Why can't Democrats do a Single Payer Plan?

[Old and In the Way]

There must be 100MM or so voters and dependents (Democrats, Indies, and maybe some Republicans) who would gladly migrate from their current private insurance premiums to a real single payer, not-for-profit heath insurance system. Not only would I expect a better program, I'd certainly enjoy watching the anti-socialist, private insurance advocates start paying more and more for the privilege of their plans...as the subscriber base evaporates. Not a public mandate, per se...just a voluntary mandate to implement a progressive solution to how healthcare should be administered. How long before the teabaggers demand equal benfits for themselves?

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[Old and In the Way]

5. Just to be clear, I'm not advocating a government solution.

I'm suggesting that the Democrats offer a comprehensive Health Insurance Plan to the public. Put their ideas into the plan with a trigger to activate it when a certain number of sign-ups are reached. I'd suggest Governor Dean as a person who could formulate and oversee the introduction of such a program and market it to Democrats, Indies, and...perhaps even Republicans (at a slightly higher rate of course :-)).

[DrDan]

10. and that 1 vote will keep us non-single payer . . .

and unfortunately non-PO as well.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

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[DJ13]

2. And burn their bridges to getting a million+ per year job in the future?

You think they became Congress members to work for a measly $160,000 per year?!

[Echo In Light]

7. +1000

[eleny]

3. Sadly, they aren't the kind of Democrat that you are

[Oregone]

4. You couldn't have put it more precisely

[Nikki Stone1]

53. Yup.

They aren't like me either.

[MadBadger]

6. Cuz I dont think we have majorities for that in either house?

[Davis_X_Machina]

8. Try again. Ockham's razor doesn't work here n/t.

[Old and In the Way]

11. Guess I wasn't clear enough in my OP...

Not suggesting a government solution...to start. If it is successful, it might be easy to transition it over to the USG...but I'm suggesting this as a private democratic initiative. There are a critical mass of people who would be interested in such a program and might even be a political advantange for Democrats to offer this as a work-around the Republican minority's obstruction to letting progressive healthcare solutions happen.

[MadBadger]

32. The issue isnt Republican supports, its Democratic.

I highly doubt there is enough support in our own caucus to even attempt what you are saying.

[Old and In the Way]

35. It would be worth polling on, though. nt

I have to believe the Democrats have ton a ton of research on how Single Payer / Public Option / private models would work and understand how a national health insurance/care delivery system would work.

I'd certainly like to see some real option to private for-profit health insurance...if the political will isn't there to do it as a government wide option, why not as a democratic Party initiative? It's all about choice.

[noise]

9. The teabaggers are pissed!

So your post doesn't make any sense.

Angry teabaggers=fantastic HCR.

[Old and In the Way]

17. I'm suggesting we drive them around the bend.

As people stampede into a voluntary Democratic Sponsored Single Payer Plan (socialized medicine!), the remaining teabaggers/conservatives/republicans can pay for their private plan privilege. At the expense of everything else. How fast before they go completely bankrupt supporting their anti-socialized for-profit healthcare system?

It's all about choice.

[noise]

28. I couldn't agree with you more

Some would have us believe that the HCR bill must be incredible (better than single payer!) because if it weren't then the teabaggers wouldn't be so upset.

[branders seine]

12. Because they don't want to.

They are working on behalf of the medical insurance bankster corporations, who do not want them to do it.

[blindpig]

16. Best reply so far.

That's it in a nutshell.

[Romulox]

14. Barack Obama opposes both single payer and a public option on *ideological grounds*, not vote count

The simplest explanation is this: Barack Obama is implementing the policies he supports, and shunting the ones he does not to the back burner.

[Davis_X_Machina]

20. Would he veto it if Congress passed it?

I don't think so.

The problem's up the other end of Pennsylvania Ave. People in this country have gotten lazy, expect an all-powerful executive branch to do all of the heavy lifting, and prefer a Congress reduced to a rubber stamp -- so long as it's their team in charge.

Too many people left the voting booth in '08 thinking 'Now that's done. We've finally got our Bush. Son-of-a-bitch better start breaking shit...'

[Romulox]

24. No, but only because he could not live down the political damage.

So he and his allies will make sure that such an idea never emerges from committee. Just like he did with HCR. :hi:L

[Old and In the Way]

25. Nothing to pass.....this is purely a non-government suggestion.

If we can't get the USG to do the right thing....do it outside of government.

[theoldman]

15. How do you change our present health care system?

The same way you eat an elephant, one bite at a time. There is no way the insurance companies would allow a big change. They have too much financial power and control most people in congress. It will be 30 years or more before you will see a big change.

[Old and In the Way]

21. Not the way I envision it.

Doing through government initiative, you are correct. The vested interests are aligned against us. As other posters note, we even have our own Party bought by Big Healthcare. But not everyone. I'm simply suggesting organizing for Single Payer like we organize for a Presidential election. Do it as a not-for-profit benefit you can buy into. I'm self-employed and I'm paying $1000+/mo for my healthcare. For that, I get to fight for reimbursements and payments. I'd gladly put the same $ into a Democratic Party Single Payer Co-op that negotiates fees on my behalf as well as fights for my benefits...something that for-profit healthcare corporations will never do.

[Warpy]

18. First, because they don't want to

even though members of both parties admit that's the only thing that will work in the long term.

The reasons are many. First and foremost, they don't want to put the insurance companies completely out of business overnight. The transition should be a little more gradual because so many retirees depend on that income and because so many of our fine government officials have portfolios top heavy in that stock. Gradually lowering Medicare eligibility age, especially as a pre-retirement age full premium buy in plan, will go a long way toward easing the transition. The insurance companies have always been better at providing Medigap insurance than full health insurance, anyway.

Second, such a plan would likely need to be designed from the ground up, including regional claims processing centers, anti fraud departments, disbursement centers, and all the rest of what goes into creating any large agency. Gradually lowering the Medicare eligibility age takes advantage of a structure that's already there and could be expanded slowly as subscribership increases.

Third, even though most members of both parties quietly admit the need for single payer, conservatives in both parties will feel compelled to fight it tooth and nail, grandstanding for the conservative shitheads back home. It really doesn't have much chance of getting through.

After all, Medicaid was supposed to be the program of last resort for the working poor, and look at how they managed to kill that one off, by tying it to fixed 1967 dollar amounts. Inflation made certain only the destitute now qualify. Likely any new public option that gets through will have so many unreasonable conditions attached to it that no one will be able to qualify for it.

[Better Believe It]

19. Answer: Because most Democrats in the Senate oppose it. They don't even like a weak public option

[ConservativeDemocrat]

22. Do you want a real answer? Or just validation?

There are real answers to your question, but to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure you are
really looking for a serious discussion. A lot of posts are just invitations to people
who already agree with you to engage in pleasant sanctimonious moralizing. I'm
not into that.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Davis_X_Machina]

27. This is DU....

....America's largest politics-free political website.

[Old and In the Way]

31. Or, how about discussion?

This is a discussion board, right? I'm trying to figure a way around this impasse and get what every other industrialized nation delivers to it's people. If we can't get it done from the top down...why not from the bottom-up?

[ConservativeDemocrat]

43. Alright fine, here's the answer:

Our Founding Fathers, in their wisdom (and cynicism) made it much easier to block things from getting done in government, than to get them done.

This, of course, is highly frustrating for people who see the right answer and want to leap to it when they have the majority. However it is
also a protection for when other people, who think they have the right answer, are in the majority, and want to force through major changes
that may not be so good.

In other words, the reason we can't, with Democratic Majorities and a Democratic President, jump to a Single Payer health care system
putting dozens of health care insurance companies out of business (the wisdom of which, I won't address here), is the exact same reason why
five years ago, with Republican Majorities and a Republican President, the effort to privatize Social Security failed - and we're not now
faced with millions of people who lost all their retirement savings on bad real-estate bets, and hundreds of more billionaires carrying their
cash around in their bank accounts.

If you want Single Payer, you need to make sure that the Democrats who backed even the current reform (that many in America were uneasy about),
don't lose in November. If they lose, it's over. If don't lose - or even WIN, then you have a chance.

But big things don't just happen at a snap of the fingers in this nation. By design.

Get it?

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Old and In the Way]

50. What I get is you don't have reading comprehension skills.

You're fixated with dragging the government into a discussion that has precisely nothing to do with my OP.

get it?

[ConservativeDemocrat]

55. Reading comprehension skills?

It looks like you don't have thinking comprehension skills.

So let me help you along. In your original post, your grand ideas is to talk about millions "who would gladly migrate from their current private insurance premiums to a real single payer, not-for-profit heath insurance system."

If they are migrating from a private plan, the Single Payer plan they are migrating to must clearly not be a private plan.

Now what is the opposite of private?

Hell, I'll go ahead and tell you: Public. Or "government run". In a single payer plan, the single payer is a government entity. Like public schools mean "government run" schools. If it's not private, then its run by the government.

Alright, so now you are asking why I'm "fixated with dragging the government into a discussion" about establishing a health care insurance program that is "run by the government".

The answer to that question is "because to establish such a Single Payer government run program" would require a law to do so - one passed by the government.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[MrSlayer]

23. Corporatism in both parties.

The masters will not allow it.

[Nite Owl]

26. It's health insurance reform

not health care reform. It isn't about us, it's about their corporate buddies.

[Old and In the Way]

29. Lessee....

40 Million people x $8000.00/year premium payments = $320BB. Say 10% for administration/overhead fees = $32BB Could a dedicated non-profit, leveraging the internet and compurterized medical records, negotiate a healthplan for 60MM or so members with $290BB of assets?

[Ozymanithrax]

30. The do not have the votes in the house or the Senate...

Because the majority if ill informed Americans would piss in their potatoes before they let that go.

The U.S. has a population of 310+ million. So that 100 million isn't even 33% of the citizenry.

Also, I think you must mean some kind of public option. Single payer would have on single bureaucracy, such as the government, that is responsible for paying for individuals health care needs. If a third of the population migrated to a system, it would not be single payer because you still have the existing system in place with every organization having it's own method of payment.

[Old and In the Way]

33. Why does single payer have to be a government solution?

Private healthcare is a single payer system...at the corporate level. I'm simply suggesting a not-for-profit private funding mechanism. It just so happens that Democrats are a national organization with a predefined constituency of 50-60MM voters (maybe 100MM with dependents). If they want to leverage those assets and champion a progressive health insurance option for the American voter, what's not to like? Done competently and sucessfully, there may long term political benefits that the Party could take from this.

[Ozymanithrax]

49. Private health care is not a single payer system....

A single payer sysetem would be a bureaucracy that pays all the medical bills instead of having every Health Insurance Company, every HMO, Medicare, Medicaid, and Tricare each have their own system and method of collecting money.

A single payer system sees considerable savingings because the reduce overhead costs of running a gazilion different billing operations.

Single payer is usually associated with something like the French, English, German, or Canadian Health care systems. There is, in those systems, a single payer, the government, that manages the billing of all health care.

Single payer doesn't exist in the U.S. sytstem. The public option, for instance, would not be single payer, only another health care organizaiton that would have their own billing department. Socialized medicine like the Candian system, is a single payer.

[Old and In the Way]

52. Right..private health care is multiple single payers.

More inefficient by design. Lots of corporate bureaucracies with a key difference; maximizing profits by minimizing expenses and minimizing benefits. Both a public option and a single payer should address the profit issue that distorts healthcare delivery in this country. It's a win/lose/lose proposition.

[Jkid]

34. Fear of socialism

Everytime a politician has a plan to actually help the working or poor class, a conservative will condemn their plan as 'socialism'. They do not want to perceive themselves as socialists, so most democrats are centralists. This is despite overwhelming support for single-payer health care. Another possible reason is that they lack the political will power to do so, despite public demand.

[Old and In the Way]

37. The concept of insurance is socialism.

Everyone pays a little for protection because no one can afford to pay for it all when needed. And that works great for autos, houses, business, boats, etc. But almost everyone needs healthcare at somepoint in their lives...there's really no option to be had.

So the argument is not about socialism...it's what is the most cost effective mechanism to provide healthcare.

[TorchTheWitch]

36. they don't want to

Simple as that. The Dem party got taken over by corporate whores a long time ago. There is no party that wants single payer. The only real possibility of getting nationwide single payer is the same way Canada did... one state at a time.

[Old and In the Way]

38. Fair enough....pick a State and do a pilot program.

problem is leverage and except for a NY, California, Texas I don't think the numbers would work. But it could be invaluable for blueprinting a system that could be scaled up to a national level.

[TorchTheWitch]

41. quite a number of states have them in the works

Mine, PA, has had a good universal single-payer bill in the works that's been enthusiastically supported by both Dems and Repubs and growing stronger county by county... and oddly enough in counties in the center of the state known as "Pennsyltucky". The PA plans (House bill - HB1660, Senate bill SB400) include dental (and not just preventative), vision and mental health as well.

Once a few states get good plans in place people in other states will demand it for their states as well. I was really surprised how many states have been pushing their own bills for years, and more surprised that mine was one of them. The national debate has actually strengthened progress in these states. This is how Canada got universal health care - one province (state) at a time.

[Old and In the Way]

42. I'm for anything that gets us there...

good luck with your State plan...Maine is also developing something - I need to look into that more.

[Cleita]

39. They can and they have. Medicare is the best example.

Now it's a matter of getting Medicare to be made available to all. Congressman Alan Grayson was on radio earlier and said that if he gets enough co-sponsors for his Medicare buy in bill, HR 4789, they will have to move it to the floor. I believe he has 80 co-sponsors to date. He says to hound your Congressmen that haven't signed up yet to get a large enough backing to get Nancy Pelosi's attention. He said if he get somewhere to like 150 or 170 co-sponsors, they will have to do something.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d111:4789:./list/bss/d111HR.lst:@@@P%7CTOM:/bss/111search.html%7C

I have a Repuke Congressman, but I noticed that the Congresswoman for the next district, a democrat, hasn't signed on yet. My letter is on its way to her.

[Old and In the Way]

40. I'd support that. Ultimately, the best option.

Give people a choice! Lets see who wants to buy into socialized insurance vs. stick anti-social health insurance. Make it a public referendum on the concept. Ultimately, the for profit corporate models lose. I'd add penalties for late opt-ins, too...just because I'm a vindictive bastard.

[gravity]

44. Because you are forcing people off their current insurance

and they are going to be really pissed off.

I support a strong public option, but this talk about a single payer isn't realistic politically at all. The labor unions were fighting tooth and nail to just avoid paying taxes on their expensive private insurance in the current system. Imagine trying to get them to give it up for an unproven government solution.

A government solution isn't going to be all roses either, and some people will just prefer to keep their private insurance. For every person griping about corporations, there is another person who is griping about government.

[Old and In the Way]

47. Forcing? I'm talking about a voluntary, non-government solution.

I know Democrats connotates with government...but that is not what I'm advocating in my OP. Sheesh

[Orsino]

45. Owners' veto power. n/t

[Odin2005]

46. Because they represent their corporate masters, not us.

[nadinbrzezinski]

48. Whip Count

People really need to learn this like BASIC POLI SCI principle.

The other...

Your Democrat in fly over country would be a Republican on the Coasts...

By the way my idea of fun is a government run single payer program, but we do NOT have the whip count.

[Old and In the Way]

51. I learned something tonight.

The title of my post, "Why can't Democrats do a Single payer plan?" obviously conveys a completely different point than the content of my post. I wonder how many read the title, and, like Pavlov's dog, automatically respond with a predetermined rant on Democrats in Congress and Single payer?

Almost every critical post assumes I'm asking a question predicating a government solution. Democrat = Government. Understand, that's the typical context. But a closer reading of what I say has zippo to do with a government sponsored program. I was trying to stimulate a discussion that leverages a well defined group of people, Democrats, to promote the concepts of a true single payer / not-for-profit healthcare solution. We have all the tools (people, organization building, knowledge)needed to create the basis of what we want our government to do. The only difference is, instead of making it a mandatory program under government control, it's a voluntary association under Democratic control.

[nadinbrzezinski]

54. Then I fear you lreanred nothing

this is a POLITICAL matter, that falls under GOVERNMENT.

To quote, or rather paraphrase, Thom Hartmann, who's got this one very right, private enterprise is not there for public interest. They have to serve investors, not the public.

This falls properly under CONGRESSIONAL oversight, and yes, WHIP COUNT comes into play here.

I am sorry if you do not know that already. This is so damn basic it is almost amazing to see how many people miss this.