Roy: Single payer system is path to universal care

At the end of a long presentation outlining new services, new doctors, new facilities and a growth in income this year at a rate greater than the growth of the economy, Dr. Kent Palmberg, the unusually savvy and successful senior vice-president and chief medical officer of Stormont Vail HealthCare, sighed and quietly said, “I’m not sure where all this is going, but we’ll probably end up with something like Medicare for all.”

He added, “I’m not sure that’s all bad. They pay promptly, predictably and adequately, with a minimum of paperwork. That beats costly fighting with scores of insurance companies, plus caring for the many uninsured.”  Read more 

Via that Rubber Hose guy (Cliff Schecter (Blue Tide Rising))), this would be laughable if it weren’t… well, so extremely laughable:

I, _______________, promise never to abandon my present Republican Party affiliation for the purpose of political gain. …

So, it would be OK to leave the Republican Partei to marry your gay lover? Just asking …

I solemnly pledge to always be a Republican, no matter what promises are made by external forces seeking only to undermine the Republican values I stand for. I can have reasonable disagreement with members of the Republican Party; however, at no point will ‘Party switching’ or quitting of the Party be tolerable.

Signed,

X __________________________________ [in blood?]

So why would the Kansas Republicans feel they needed to force the Kool-Aid down their own member’s throats, I wonder?

Of course, the oath reads better in the original German….  Read more 

Dammit, I really need to get ready for tonight’s blogger gathering in the wild north of this state, but friends keep pulling me back into the ethertubes. Fucking great post by Skippy:

via katieallisongranju (didn’t susan st. james and jane curtain star in that?) via mcjoan at dkos: a kansas editorial (by steve rose, chairman of the johnson county sun) explaining why the publicans suck:

in the 56 years we have been publishing in johnson county, this basically has been a republican newspaper. in the old days, before the republican civil war that fractured the party, we were traditional republicans. that is, we happily endorsed jan meyers for congress, bob dole for u.s. senate, nancy kassebaum for u.s. senate; virtually every republican state legislator from here, with a few rare exceptions; and most governors, although we did endorse the conservative democrats george and bob docking and john carlin.

the point is, i can name on two hands over a half century the number of democrats we have endorsed for public office.

this year, we will do something different.  Read more 

So tomorrow I’ll do the whole detailed post on it, but at Kosvegas there was this panel that nearly came to blows. Seriously. It was about how to reach out to conservative Southern people and make them vote for their interests, best found in Dem candidates.

Here’s how it’s done, boys. We don’t have to do any work at all. We just have to exploit what’s already there:

“The state is kind of dividing up,” Cigler said. “It’s the Christian right versus the business interests of the Republican party. That’s what Kansas is all about now.”

The Kansas Republican Party, Cigler said, “has been ahead of the curve.”  Read more 

From the Blondesense comments, DBK writes:

I am unfamiliar with Kansas politics, so what I have to say on this is pure speculation, but I always find it the most cynical of acts when someone who has long been in one party and is deep within the party decides to change parties. It always seems opportunistic and it is inevitably proven so. Were there a genuine change of heart with respect to political platforms and philosophies, the change would not be affected at a time when, as it also inevitably proves to be, a political opportunity is in the offing.  Read more