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HughBeaumont

(24,461 posts)
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 06:03 AM Mar 2012

What, realistically, are the odds of America getting Medicare for All, let alone single payer?

I'm not just saying this because the House is under the control of the TeaHad.

I'm saying this because there aren't a whole hell of a lot of progressive Democrats in the House OR the Senate who believe in either Medicare For All or Single Payer to make it happen.

It just seems to me that no one in Washington CARES what we support or what's inevitably necessary to do what's right on this issue.

It's not so much me saying "Give up", but I'm saying our elected representatives have already seemed to give this goal up for us . . . all so Humana's and Cigna's executives can have that much more cash in their coffers.

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What, realistically, are the odds of America getting Medicare for All, let alone single payer? (Original Post) HughBeaumont Mar 2012 OP
I would peg it at 10% optimistically speaking. Selatius Mar 2012 #1
0% daleanime Mar 2012 #2
That's another thing I fear . . . HughBeaumont Mar 2012 #4
I have hope my granddaughter may one day benefit from Single Payer. . . Journeyman Mar 2012 #3
I believe Single Payer's inevitable too . . . HughBeaumont Mar 2012 #6
Obama is stuck with this disaster CAPHAVOC Mar 2012 #9
And then he had the gall to say that he believes that private for profit health insurance SammyWinstonJack Mar 2012 #19
Medicare is not even CAPHAVOC Mar 2012 #20
why don't they try, and find out? KG Mar 2012 #5
There's the operative phrase - "till they stood up and demanded them". HughBeaumont Mar 2012 #21
It's a question of how do we GET "35-40% still under the spell of Faux/CNBC" CTyankee Mar 2012 #27
Appeal to their selfishness? HughBeaumont Mar 2012 #30
Those are good arguments but we need spokespersons they believe in. Perhaps that is the key. CTyankee Mar 2012 #32
Zero. But we are trapped here with our dreams of a better life one day. mmonk Mar 2012 #7
The same odds that the 1964 Civil Rights Act had of passing Zalatix Mar 2012 #8
If we had the Internet and three 24/7 news networks back in 1964 customerserviceguy Mar 2012 #12
Faux and CNBC would defend Bull Connor. I'm convinced. HughBeaumont Mar 2012 #22
It's going to take another serious burst of progressivism customerserviceguy Mar 2012 #10
If Obamacare is shot down I think it will 10 years before we see single payer have a real shot. Ganja Ninja Mar 2012 #11
Beat me to it. I was about to say the same thing. SmileyRose Mar 2012 #14
It was not a mistake CAPHAVOC Mar 2012 #25
Medicare for all is single payer. Warren Stupidity Mar 2012 #13
0% vi5 Mar 2012 #15
If the ACA is overturned, Dems won't touch Healthcare for 50 years. JoePhilly Mar 2012 #16
In the next 20 years? Close to no chance at all. Motown_Johnny Mar 2012 #17
In this environment, slim and none Gman Mar 2012 #18
As you can see zipplewrath Mar 2012 #23
Fuck all this hand wringing libtodeath Mar 2012 #24
All of those things happened as a result of public backlash against unfairness. HughBeaumont Mar 2012 #29
So what is the plan? libtodeath Mar 2012 #33
Zero percent antytime in the near future karynnj Mar 2012 #26
I once had a discussion with my accountant (a pretty smart guy) about single payer health CTyankee Mar 2012 #28
There's a video of Obama advocating a single payer Proles Mar 2012 #31

Selatius

(20,441 posts)
1. I would peg it at 10% optimistically speaking.
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 06:07 AM
Mar 2012

The Senate is the key roadblock. You might get five to ten senators vote in favor of such a measure if you actually let it get to the floor to record each senator's position.

Having said that, there's so much money arrayed against such a proposal.

We are a country that runs on a privately funded election system, after all. That has ever been the case since the creation of the Republic. We never adopted a publicly funded election system like many nations did in post-war reconstruction following WW2.

In such a system, the top 1% has disproportionate influence on the policies of politicians. You see, you pass bills that your wealthiest donors want you to pass if you wish to have a lot of money for your re-election campaigns, and if it isn't that, then you do it so you can get job security in the private sector when they reward you for your obedience with a cushy job and a pension in the private sector.

HughBeaumont

(24,461 posts)
4. That's another thing I fear . . .
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 06:18 AM
Mar 2012

. . . How many Americans are going to actually get up off their asses and massively demonstrate against for-profit Insurance? Not that ACA ISN'T STILL "For Profit insurance", but at least there's a microscopic amount of fairness to it.

"That's just the way it is, and there ain't nuthin' I can do about it. Now if you'll excuse me, my finger's got a date with my nose and Survivor is on."

Journeyman

(15,001 posts)
3. I have hope my granddaughter may one day benefit from Single Payer. . .
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 06:18 AM
Mar 2012

I hope my children will as well, but realistically I suspect my littlest girl will be the one who'll enjoy such security, and probably not much before she's my age. So it's coming. Slower than we hope, but isn't the score with most of what we value and fight for?

HughBeaumont

(24,461 posts)
6. I believe Single Payer's inevitable too . . .
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 06:21 AM
Mar 2012

. . . the problem is that you cannot have a repeat of 2010 . . . EVER . . . if that is to become a reality. There cannot even be a repeat of 2000 or 2004. One Republican president will kill every amount of progress in every area dead.

Republicans are getting worse and worse every single year. Their control is an obstinate wall to progress.

 

CAPHAVOC

(1,138 posts)
9. Obama is stuck with this disaster
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 06:28 AM
Mar 2012

Because he did not promote Medicare for all. This plan was written in back rooms by Aetna, BCBS, United Health care, AARP, Cigna and Phizer & Friends. We were sold downriver. The 1% strike again.

SammyWinstonJack

(44,129 posts)
19. And then he had the gall to say that he believes that private for profit health insurance
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 08:07 AM
Mar 2012

will serve the health care needs of the public more efficently then government run health care.

What a crock and he knows it!

private for profit health insurance exists to NOT pay for health care needs. Less care=more profits.

Yeah, he sold us out because he is a sell out.

 

CAPHAVOC

(1,138 posts)
20. Medicare is not even
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 08:12 AM
Mar 2012

Government run health care. It is Government run payment. It is fair and covers everyone. No wonder nobody mentions it.

KG

(28,749 posts)
5. why don't they try, and find out?
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 06:20 AM
Mar 2012

what were the odds blacks would get their civil rights till they stood up and demanded them?

HughBeaumont

(24,461 posts)
21. There's the operative phrase - "till they stood up and demanded them".
Reply to KG (Reply #5)
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 08:25 AM
Mar 2012

Will the American people stand up and demand single payer?

I'm not seeing any pro-Universal Health Care demonstrations that rival the Iraq War demonstration numbers so far. Maybe it's coming, but it's going to take organization on a national level and sharp focus on one message for it to happen.

With a good 35-40% still under the spell of Faux/CNBC and the 2010 disaster, I'm just wondering if the American people feel the issue is worth it. That percentage would be idiots NOT to think it's worth it (tax-funded full coverage vs out-of-pocket non-covering theft . .. hmmmmmmmm), but we don't live in an era of objective widespread journalism as the 50s-60s did.

Major cable networks wouldn't show Bull Connor crap nowadays, and if they did, a few channels would defend it.

CTyankee

(63,769 posts)
27. It's a question of how do we GET "35-40% still under the spell of Faux/CNBC"
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 08:59 AM
Mar 2012

to wise up to what is happening to THEM under the system they seem to vociferously demand?

I'm looking for ways that progressives can frame the debate that works to our advantage. So fair we have not been able to do so because we approach issues intellectually and the 35-40% are lured by emotional and irrational arguments of the RW. That how we LOSE, not win.

So my question is, how do we change our argument to overcome the arguments the RW win over and over again?

HughBeaumont

(24,461 posts)
30. Appeal to their selfishness?
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 09:22 AM
Mar 2012

Pound the message home that it wouldn't cost them as much money as they're paying now.
Pound the message home that it would make it infinitely easier for them to start their own business.
Pound the message home that it would result in higher wages and greater worker mobility.
Pound the message home that, like social security, an entity that you're paying into your whole life will be there for you when you most need it. Can they realistically say the same thing about a stock-laden 401k or private insurance?

CTyankee

(63,769 posts)
32. Those are good arguments but we need spokespersons they believe in. Perhaps that is the key.
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 09:36 AM
Mar 2012

Identifiable "leftists" such as Howard Dean have made those very arguments but we need someone from the Right to defect and make those arguments for us. It is too easy for the RW to discredit us, based on our spokespersons past reputation.

But getting such a person is the problem, right?

Hmmm, who would we be able to recruit?

customerserviceguy

(25,183 posts)
12. If we had the Internet and three 24/7 news networks back in 1964
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 07:21 AM
Mar 2012

We probably wouldn't have had the Civil Rights Act then. Even without those things, the reich wing still managed to thwart the Equal Rights Amendment ten years after that.

We only get a part of what we want at the brief end of a pendulum swing.

customerserviceguy

(25,183 posts)
10. It's going to take another serious burst of progressivism
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 07:18 AM
Mar 2012

Which, unfortunately, may follow a period of regression from a Rethug President and Congress. That's how we got to having the situation that allowed the ACA to happen in the first place.

Ganja Ninja

(15,953 posts)
11. If Obamacare is shot down I think it will 10 years before we see single payer have a real shot.
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 07:20 AM
Mar 2012

I see the Teabaggers our our best shot at getting it. They are overstepping their bounds and there's a backlash coming.

Obama's big mistake was in using a Republican healthcare plan. The basic problem with the health care system is insurance companies. Their basic interests are diametrically opposed to that of patients. You can't reform the system and leave them a part of it. You have to get rid of them. As long as we have a system of legal bribery of elected officials insurance companies will corrupt the system and we will have to keep fighting them over and over.

SmileyRose

(4,854 posts)
14. Beat me to it. I was about to say the same thing.
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 07:31 AM
Mar 2012

Once everyone is figuring out how to use their already low wages to also buy medical care from the exchange they'll be howling.

Employers will use the first chance they get to just pay the fine and dump medical benefits. They may toss a few coins to employees to help buy coverage but it's unlikely and it certainly won't be equal to the full amount they pay now.

 

CAPHAVOC

(1,138 posts)
25. It was not a mistake
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 08:38 AM
Mar 2012

He encouraged it. This is a bad deal. The so called insurance companies get a "risk free" ride. The can charge the cost of claims plus 20%. No risk of a loss. Forced participation. He made back room deals with them. That is the truth. In real insurance the company has the possibility to lose money. There is no incentive to keep costs down. To the contrary the higher the claims the more free money is guaranteed to the corporation. We pay, they play. What on Earth could make a Progressive like it? I do not understand. The P's should join the T's in opposition to it. The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

 

vi5

(13,305 posts)
15. 0%
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 07:31 AM
Mar 2012

And at this point, given the performance of the Obama appointed Solicitor General, I'm starting to think this was the plan all along. I don't want to be that cynical but I'm just tired of so many people saying "NO!! WAIT!!! DON'T DO THAT! IT"S NOT GOING TO END WELL AND HERE IS A LONG LIST OF SPECIFIC REASONS WHY THIS IS A BAD IDEA AND WHAT THE OUTCOME WILL BE!!!!!"
only to be told "Relax, let the big boys handle this. Obama is a constitutional lawyer and has a stable of lawyers and advisers who all know better and have more information than you do."

And then of course it happens exactly as all the skeptics predicted and the response is a shrugged shoulder "Well who could have known it would turn out this way?!?"

The first couple of times it can pass for naivete or ignorance. But after so many other times, in so many high profile instances I'm just no longer willing or able to chalk it up to that.

 

Motown_Johnny

(22,308 posts)
17. In the next 20 years? Close to no chance at all.
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 07:54 AM
Mar 2012

Demographics are moving away from Republicans. If Democrats can keep from turning on each other we will have a distinct advantage in 10 years or so. We could have a strong majority another 10 years after that and then maybe we can look at a health care system that makes sense.

Until then there isn't much hope for a national single payer plan. Maybe Vermont's system will catch on and we can have some state single payer plans to help show the rest of the nation how these things work. Maybe.

zipplewrath

(16,646 posts)
23. As you can see
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 08:26 AM
Mar 2012

You need to put a time context to your question.

Today, who knows. No one has come close to trying since Hillary basically 20 years ago. And "medicare for all" needs some definition too. It was proposed that we "allow" people to purchase medicare "at cost". i.e. no subsidies, charge them the actual cost of providing those policies. They could still have their commercial products if they preferred them. They could have even restricted those policies to either individuals, or to employers smaller than some upper limit. These kinds of offers were popular with a wide variety of the population, both GOP and democrat. The idea for many of "medicare for the other guy" is fairly acceptable if most folks don't think they'll be paying for it. One doesn't have to think very hard to see how such a start would end with something indistiguishable from single payer.

Outside of an immediate context, single payer in some form is coming. I'd say 10 - 20 years. The rate of health care costs is going up so fast that NO ONE can keep up with it. A huge reason for Obama's plan was that it controlled the costs to the GOVERNMENT. And even at that it only slowed the rate of inflation. Health care costs will soon be too expensive for huge portions of the population. The fear of course is that it will be the GOP that brings us single payer, much like they passed the Part D plan.

There is some possibility that the states will bring it to us. Vermont is trying, and some state may wise up and figure out that a great "business incentive" is single payer so that a company that builds a factory or relocates their headquarters to that state can avoid directly absorbing these costs, and instead share them with the larger population. If that starts happening, the states will do it and the feds will follow along.

Could we just "switch" to a pure single payer system now? No, I don't think so, and I don't think we should try. However, the entire point of the "public option" wasn't to "keep the insurance companies honest" it was to allow us to begin setting up the structure of a single payer system, and allow it to grow "organically" as the commercial system collapsed, and the feds had to step in. Unfortunately we didn't have the leadership to get it done.

libtodeath

(2,888 posts)
24. Fuck all this hand wringing
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 08:33 AM
Mar 2012

what were the odds last August Occupy would not have changed the dialog,what were the odds in January that limpnuts would have become a national shame outside those of us who paid attention,what were the fucking odds that a black man could ever be President.

I get sick of the whining,oh we dont have a chance now bullshit.

HughBeaumont

(24,461 posts)
29. All of those things happened as a result of public backlash against unfairness.
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 09:08 AM
Mar 2012

It's not like Occupy, a national election, or Rush Limbaugh taking his dumbassedness to unprecedented levels required any action from our political leaders. Well, 2008 was kind of a result of Bewsh II being such a massive fuck-up, we had no choice but to right our course.

Where are the massive and/or continued demonstrations against for-profit insurance? Maybe they exist . . . I'm not seeing them; surely they would have at least been reported on DU.

Universal Health Care, unfortunately, depends on the kind of backlash Occupy had AND political leadership; specifically the progressive kind. John and Jane Q Public doesn't get a VOTE on Universal Health Care - it has to be signed into law by the political process. We can support Universal Health care all we want, but without the political leadership and climate to push it through, it's going to be all for naught.

karynnj

(59,474 posts)
26. Zero percent antytime in the near future
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 08:50 AM
Mar 2012

If you look at the polling, one thing that has been a high polling requirement is that people "Can keep the insurance they have". Many fear that what they, personally have, is better than what they would have if they had no choice and everyone were covered by the same government program.

The fear of the unknown has been exasperated by the right wing repetition of how bad the Canadian and British systems are. As most people do not know any Britons or Canadians, they get away with demonizing government health care systems. One of my daughters, who is in the UK doing her masters, is on the National Health and is amazed how much easier it is.

CTyankee

(63,769 posts)
28. I once had a discussion with my accountant (a pretty smart guy) about single payer health
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 09:06 AM
Mar 2012

care and pointed out to him that Europeans like their "socialized" medicine just fine and when asked, say they do NOT want American style health care. And this really smart accountant actually said to me "That's because they don't anything else."

It that kind of "those dumb shits over there don't know what's good for them" argument that makes you want to tear your hair out.

Proles

(466 posts)
31. There's a video of Obama advocating a single payer
Wed Mar 28, 2012, 09:31 AM
Mar 2012

system before he became President. I'm sure in his heart, that's what he truly wants for this country. I just think the powers that be were heavily weighed against him.

I hope the ACA gets upheld though. It's far from perfect, but the alternative is an emboldened republican field which will gain more credibility from their ignorant supporters.

I honestly don't know if I buy into the meme that the ACA is what the insurance companies want. If that were the case, there wouldn't be such a concerted effort against it. I honestly think the insurance companies are fearful of the provisions going into effect in 2014. Raising premiums before then seems to be a good way to convince people that the ACA was bad, even though it's not fully in effect yet.

Then again, maybe a repeal will result in loss of coverage for lots of people. This could result in an outcry for even more universal coverage, but I doubt it.

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