[quote=AN][quote=ocrenter]Of course we are not heartless. But we got to pay for it, hence the ACA.
The whole point is you can’t go half way in as we are now, we can’t mandate emergency care yet do not mandate insurance coverage.
Extending Medicare to all is essentially a single payer system. Reason why I mentioned socialism is because that is the number one reason why it is politically impossible to achieve at least in the foreseeable future.[/quote]
If a single payer system is impossible, then why not work together and come up with a solution to the health care problem that both side will like. When you have a bill that one side voted yes and another side voted will inevitably be challenged by the other side.
ACA were passed with 100% of republican voted no, why didn’t they just go straight for single payer, since they’re not getting republic support anyways. Why go have way w/ the ACA?
I think both side can agree that we’re not heartless, regardless of political party line. Why can’t they all just sit down, investigate what are the top 10 reason for the rising healthcare cost and create 10 bills to fix those 10 problem. Would that be so hard?[/quote]
The #1 reason we don’t have a single payer system is because of the moneyed interests in Washington. It has nothing to do with Repubs vs. Dems, IMHO. The left-right thing is just a distraction. The FIRE industry (esp. insurance companies) initiated an all-out war on universal healthcare. Is it any wonder we were not given a public option, or that everyone is forced to buy *private* insurance?
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According to President Obama, America’s health insurance industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to block the introduction of public medical insurance and stall other proposed legislation.[72] There are six registered health care lobbyists for every member of Congress.[73] The campaign against health care reform has been waged in part through substantial donations to key politicians. The single largest recipient of health industry political donations and chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance that drafted Senate health care legislation is Senator Max Baucus (D-MT).[74] A single health insurance company, Aetna, has contributed more than $110,000 to one legislator, Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), in 2009.[75]
“The United States National Health Care Act, or the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act (H.R. 676), is a bill introduced in the United States House of Representatives by Representative John Conyers (D-MI). The bill had 88 cosponsors as of October 7, 2009.”
“The act calls for the creation of a universal single-payer health care system in the United States… Under the policies this Act would enact, all medically-necessary medical care decided between doctor and patient would be paid for automatically and directly by the Government of the United States, ending the need for private insurance for such care, and probably recasting private insurance companies as purely supplemental coverage, to be used when non-essential care is sought, as often happens in the United Kingdom for things like dentistry services.”
“The bill was first introduced in 2003,[2] when it had 25 cosponsors, and has been reintroduced in each Congress since. However, it has always failed, including in its latest (unofficial) push by activists during the 2009 health care debates over the bill that became the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. H.R. 676 was expected to be debated and voted upon by the House in September 2009,[3] but was never debated.[4] Advocates who remained staunchly for single-payer health care as the ultimate vote and passage of the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 loomed, tried in vain to present HR 676 as a viable alternative to the Affordable Health Care for America Act, H.R. 3962, but were ignored, and even in some cases arrested by police during various nationwide debate events, with the implicit approval of Max Baucus, who acted as head of these debates.“
