New Leadership on Health Care 2008 Presidential Forum

9 Comments

1. 

   Alice on March 25, 2007 at 11:08 am

   Thanks very much refinish69.  It’s great to have this all collected in one place.

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     refinish69 on March 25, 2007 at 12:11 pm

     no problem.  Hope you enjoy it!!!

     • 

       tampopo on March 25, 2007 at 2:09 pm

       I didn’t know what a podcast was; thinking I might need a “pod” to be able to listen, I never tried podcast links.

       Well, I decided to try your links and discovered…I don’t need a pod! I will take some time to listen. I look forward to your commentary 😉

       Thanks for doing this.

       • 

         refinish69 on March 25, 2007 at 3:53 pm

         Glad you tried it.  A lot of people think you have to have an ipod but things have changed thank goodness.

2. 

   on March 27, 2007 at 3:59 am

   Did any of these candidates come out for a single payer system?

   Everything else is bullshit. But single payer means “wiping out private insurance companies and their $350 billion in excess administrative costs—enough to cover the uninsured and underinsured—without paying anymore than we do now.” And Democratic candidates depend on contributions from the insurance lobby. So are they going to offer us what we need: single payer—Medicare for All?

   Corporate Crime Reporter

   • 

     refinish69 on March 27, 2007 at 7:29 am

     Kucinich, but he doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected.

3. 

   on March 27, 2007 at 1:36 pm

   In most of the world, it is a corporate crime to sell private health insurance.

   That’s because most countries insure their citizens as a matter of right.

   Private insurers dilute the public pool.

   One nation, one payer.

   Medicare for all.

   Everybody in, nobody out.

   No bills from the doctor.

   No bills from the hospital.

   No deductibles.

   No co-pays.

   No in network.

   No out of network.

   No corporate profits.

   No threat of bankruptcy from health bills.

   Health insurance will be the number one domestic political issue in the USA in 2008.

   Polls indicate that the majority of the American people want single payer.

   But who will deliver?

   On Saturday, the Center for American Progress Action Fund and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) sponsored a forum in Las Vegas for presidential candidates to discuss health care.

   No Republicans accepted.

   Seven Democrats accepted.

   All the candidates at the forum agreed that universal health care was the goal. (Even the Business Roundtable and the insurance industry now say they want “universal health care.”)

   But only one–Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio)–accepts the only answer that will work–single payer.

   Medicare for all.

   The rest–including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, Mike Gravel, and John Edwards–want some mixture of public and private health insurance.

   They know this public/private mix won’t work–the healthy wealthy will buy private insurance, the sick poor will sign on with the government–and the government program will be crippled.

   But they don’t have the guts to stand up to the private insurance industry and say–get out.

   Political Players and Single Payer

   If Edwards came out for single payer, he would be as perfect a candidate as we could get, and he would win the nomination.

   • 

     refinish69 on March 27, 2007 at 1:49 pm

     Edwards is the best candidate.  I do not believe there will ever be a prefect candidate in any party.  I like his plan and think it is a step in the right direction.

     • 

       on March 27, 2007 at 10:50 pm

       I agree Edwards is the best candidate. (I used to think Gore was, but his getting to look like the alien bounty hunter from The X Files makes me worried.)

       Still, I think the blogosphere should put as much pressure on him as possible to get him to embrace singe payer, and also reiterate that anything but single payer is a sham.