Who knew? John Wasik writes:

No Reason to Demonize U.S. Single-Payer Health: John F. Wasik

It’s time to stop kicking sand in the face of single-payer health care. It may be the strongest solution around to insure every American at a lower cost.

After decades of industry campaigns against this model -- dubbed by its critics as “socialized” medicine -- it’s important to stop whining and evaluate the many economic benefits. Health care is a fundamental human right.

If President Barack Obama wants real change in American health care, he will have to get over the fear of even mentioning single-payer concepts. At his health-care summit last week, only the threat of a demonstration [more like this, please] garnered late invitations for Oliver Fein and Congressman John Conyers, two leading proponents of the single-payer plan. ...

A single-payer plan would cover everybody regardless of employment situation and save money by cutting out middlemen.

$400 Billion

Fein, president of Physicians for a National Health Program, said a single-payer program would offer $400 billion in annual administrative savings and provide “effective cost containment provisions such as bulk purchasing and global budgeting.”

Obama has said he would keep an open mind on health-care solutions. Yet when asked on March 5 about why he was against single-payer medicine, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs replied: “The president doesn’t believe that’s the best way to achieve the goal of cutting costs and increasing access.”

Well, if it's a matter of "belief," who can argue? If it's a matter of evidence and reasoning, single payer is a winner

Most media outlets covering last week’s summit didn’t even mention the idea of a single-payer proposal, according to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a New York-based group.

While Obama’s team has strategically avoided backing a specific proposal, under the administration’s 2010 fiscal year budget outline, the burden for whatever plan that emerges will be shared by creating a $634 billion pool.

And now, the buyer's perspective:*

How would market economics work with a single-payer model? Legislate a grace period in which Americans would have a choice between private plans and the expanded Medicare buy-in model.

In a “Medicare-for-all” program, care would be publicly financed and privately delivered. You would keep your own health- care providers and hospital. The government wouldn’t dictate who your doctor is or choose your hospital. It would be acting more like a huge purchaser bargaining for the best treatment and drugs at the lowest price.

Of course, you would have to level the playing field by eliminating health-care tax deductions for employers and give every individual a tax credit.

There would be a national market and regulation for health policies and no one could be denied affordable coverage. No more “cherry-picking” of only the healthiest people and rejection of the sickest or those with chronic conditions.

Working Model

A good working model would be the National Health Insurance Act, which was introduced in 2007 by Conyers, a Democratic representative, and had 93 co-sponsors in the 110th Congress.

The urgency is there, but the Obama team needs to get even more aggressive if it wants to craft a fiscally sustainable program. Medicare earnings limits and subsidies for drug companies and managed care should also be on the table.

If Congress doesn’t act soon, the fiscal and social sacrifices in the future will be draconian.

Single-payer haters don’t like the idea of seeing who will provide the highest-quality, low-cost coverage and will do anything [anything?] to shut down the discussion. But let’s at least put this free-market comparison to the test.

First crack in the ranks of Village opposition?

NOTE * If I understand Bloomberg's editorial mission, it's to support the buyers of financial instruments like stocks, bonds, and the exotica. That's why they're on the side of transparency and accountability, which the bailout is notably lacking in: Being sold toxic waste makes them antsy. So this is an interesting constituency to be sending up a single payer trial balloon.

NOTE It's always been in the back of my mind that the auto-makers and the unions had to be fucked over immediately -- in great contrast to the banksters, who, because they run the Village, got their trillions NOW NOW NOW -- so that it wouldn't occur to anybody that putting the auto workers under a Medicare for All solution would immediately make the auto companies competitive with Canada, say. Of course, that would never have done, because that would make the insurance companies unhappy. Just a thought, and perhaps an overly cynical one. I admit I have no evidence.