By Nick Skala
The following remarks were presented to the Congressional Progressive Caucus on June 4.
Today the Congressional Progressive Caucus faces a choice. That choice is whether Members should maintain their unflinching support for single-payer, or to accede to intense political pressure to support the plan currently being developed in Congress under the direction of President Obama: a mandate for Americans to purchase an insurance plan from a massive new regulatory "exchange," with one plan potentially being a "public option."
The difference between these choices could not be more stark: single-payer has at its core the elimination of U.S.-style private insurance, using huge administrative savings and inherent cost control mechanisms to provide comprehensive, sustainable universal coverage.
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( 2.8 / 21 )I can't believe the AMA came out against a public health insurance option . It reminds me of the Phil Ochs song I've heard many times before, but up until today I hadn't seen the full truth behind it.
On the other hand, on These Days this morning, freshman Republican Congressman Duncan D. Hunter was asked about a government plan in competition with private insurance and said he opposes a public option because, "It's a taxpayer paid-for government program, which means that people who pay for their own insurance, private insurance, are gonna be taxed so that people that want the government version can have that. So they're gonna be paying double basically so why not just have everybody go to that government program, which a lot of people are going to do." That sounds like a single-payer argument to me! He went on to say, "I don't think it's the right way to go to have taxpayer funded public healthcare competing with private healthcare because there's no way that private can actually win. I don't think it's going to make it more competitive because government doesn't have to make a profit... They don't have to make money on it."
So his big argument agains the public option is that it will be more competitive than private insurers and cut into their profits!
The private insurance companies have a lot of friends in this debate. I just hope Max Baucus and the others can remember that they work for us, the patients, and not for the insurance company executives and shareholders.
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( 2.5 / 11 )Would you believe, they're finally talking about single payer health care in DC! Today the Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee held a hearing on Examining the Single Payer Health Care Option. Videos are available here .
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( 3 / 5 )This is a must-see video ! California doesn't have to wait for the rest of the country--we can have our own single-payer healthcare system! Governor Schwarzenegger has vetoed it before, but with so many people losing their insurance "coverage" jobs, the argument for universal coverage is stronger than ever.
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( 1 / 1 )Kitten , kayaking , hiking , and zoo pictures posted on the gallery.
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( 3.6 / 7 )'Grass-roots' effort looks more like Astroturf
http://www.eagletribune.com/punews/loca ... 32149.html
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( 3.2 / 13 )Thanks to Jady Montgomery for sending out this information:
Representative Susan Davis of San Diego did a survey of her constituents in 2008 to see which approach to universal health care coverage they preferred. The three choices were HR 676, which expands Medicare to cover every American; HR 3163, under which states would offer private insurance plans to those not covered by employers; and President Bush's proposal for Americans to receive personal tax deductions for their healthcare costs. The results are as follows:
1% no vote
9% none
12% Bush's plan
27% HR 3163
51% HR 676
Below are the Top 10 reasons to support HR 676, facts about HR 676, and a resolution authored by members of the La Jolla Democratic Club’s Healthcare Reform Focus Group and passed on the floor of the Democratic State Convention, 4/25/09, Sacramento, CA.
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( 3.3 / 12 )I RSVP'd for the online conference call with Howard Dean on Monday. I submitted the following question:
"I think anyone who has studied this issue seriously would agree that single-payer is the only true solution, and I'm having a hard time reconciling myself to doing anything less than single-payer at this moment of huge momentum for health care reform. But it may be that despite broad public support for single-payer, the insurance industry lobbyists are too powerful to allow single-payer all at once. If so, and the best we can do is to offer a public option, how can we guarantee that the public plan won't be flooded with high-risk patients who couldn't get private insurance, which would drive up the cost of the public plan and prevent it from becoming a successful competitor?"
The forum with Howard Dean will take place at 9 p.m. Eastern (8 CDT/7 MDT/6 PDT) on Monday, May 4.
To listen in, go to http://www.moveon.org/drdean.
I'll report back on what Dean says.
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( 3 / 7 )In Mohamed et al v. Jeppesen Dataplan , The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against the government's claim of state secrets privilege, and remanded the case to the district court. You can read their full ruling here . They rejected the government's argument that the very subject matter of the case was a state secret, since this type of argument, going back to the Totten case, would only be used if the plaintiff were suing the government to enforce a secret contract between the plaintiff and the government. In this case the victims are the plaintiff and Jeppesen Dataplan is the defendant, so it's not the same situation.
They also rejected the government's argument, according to the Reynolds case, that the plaintiff could not possibly prove their case without disclosing classified information. First of all, the question is not whether classified information will be disclosed, but whether specific pieces of evidence would be harmful to national security. Just because something is classified doesn't mean it couldn't be used in a trial; the plaintiff's interest in justice must be weighed against the government's interest in secrecy, rather than deferring automatically to the government's assertion of secrecy. Then if the plaintiffs can prove their case without using those certain pieces of evidence that are found protected as state secrets, the case can still go forward. The court cannot rule on a claim of state secret privilege until it has evaluated the evidence and the claim of secrecy for each piece of evidence. The district court hasn't done this yet, so the case now goes back to the district court.
I'm glad our appeals court is doing their job and not letting the government subvert the legal process!
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( 3 / 15 )At the PDA meeting on Thursday we heard from speakers about our nation's failure to support our troops and veterans. We heard from a young man, Derek, who had joined the military right out of high school. When he got back, he had to battle an impenetrable bureaucracy to claim his VA benefits. He couldn't get signed up for college because he was too busy finding a job (which he needed since the current GI bill doesn't pay full educational expenses). He found it difficult to adjust to directing his own life after years of strict discipline.
Another veteran described the pay differential between service members and contractors, as well as the extreme amount of overhead paid to the companies ($300,000 to the company and only $40,000 of it went to the employee, versus $12,000 a year to service members). He said that military wives are being counseled by government employees to divorce their husbands because the husbands are paid so little that the women would gain more in welfare on their own. Lawyers that are provided to represent service members in divorce proceedings are incompetent or willfully negligent. If a soldier brings habits of violence home from the battlefield, instead of being offered counseling to work through their issues, they can be stripped of their driver’s license and passport, holding them prisoner wherever they are.
Carla Mays described her work as an organizer of veterans for Obama. She described how the Democratic Party has failed to outreach to military families, while the Republicans have been calling to welcome them, inviting them to barbecues, etc. She told us how she was able to reach people in gated communities in Carlsbad, where you can’t go door-to-door, by organizing house parties and getting those who came to organize their own parties. She said Democrats need to visibly provide service to military families in the community, as Republicans have done, to create a relationship that will then allow us to advocate policies and candidates more effectively.
At the end of the meeting we broke into groups to write resolutions for consideration, and hopefully adoption, by the California Democratic Party. Our group’s resolution is posted here. You can join the website to post your comments and write your own resolutions.
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