Why Obama snubbed single-payer

[denem]

Why Obama snubbed single-payer

The right calls Obamacare "socialized medicine" anyway. So why didn't Obama push for the real thing?

(excerpt) Like so much else about the healthcare debate, it comes down to math. "I would say that in the Senate, there are at most 10 votes for a single-payer plan," Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a self-described democratic socialist, who isn't shy about his own preference for that kind of solution, told Salon this week. "In the House, I have no idea but it's a small minority ... It's absurd to say, 'Mr. President, go forward and make your bill single-payer,' when you've got 10 percent of the Congress supporting you."

https://www.salon.com/2010/03/12/single_payer/

[Still Sensible]

1. This. n/t

[msongs]

2. its absurd. then not now of course nt

[JustAnotherGen]

3. Thank you

I'm sick of Obama being blamed for everything. Even Sanders knew - with only 10 votes in the Senate? It wasn't possible in 2010.

[ibegurpard]

4. stripping out a public option however is what absolutely cratered support

for those who firmly supported single payer. And Democrats paid the political price anyways.

[karynnj]

11. "stripping out" - more not adding it

The reason it was not added was that they needed 60 votes - and Lieberman, Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln were all on the record against voting for a bill including it. There were no Republicans for it - so they needed all the Democrats.

[ibegurpard]

14. Then it shouldn't have happened

No public option... no ACA. and let the public pressure build. As I said we paid the political price for single payer and got nothing for it except codification of insurance control of our healthcare.
We could have passed separate bills regarding pre-existing conditions or additional regulations upon the insurance industry.

[TwilightZone]

15. 20 million insured.

"got nothing for it "

Well, we got 20 million people health insurance. They probably look at it as a little more than nothing.

[karynnj]

16. When would we have more likelihood of getting healthcare than when we had 60 Senators?

Consider that in 2006-2007, Ted Kennedy introduced a single payer bill -- at a point that NOTHING could pass. During summer 2008, struggling with a brain tumor, he worked on the HELP committee healthcare bill. Why, in 2009 with Obama, we could get a healthcare bill passed.

I have no idea where you got the idea that "we paid the political price for single payer".

We could not simply write a bill requiring insurance companies cove pre-existing conditions.

[ibegurpard]

17. where did I get the idea we paid the political price for single payer?

the absolute massacre that we suffered in the 2010 elections that was a direct result of the enormous amount of money spent to demonize the ACA and Democrats who voted for it. Are you saying that it was not a factor in the 2010 elections? We paid heavily for those votes and what do we have today? a cobbled together system that REQUIRES people to purchase insurance they may not be able to afford and still saddles them with deductibles, out-of-pockets, and premiums that are out of reach. Not to mention the millions of people still ineligible for Medicaid because they live in Republican controlled states who refuse to make it available. And now the ACA is barely hanging on by a thread.
So yeah we paid a heavy political price for it. And try explaining how it benefits the people it's supposed to when they are the ones complaining about being screwed by penalties when they enroll after a job loss and have to pay big penalties and back taxes because they underestimated the income for the year.

[TDale313]

5. Obama sadly wasted a lot of time, energy, and political ground

In those first few years trying to find at least one or two Republicans who would work with him. On anything. We ended up having to pass things with just Dems anyway, and they were vilified as being far-left socialist policies anyway. So maybe passing what we really needed, Repugs be damned, might have made more sense.

[denem]

7. After January 19, 2010, McConnell got the 41 votes he needed to block everything.

January 19, 2010 - Scott Brown's special election in MA. That is what killed the public option and just about everything else.

[rampartc]

6. iow the president expended no political capital selling the program

didn't make the appropriate deals to ensure support and in the end settled for a complicated system that the republicans could easily demonize and destroy.

look, the aca is better than the old "system," but at some point, very soon, all americans need to be covered by a single, simple, system that negotiates prices of services and pharmaceuticals, that pays the providers, and that assures quality and equality.

[denem]

8. After January 19, 2010, Moscow Mitch had 41 votes.

It might have seemed then that political capital could split off one or two GOPers, but we know better now

[TwilightZone]

13. He was supposed to drum up 50 more votes?

Sure, that's realistic.

[Wellstone ruled]

9. The real story should be about

how the Dems were rolled by Mitch and his Gang.

Mitch did his best to wreck everything Obama put forward with his fake promises of working with Reid and Reid bought the whole damn lie.

[abqtommy]

10. The ACA was effective and still has the potential to be a strong program in spite of tRUMP and

the reTHUGS ratfucking it.

[TwilightZone]

12. I seem to recall reading that the actual number was 4.

Four Senators supported single-payer at the time. I don't recall where, exactly, but that number sticks in my mind. I think of it whenever someone makes the assertion that Obama should have been able to get whatever he wanted.