The Missing Voices at the Healthcare Summit

[Better Believe It]

The Missing Voices at the Healthcare Summit
by John Nichols
02/25/2010

President Obama and congressional Republicans arrived at the White House health care summit with talking points -- not just for the summit itself but for the after-summit jockeying to claim the upper hand coming out of a session that always had more to do with messaging than making progress to insure more Americans at less cost.

The summit positioned Obama and a relatively united Democratic leadership against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and their "party of no" minions.

They did not offer much in the way of new ideas, let alone ideas that might actually meet the challenge of providing care for all Americans without breaking the bank.

Why not consider not just Republican alternatives to President Obama's proposal but the fix that Obama, himself, once suggested (as a 2004 U.S. Senate candidate) was the essential point of beginning for a just and equitable health-care system in a developed nation? Why not let the dozens of House and Senate members who support a Medicare-for-All, single-payer system into the discussion? Why not let House Judiciary Committee chair John Conyers, D-Michigan, Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and other members of Congress ask the questions that should be asked about Obama's compromise plan?

Instead of Republican grumbling about how Obama is going too far, why not have a rational discussion about whether Obama is going far enough?

That rational discussion could have begun with a review of the response the presidential proposal by Physicians for a National Health Program, the organization of 17,000 doctors who support single-payer, Medicare-for-All approach to reform.

PNHP leaders, including the organization's national coordinator, Dr. Quentin Young asked to be included in the Blair House session. (And this White House knows Young. The Chicago physician whose office once cared for Obama and his family and whose friendship with the future president was forged more than a decade ago.)

So, too, did congressional backers of Medicare-for-All proposals, including Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio; Anthony Weiner, D- New York, and Peter Welch, D-Vermont, all made similar requests.

Unfortunately, Medicare-for-All advocates weren't invited to the table.

The resulting health-care summit suffered for their absence -- as does the broader debate about how to do health-care reform right.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/534817/the_missing_voices_at_the_healthcare_summit

[Warpy]

1. An insurance company lobbyist was sure there

but this was more an attempt to try to find common ground with pigheaded conservatives, I thought. Obama isn't a dumb guy. He should have seen beyond a shadow of a doubt that there can't be common ground with a bunch of spoiled two year olds who only know how to dig in their heels and scream "NO!"

[leftstreet]

2. K&R

[subterranean]

3. Medicare-for-All would mean starting over with a clean sheet of paper.

I'd be in favor of that if I thought it had a chance in hell of getting through the Senate, which it doesn't. As things stand, it would have been a waste of time to invite single-payer advocates to yesterday's meeting. They should have been included in the discussions last spring.

[Better Believe It]

4. Winning TV viewers over to the only universal health care plan that will work is not a waste of time

If the Health Insurance Industry and Big Pharma Protection Act does not pass we can continue to build public support and pressure for a single payer system.

[Zoeisright]

5. Uh, excuse me, President Obama didn't come with "talking points".

He came with facts.

The repukes came with lies and distortions. If they were in charge, there would BE NO discussion. Because they rule with threats, violence, lies, and hate.

Get it right, Nation.