Single Payer: Fight Fake Health Care Reform

While public policy should not be made on the basis of polls, polling can help elected officials to get a sense of what voters want overall. In a democracy, policy makers are expected to do their utmost to reflect the will of the people, collectively arriving at the greatest good for the greatest number. And understanding the public's wants and needs makes it easier to explain in terms that people can understand why one solution to a problem may be preferable to another.

As rough as sledding in Congress is for universal health care, in poll after poll Americans overwhelmingly support the creation of a health care option that is publicly funded. What's more, despite the endless drumbeat against single-payer (Canadian-style) health care insurance, citizens are ready in large numbers to scrap the private insurance industry altogether. This is why insurance industry lapdogs like Joe Lieberman, Susan Collins, Ben Nelson and Max Baucus are so busy trying to come up with alternatives that will appear to provide universal health care without really challenging the current system.

With single-payer being kept "off-the-table" by the Obama administration and the Democratic legislative leadership, supporters of universal health care are reduced to fighting off frauds, such as the health care "cooperatives" advanced by insurance industry apologist North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad. For example, the political action group MoveOn.Org will send a fax to senators in your name demanding that a "strong public health insurance option must be part of health care reform this year." The fax argues that any plan that is adopted has to be:

Available to all of us: A strong public health insurance option should be available to anyone who chooses to participate. If you like your current plan, you can keep it; if you want to participate in the public health insurance plan, you can choose that.

A national plan with real bargaining clout: In order to truly control costs and compete with private health insurance plans, a strong public health insurance option must be available nationwide.

Ready on day one: Every day we wait on real reform, health care costs continue to rise. A strong public health insurance option with a broad network of providers right out of the gate is key to building a competitive program that will help control costs.

A truly public plan: To ensure it's held to the highest standards of accountability, a public health insurance option must be truly publicly run—accountable and transparent to Congress and to voters.

Don't give up the fight for single-payer, but in the meantime access MoveOn's petition here to express your feelings about the alternatives.

Go. Read. New Poll Shows Tremendous Support for Public Health Care Option.

Update: The Sickening Addiction That May Kill Reform by Joe Conason (Rasmussen Reports):

If Congress fails to enact health care reform this year -- or if it enacts a sham reform designed to bail out corporate medicine while excluding the "public option" -- then the public will rightly blame Democrats, who have no excuse for failure except their own cowardice and corruption. The punishment inflicted by angry voters is likely to be reduced majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives -- or even the restoration of Republican rule on Capitol Hill.