last several years with horror stories of Canada and the UK.
NYC Liberal
(20,136 posts)if they could get away with it politically. They would most certainly not support expanding it.
CAPHAVOC
(1,138 posts)Need an offer they are afraid to refuse.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)make the war clear. There is a better way to kill health care for the common people. Death by a thousand cuts.
libtodeath
(2,888 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)We still have some of the trappings but they are disappearing quickly. How do you wrest the power from those with all the wealth and power? Do we ask Congress nicely to reform itself? To give up their graft because we want freedom?
Occupy gets it. They are willing to get their heads busted because they know this is it. But until the commoners recognize that we have moved from a simple class war to a revolution, we will continue to wallow in senseless hope.
libtodeath
(2,888 posts)even though it is slow.
Look at the insanity of the right and the horror most people have from it.
They will resist but a move to a fair and just Democratic country as the founders wanted will happen.
It may get ugly and hope not but the signs and patterns are all there.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)You say that most people see the horror of the "right". I say most people are ambivalent or at least disillusioned. There was a lot of hope before Obama became president. But after almost 4 years things have not gotten significantly better. Granted the slide into fascism has slowed but the oligarchs wont give up without a fight and they have all the resources. Do you expect the liberal Democrats to get a filibuster proof Senate? If not, what will change?
Things will have to get significantly worse before the commoners (99%) wake up to their oppression. Occupy doesnt want to wait.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)99% and the 1%. These are accepted shorthand terms that everyone knows. I remember that the MSM ignored OWS at first, simply didn't cover it. Then it went on day after day and they were forced to cover it. I remember watching Morning Joe before and after the coverage started. Joe Scar was pretty dismissive but shortly after Mika's father, Zbigniew, came on the show and reminded them of something he had said a few months earlier about how he wondered why "there weren't people in the streets."
Occupy started something and while we don't know what it will be, it will certainly have changed some young minds and gotten young people out of any sort of dream world they have been in.
libtodeath
(2,888 posts)is the waking up part,seeing the speculators bleed us with gas will be a part of it as will more attention to Occupy.
What I believe will happen and is happening is the revulsion brought on by limpballs,santorum and others along with economic woes will create the needed ground swell to push all elected to the left.
Even in what are now red states if they sense the population is fed up they will vote as needed to stay in office.
Every time polled,progressive ideals and plans have an overwhelming majority in favor of.
We need to stop being ambivelent and saying oh well,nothing will change and start driving the points home.
I am sick of liberal,socialist and other terms being equated with laziness,those are common sense and simple beliefs that will turn this country around.
Will we fight for them or run from them is the question.
bornskeptic
(1,330 posts)Why is it that those countries can have great healthcare systems without single payer ever happening? Are we Americans so stupid that the only way we can get universal healthcare is through single payer? Why do you think the French and the Japanese are so much more clever than we are?
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)private non-profit health care companies, instead of having a national health service, a la U.K.
The private non-profits compete for these health care tax dollars by offering different plans for different folks, but the key here is that they are forbidden by law from making a profit. there is for profit insurance you can buy for extras, such as a private hospital room, but not for basic and very good health care for everyone. It's cheaper and its health outcomes are much better than what we have.
MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)And that's ALL that matters in this country.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)Hate to break it to you, neither is the ACA system. The White House predicts inflation rates of 7%. That's unsustainable. Some one is going to have to "fix" this soon, and my concern has always been that it will be the republicans. The dems had their shot, the GOP will probably be next. They brought us Part D after all.
TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)It is entirely built on the existing system. At best, it "curbs the worst practices of the insurance industry". It is not a compromise nor is it even serious market based reform.
The Heritage Foundation did not design any compromise, it laid out a system to protect existing profit centers.
vi5
(13,305 posts)Not in our lifetimes. If the ACA goes down there's zero chance we'll get somethign MORE liberal or closer to single payer. If anything it insures Democrats will be even more timid and cowardly and cowed by corporate interests to even attempt health care reform any time soon.
What you are talking about happening could only happen if we had a few things:
1) A reasonably informed public.
2) A brave, aggressive and "on-message" Democratic party.
We have neither of those things, and if the signature, defining issue of Democratic rule int he first 2 years of the Obama presidency goes down, it will be a very long and painful time before we see anything even close to healthcare reform again.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)
Old and In the Way
(37,540 posts)Everyone drop their private insurance. If enough people do this, the model collapses and the government will have no choice but to move to a single payer solution. I'm paying $1400/mo and it's always a struggle to get a claim honored. Why not join the millions that don't have it? Somehow the system seems to accommodate those w/o health insurance by passing it on to those that do. I'm about ready to risk the long term implications of this decision by enjoying my life with the money that I'm paying now to support a system that probably will still bankrupt me at the end of my days.
vi5
(13,305 posts)With my family's medical expenses we'd be bankrupt and our credit destroyed within 2 months time. While I agree the system will hurt us all in the end, I'm just not able to commit to speeding that process along in any way.
We can barely get enough people to vote, and to be informed enough to vote their interests. Do you really think you could get enough people to drop their insurance coverage?
Again, I should be clearn in that we need something to happen. I'm just not even close to optimistic enough to believe it's going to be any time soon.
Old and In the Way
(37,540 posts)I've got 4 people on my policy and while we are in good health, that could change tomorrow. It is a risk that I don't want to take...but between this and college loans, I've got "0" discretionary income and I'm one paycheck away from disaster. If ACA goes down, I see premiums going up. My only point is, we can easily decide to create the change - obviously those who need the insurance now can't drop it - but a critical mass of people who don't could bring the system to it's knee's within a couple of months. The only option to save the healthcare industry in this country would be for the government to do a Single payer system. I'm not looking for a free lunch, I'm looking for a HC system that is fair and equitable to all.
CAPHAVOC
(1,138 posts)And an easy sell if tried. This could be the chance.
mainer
(12,022 posts)and even Republican voters might see the light on this one.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)easier sell. You can't tell most Americans that Medicare is "socialism." They don't believe it. They think socialism is something done in the old Soviet Union or under the Nazis.
But I do think the one thing Republicans CAN do and ARE already doing is re-branding Medicare as being "too expensive" and "needing reform." Of course, they don't want reform at all. They really want to kill it. But they realize that first they have to re-brand it...
CAPHAVOC
(1,138 posts)Until they are sold on it in an honest way.I think Health Care has evolved to a point that it should be considered like the military. A vital interest of the country and so big that only the Federal Government can do it. Medicare would only be a way of funding that which the people can not fund on their own. The Health Care providers and the people would still be free to do as they wish. Personally I would not mind even some waiting and triage for the worst off to go first. If we are low on money or short on Doctors.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)And they don't want American style health care. They are simply mystified as to why we Americans do it this way. Even the more conservative Europeans I have talked to do not want to change their health care system for ours. When I tell this to my RW acquaintances, they say that all those other countries don't know any better. If they did, they would want our system! They are that out to lunch...
vi5
(13,305 posts)I agree. It shouldn't be. It should be an easy sell. Then again so should the ACA and here we sit with that ready to start swirling down the shitter slowly.
Any of this is possible and would be easy if we had a political party on our side with discipline and solid messaging and sales skills.
Instead we have the Democratic party.
kenny blankenship
(15,689 posts)Well if that happens, then they and their ACA weren't the answer ANYWAY. If they won't adopt Single Payer as the Constitutional as well as practical solution to this country's abysmal health care problems, then they were never really on your side anyway. And they weren't about to be on your side either.
if that happens, then the way they were going to "fix it later" with Obamacare was, in fact, going to be screwing you over - but incrementally, giving the insurance co.s all they want, doing nothing to control costs (there were no provisions for that anyway) and making sure the regulatory agencies and Congressional oversight staffs would be staffed with eager and helpful insurance industry stooges, just the same way SEC "regulates" the securities industry now. They would shrug and say the Republicans made us do it. We didn't want to feed you into the jaws of the Insurance Cartel but, shucks, we just didn't have the votes. We just didn't have the votes. Besides we can't let the Insurance Men go hungry - they're Our System! It can't be allowed to fail - it's too Big! The System must be fed and healthy for us to be healthy. We would be playing dice with the health and lives of three hundred million Americas if we let any bill pass that endangered the financial security of our Insurance System - you can't ask us to risk that!
Meanwhile the problem will remain and will be getting worse. You may conclude that nothing more will be done. But I believe the people have a breaking point and a public solution to a public interest problem of this great size will come, even if the Democrats choose to stand in the way.
bluestate10
(10,942 posts)In the real world, Single Payer won't happen on a national level. No President would ever again stake his or her Presidency on getting even the most pale health care lawpassed into law. Why should that future President take the magnitude of the political risk give that haters will rip him or her and people that President should be able to count on go ass crazy in joining the haters, hence enforcing the haters. One of the most disheartening signs that I saw in the news today was a dumbassed teabagger holding up a sign that said 72% of americans oppose the health care law. Criers for Single Payer can claim until they are blue in the face that polls lie, but there is no fucking straddling a line on the health care law, you either approve it and are set to make it better during the near future, or you oppose it and don't want americans to have affordable health care.
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)ACA doesnt change the game for private health insurance at all, just insures their dominance.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)You are not going to convince people who are against reforming the system that there is a shred of difference between forcing people to pay via a mandate versus forcing them to pay more taxes for a single payer government managed healthcare system. Many of the same arguments apply from a legal standpoint, except it's an even higher burden to overcome since you would be simultaneously ending an entire industry (the private healthcare insurance industry) by decree.
You are still forcing all people to pay for something they otherwise could opt out of under the current system. That difference does not change. The delivery method changes, but that is all.
andym
(5,443 posts)since single-payer could be done as a tax, which then automatically includes the health care coverage. People of course would be free not to pay. The tax would be enough to provide minimally acceptable health care coverage.
In fact, I think that the mandate in HCR could have been done as a tax that includes government insurance, with an opt-out to allow people to keep their private insurance. The government insurance could have been a public option (the simplest choice) or provided a voucher to be used on the exchanges. For those who could not afford to pay the tax, it could have been also made a tax credit given in the form of a voucher which could only be used to buy insurance on the exchanges.
The key idea is that a tax is allowable under interstate commerce, while a mandate may be problematic-- we'll see in a few months what the court says.
(you should make your post an OP, so that your point can be explored in detail)
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)argue against it. I also think the public vs private choice goes even futher in avoiding a successful challenge. I just dont think that is what most people are proposing when they propose single payer.
Most people mean one entity that everyone goes through for care.
I am not up to dealing with this as an OP. Im a little argued out.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)That would be ironic, the insurance industry shooting themselves in the foot with this nonsense that they are behind no doubt.
jzodda
(2,124 posts)I knew it was a mistake to take this approach and this mess could have been avoided. They dropped the public option to get Repukers on board but they would have none of it anyway. Obama spent 2+ years trying to work with the other side and now we are paying for that strategy.
Hopefully we will get a do-over one day but it maybe a long time before we have the Presidency, the House and Senate again. Hopefully next time we do they will learn from the mistakes of the last time.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)You would still be forcing the entire population to have and pay for healthcare. Under the status quo before the ACA, people could opt out of paying for it and use that money for something else. Whether it is single payer or the ACA with mandate, you are still forcing people to pay for something.
jzodda
(2,124 posts)A public option would not have had a mandate to buy a commercial product (IE: no commerce clause issues). If Medicare is constitutional then providing it to everybody would also by definition be constitutional.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)vs non commercial. Its about forcing the entire population to buy something for which they can currently opt out and not pay for, at least that is what is being argued at the SCOTUS.
jzodda
(2,124 posts)I'm not talking about the current case. I was speaking about the public option, and that the gov should have gone that way in 2009 when creating this law.
Since the Public option also effects that.
My point is that it becomes a tax issue- If Medicaid is legal and constitutional and Medicare is constitutional then expanding and consolidating it to cover all people does NOT change its constitutionality. The issues regarding the constitutionality of the above have already been litigated at inception. They were found to be legal and constitutional. It has nothing to do with being created to help the elderly as that has no bearing on the issue.
There is nothing that I can think of that would effect that-Its clear that the gov has the authority to expand it or limit it.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Do you think if single payer were passed that Republicans would sit around a table and say, "Gee, we can't attack the constitutionality of this because its method of collecting money is a tax and not a mandate"?
Do you think that matters? If we pass a bill that the money for healthcare reform is collected via taxes but still forces everyone to get it, you think that skirts the constitutionality issue?
Because that is not what is being argued. Take a look for yourself at the questions the conservative justices are asking. They are asking whether the entire population can be forced to buy something.
I think single payer advocates want to believe that they get around that, I dont think they do. I think if five conservative justices want to rule that you cannot force the population to buy something, collecting the money via a tax and having the government provide the service is not going to stop them.
jzodda
(2,124 posts)If Medicare is legal and constitutional then expanding it is by definition legal. They already have the authority to do so under current law.
It matters not even one bit that Medicare was created for the elderly. If the gov had the authority to expand or limit it (and we know by Part D they HAVE the authority to expand it)
Then they can expand it to everybody and past cases, ie: Precedents set in the 1960s
You don't have to force anybody to do anything. The rules that affect Seniors presently will just effect the larger population.
Unless you are saying that the 5 right wing Judges would today rule that Medicare is unconstitutional. That would be a whole different issue.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)as a result do not have the option of employer provided healthcare in many circumstances. That in its current form.
Expanding it to everyone and forcing everyone to pay for it results in many of the same problems and adds some. The justices same questions that they asked today apply.
If I havent said it before, I think we should have, and I would be in favor of single payer healthcare along the lines of England's NHS.
jzodda
(2,124 posts)I agree with you 100% on a system like England.
Its shocking how well it works and the public there loves it overall. Sure they bitch about stuff but not like what goes on here. People are not dying there for lack of coverage. I have spent much time there over the years and they don't get why we can't just do the same. They do not understand the socialism arguments that you hear from the right wingers here also.
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)There is no question as to its constitutionality.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Is there a way to opt out of paying for single payer as you envision it? that is the way they would attack it, which is almost the same way they are attacking the mandate. Before ACA, you can use your money to pay for something other than healthcare. When the individual mandate goes into effect, if it ever does, you do not have that option, you pay for healthcare or a fine. With single payer, same thing, that money that you could have used to pay for more golf lessons if that was your thing, now MUST go to healthcare. That is the freedom aspect they are arguing and that is the angle the conservative members of the SCOTUS are using with their questions.
jzodda
(2,124 posts)When the gov is providing you the coverage like Medicare vs the gov telling you to go out into the market to purchase something.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)If anything, you are adding an argument that single payer forces the dismantling of the private insurance industry by decree. What seems logical to you and I really isnt at issue. What is at argument is what lawyers from the other side can sell to five conservative justices.
jzodda
(2,124 posts)remember? So if they can give prescription drug coverage then you would think they would not stop an overall expansion.
I hope so
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Answer: George W. Bush's law and no, just the elderly and Medcaid recipients, which as of 2007 totalled 24 million people or around 8% of the country.
spanone
(135,843 posts)bluestate10
(10,942 posts)There are no more Ted Kennedy types around, if there are, they are so old that they won't join the future battle. Any health care bill is a loser, haters are going to tear at it while many will feel that it can never match an ultimate policy that none of us, our children and our children's children will see become law.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"Ending the ACA will either be the path to Single Payer or no insurance at all for the majority of Americans."
....conclusion. Unless the make up of the Congress changes, expect this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002478663
geardaddy
(24,931 posts)Last edited Tue Mar 27, 2012, 03:20 PM - Edit history (1)
found it.
bluestate10
(10,942 posts)Yet, so called Progressives hope against both reason and cold logic that a Featherweight will step into a ring with a Super Heavyweight and knock the heavy cold. So called Progressives, keep dreaming, your head burying will ensure that no one is insured for the rest of this century, just like they were not during the last century. All because, Progressives, in their singular insanity add their voice to the extreme of the Right to help kill the very law that has come the closest YET to ensuring that all americans have adequate, affordable health care. Good luck people, if you help fuck the closest thing to what you claim you want, I have nothing to say to you. Nor would I have any interest in assisting with your potentially future wild efforts to reverse your fuckup. So our defined fate lie in the unsteady hands of a right of center person who has consistently voted against the interests of a civilized society.
