my otherwise favorite economist is a defeatist too.

If they feel the need to denigrate single player, that means it’s now on the radar screen. Still not a “serious” policy, of course.

And, interestingly, he doesn’t mention HCAN’t at all.

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

I am with you, HCAN’t and the rest of it would not be discussed were HR 676 not making progress. Clearly the demonstrations put the fear of God into the industry.

You’re the one who’s been doing the daily posts, for pity’s sake. Great resources!

I just dropped a little snark over at Ygles place — feel free to write something more serious.

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Is getting people who are happy to “start over” under the new system.

I talked to single payer advocates who didn’t want to join Hillary’s public option because they didn’t know if it would be solvent. That’s the hurdle and it exposes the fear of even die hard single payer advocates. That’s why I liked Hill’s plan. It opened up a single payer system to compete with the insurance industry. If the single payer option worked, it would permanently kill the right wing frames. (Well, until the next Obama came around.) That was what we would need to win this battle.

Obama’s dog-whistling of SS shortcomings don’t help. If people are worried about the solvency of a 70 year old program, how are we going to convince them of a new program that needs funding.

If you hadn’t noticed, health care has gone down in priority. Its a hard sale and if there are initial problems with *implementation* you risk the complete rejection of the program. I think its worth talking about those concerns as well. Its something that Hillary understood and addressed.

andre carson, 7-10-2008.

way cool.

I know I have a tendency to try to outthink the pros — it’s the kind of Inside Baseball stuff that Kos excels at.

But seriously, why bother? It’s not like the Village is right more often than they’re wrong; quite the reverse.

So I don’t think that sighing, like so many of the OFB started to do, and saying “That’s the best we can do, given the politics of it all” because we want to support “our” candidate — never find all the feces-hurling about “change” and “transformation” — makes a whole lot of sense.

I understand the logic behind Hillary’s approach, and I’d trust her to follow through on it, but I think we’d have best supported her by giving cover to the left, rather than by going centrist ourselves.

Good point on SS. Gad, is that a destructive meme. Thank God Obama’s not propagating it. Oh, wait…

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Obama’s rejection of mandates and the way he went about rejecting it was just as destructive to health care as SS.

Here’s something to remember: during the GOP’s attempts to privatize SS, what was their strategy beyond fear mongering? That’s right, going after young people under the guise that mandated SS was damaging to their self-interest. If I weren’t lazy, I’d google the link myself, but I am. (I think it was Melman who was talking about that strategy.) I find Obama a threat to progressivism precisely because he’s popularizing GOP frames and strategies *within the Dem Party*. “He’s less bad than McCain” is not effective on me because his Libertarian-esque philosophy is the biggest long term threat to progressivism.

And that includes the Villagers who, as the water rises, are climbing farther and farther up the mountain. Soon, there really will be one party, and then they’ll all cooperate! Won’t that be a good thing for those of us further down the mountain, and nearer the rising water? Of course it will…

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Cause, I just gotta say…

Death and Money
make their point once more
In the shape of Philosophical assassins
Mark and Danny take the bus uptown
Deadly angels for reality and passion
Have the courage of the here and now
Don’t take nothing
from these half-baked buddhas
When you think you’ve got it paid in full
You’ve got nothing -
You’ve got nothing at all…

I’m also not going to denigrate allies who have the singular goal of being an attack dog against the insurance industry. There’s absolutely nothing suggesting HCAN has any kind of seat at the table, and what’s more $40 million worth of ads about how shitty insurance companies are will aid HR 676, SCHIP expansion or any other health care reform. I also end my post with “I think that the goal ought to be single payer,” so I’m not sure of the confusion.

Also Obama’s taking pieces of the Clinton health care plan already - and crediting Clinton for it. Just FYI.

[I turned this comment into a post]

You know, I’m looking at the plan, and I see the “million moving parts” that Ygles is on about — most of which seem designed to (a) give the insurance companies a seat at the table and (b) give the rhetorical cover of “choice of doctors.” Single payer seems simpler to me; that’s sure one reason doctors like it.

So I’d ask you, just like I’d ask them, if you think the goal should be single payer, then why not support it directly? Because HCAN isn’t. The insurance companies are ruled in from the start, and that rules out single payer from the start. Some “attack dog.” And some ally, if it comes to that; unless you work on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend?

Then, in your post, you write:

But overall, I think that these single-payer evangelists misunderstand HCAN’s role, which is to relentlessly push back on insurance companies and wayward legislators rather than any kind of policy role.

You may think that, but that’s not what HCAN says. They clearly have a policy prescription, and it clearly isn’t single payer:

We’re offering a bold new solution that gives you real choice and a guarantee of quality coverage you can afford: keep your current private insurance plan, pick a new private insurance plan, or join a public health insurance plan.

We’re also calling for regulation on health insurance companies. We need to set and enforce rules that quash health insurance companies’ greed once and for all.

Yeah, good luck with that.

Oh, and after FISA, who cares what Obama says? Like New England weather, wait a minute, it’ll change. But what’s the argument, here? Because I supported Hillary, that I have to support her plan?

NOTE Does anyone know where the $40 million comes from? The ads online are as ubiquitous as the Obama ads.

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

the very real risk is that the for-profit insurers will be able to undercut the public plan, taking the young and healthy and inexpensive, while the public plan gets stuck with the old, ill, and expensive.

canada didn’t run this side-by-side experiment that hcan seems to be proposing, though at first glance it might look like they did. the province of saskatchewan, with some temporary social upheaval, went directly to single payer. didn’t take too long for the rest of canada to notice what they were missing out on and follow suit.

tommy douglas, the man who, almost single-handedly, pushed saskatchewan into single payer is now a national hero in canada.

recent experience with Medicare Part C shows the huge pitfall of a dual public/private system in the U.S. Namely, the insurance industry will use all the political pull it can to sweeten its share of the market, dump all the bad risks onto the public plan, and grab more than its fair share of public money.

I’m not saying that it’s impossible for the public plan to kill off the private plans, but I think the insurance industry would have to be considerably weakened politically for that to happen. And as long as the private plans exist, there’s the risk of devolution to the point where the public plan is reduced to a few crumbs thrown to society’s losers.

Incrementalism is no guarantee of feasibility—in this case it’s arguably less feasible than a swift, radical reform, because an incremental approach lets the insurance companies hold onto their position as the major organized group with an economic interest in the issue.

My fear is not that single payer won’t work, it’s that going for it in one shot leaves it open to criticism the moment any single problem with the program arises. Keep in mind that, structurally, the US economy is in the crapper and we are going to be facing some rough times in the future. There is going to be a lot of fear, which the insurance companies will play off of. If they can successfully thwart a single payer system, I think we lose any long term opportunity to do it. But if we can destroy the myth of the private sector being the best in a head to head, than it will be a lasting program and the lessons can be applied to other things like public schools.

We have a lot of projections that single payer will be a better system, and some evidence in much smaller countries of its efficacy, but I’d like to see the data. Not just because I’m a scientist by training, but I’d like to see a public option kick the crap out of the private plans. That has implications beyond one issue.

If the Medicare, Medicaid, and new public plan folks were all in the same risk pool, wouldn’t that give them a lot of clout? Enough clout to fend off private competitors? As it is, Medicare and Medicaid have the highest risk folks (older, poorer) so wouldn’t infusion of fresher and healthier bodies only serve to strengthen the program by lowering average risk?

I guess I’m of the view that the public option would out compete the private options before long so I see no reason to let the two go head to head. Maybe its because I believe in the public system more than the private ones enough where I don’t see a problem with side-by-side competition.

that process has begun, but I have a specific strategy that I will be laying out in a post in the near future.

i can probably dig it up for you, whatever it is, though it’s my understanding that most countries that have gone to a nationalized plan of one kind or another didn’t do the side-by-side crap.

yes, i do think it’s a crappy idea to pit the two against each other. i used to think it was a good idea, but without some very very serious, heavy-duty regulaton of the for-profit industry — amounting to what would essentially be a complete restructuring of the industry — the two won’t be competing on the proverbial ’level playing field.’

national health insurance: canada, 33 million people; taiwan, 23 million people; south korea, 49 million people. these may seem like much smaller numbers than our 300 million, but they’re not really.

and i hear ya about our economy taking a nosedive, but how ’bout that social security implementation? keep in mind, and remind anybody else you know who may have similar [and understandable] worries: the insurance companies are among those who are dragging us down into the economic equivalent of dante’s inferno.

canada isn’t a pure single-payer system, actually. each of its 10 provinces is its own single-payer entity really. but we’ve already divided our country up into 10 regions for the administration of social security [not to mention that the epa uses the same 10 regions!] so we’ve got a workable structure.

i look forward to that.

at DCblogger’s Healthcare-NOW! link:

We share the group’s condemnation of our current failing health care system and their noble goal of reaching a solution that brings care to all. We recognize among the HCAN coalition many who also work with us to promote single payer non-profit health care as embodied in HR 676, national legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers.

Partly because the name of the new group is so similar to our own, it is important that we point out what distinguishes the HCAN position from ours. Even more essential, the distinction is important because the policy issue is the crucial foundation of successful health care reform. We have to get it right this time around.

and a source of linky goodness — see the bottom of the page.