One of the doctors I was seeing walked into the exam room wearing a nice, big "Support HR 676" button. It was the first time I've encountered a doctor so open about support for single-payer. I've had talks with other docs who support it, but not so obviously.

The doctor and I trashed Ron Wyden's whole approach to the issue and wondered why on earth Jeff Merkley, a long time single-payer supporter, signed on with Wyden's bill.

After reading the post here about doctors opting out of Medicare, it was nice to see an HR 676 supporter.

Matthew 27:24.

nothing at all about how to improve access to health care. I hope we have a good turnout for the events May 30

Obama was "brilliant" in BTD's opinion. I hear nothing real when the president speaks. He is so "brilliant" that he continues to take no firm position on anything when he holds court but keeps the masses enraptured. I can only judge his actions (which iclude the double talk and faux progressive framing) and he's still just a hustler to me. And he's going to hustle us on healthcare too...the writing seems to be on the teleprompter. The progs will gladly handover their "values" to stay high on the brilliant one. The media is the pusher and the high is just too damn good.

we are going to win and Obama will claim credit for being for single payer all along, pointing to that old speech of his. He will be reelected by an even bigger landslide. Who cares? We are going to win on health care.

Now we're forced to beg for the "public option" that will surely be gamed to the advantage of Big Insurance. Boy, what a progressive morning in America it is!

Gee, you'd almost think he didn't want to move the Overton Window toward proper UHC!

the fight LBJ had to go through in order to get Medicare in its initial incarnation through.

In a Senate and House that were controlled by Democrats.

Amidst the fight over the war in Viet Nam.

He framed it this way: Our parents and grandparents, our veterans and workers. deserve some dignity and care, instead of anxiety and neglect. They've EARNED it.

That's the frame you want to set up around single-payer, if you want to sell it to the US public.

That's the bat you want to whack private insurance over the head with, if you want to win.

We don't want reform. We don't need "health care coverage." What we need isn't a universal insurance plan; we've seen how that can be twisted and altered and drilled full of exceptions (the donut in Medicare prescription coverage, anybody?) whenever enough lobbying dollars get thrown at a non-existent "issue."

What we the people of the United States (notice how I didn't delineate on sex or age or income or gender there? Yeah. That's how it ought to be in all matters of answering the concerns of the population: the people are, in this sense, not a fractal wave of opposable subgroups; they're a monolith!) NEED is to be able to see a doctor (be that doctor an ob/gyn, a surgeon, a trauma team, a cardiologist, an endocrinologist, an allergist, a urologist) as easily as we can take our pets to the vet. (Veterinarians are much more apt to be generalists -- you might hear it termed "family medicine" among docs who treat humans -- and who therefore are much more apt to be conversant, if not expert, in a larger range of conditions and therapies). Now, it's getting expensive enough to take pets to the vet that some insurance companies want you to pay them instead (they love the smell of money) of paying the practitioner directly. Pretty soon you'll hear about insurance companies denying care for pets too (getting hit by a car is not a covered illnessm or the policy, in order to maintain 'affordability', has a very high deductible and a specific clause refusing coverage in trauma cases), I wager.

The big reason you can usually get an animal in to see a practitioner in 24 hours or less, and unless the condition is catastrophic (broken legs in horses, say, or mangled animals post-automobile collision) you can work out an arrangement for payment that doesn't send you to the poorhouse is veterinarians largely don't rely on insurance for their remuneration, and their patients largely don't have such complex arrangements for their medical care as humans in the US do.

The single payer in that system is the pet's owner (or more likely, the person responsible for the care and feeding of the animal).

There are many animals whose people do not pay, do not take them to the vet, do not care for them, do not keep them fed, vaccinated, sheltered, protected against parasites and vandals (cf Michael Vick). Cruelty is, as much as we wish we could say different, a part of human nature.

But we need not stand aside and let it rule. We can be like FDR and LBJ.