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Protestors in Vermont demand single payer

Wed, 03/18/2009 - 10:14am — DCblogger

Protesters Rally Outside Health Forum

Supporters of a single-payer system of health care used a special White House forum to send a message to the man in the Oval Office.

"Barack Obama said it at an AFL-CIO meeting in 2003 that he was an advocate of the single-payer health care system," said Dr. Deb Richter, who helped organize the protest. "He said we had to take back the White House and take back the Senate and take back the House, which they've done. Now it's time to get the single-payer bill he promised."

Vermont Daily Briefing blog reports (check out the pictures).

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Scarecrow at FDL-Analyzes first draft of Kennedy "Public Plan"

By jawbone on Sun, 06/07/2009 - 2:17pm

Good read, but disappointing to see what Kennedy (or his staffers who will need jobs?) has come up with.

Seems he sees penalties for those who don't buy health insurance (yes, must keep the pampered parasites well fed!) and those penalites will be collected by the IRS, making them look very much like a, well, TAX.

So the question is, if people can be taxed to pay for private health insurance, why not just tax everyone for health CARE and save billions in overhead, marketing, huge exec compensations packages? Or, as Scarecrow puts it:

...notice the willingness to impose taxes on those who are penalized. Yes, if you impose penalties, you have to have a way to collect the money. But equating penalties with taxes is questionable framing and simply begs the question: if we can pursue the goal of expanding coverage via taxes (in lieu of rising premiums and co-payments), and the goal is universal coverage, then why aren't we talking openly about using the tax system for univeral coverage and get rid of the unnecessary "mandates," "penalties" and the costly administrative trappings that go with them? The simpler approach is called "single payer."

Lots more analysis, breakdown of plan, and thoughtful comments.

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