Not only do we need to demand Medicare for all, but we need to push for the abolition of private, for-profit insurance companies in any part of the health care system. Any entity whose profits increase as a direct result of decreasing health expenditures is antithetical to all that is decent and moral in America. Further, if we had previously outlawed campaign contributions from any group seeking favor from government, we would have already passed universal health care. When over 65% of us favor a public option, why is there any debate about what we should get? We need to tell President Obama that our continued support is absolutely conditioned on his ability to keep his most important campaign promise on this issue...he needs to spend all the political capital that we gave him right now to make it happen.

Exceedingly well stated. What credibility will Obama retain if fails to pull out ALL the stops on a issue of actual financial and bodily SURVIVABILITY on which 65% of the citizenry already AGREE for a equitable solution? That would be Medicare for All. Our (mis) representatives, with their own privileged coverage on our dime, have not a clue to the extent of the suffering they are inflicting on the many. We are not deceived.....and we are no longer patient with being victims.

A STRONG public option should be supported at a minimum (key word being STRONG). Obviously anything beyond that (though unlikely) would be icing on the cake. But without at least a robust public option (no triggers, co-ops, etc) the result will likely be worse than the current system, mandating Americans to buy the expensive and crappy insurance that we already don't want. That is not reform and should be opposed.

"Medicare For All," with expanded benefits from the current Medicare, is the only rational and civilized way to go in terms of efficiency, cost and providing all Americans with quality health care. Since it has become well known that the costs of employer-based health insurance puts businesses in the US at a disadvantage with other countries, I really don't understand why companies aren't pressing to get out from under this burden.

HR 676 Single payer - not Lucy's football of public option. As you said, Nobody can tell us what the public option is. Charlie Brown, when she pulls away the ball, will agree we should have stuck with the single payer, which most Americans support, or would if they knew how it would make our lives so much more satisfying. We need to be strong, and hold out for the best health choice, even if it takes awhile to accomplish. Firefighters, Police, Libraries, Schools, VA, Post Office, Social Security and even Medicare, are all run by the taxpayers, or the government of the people. All pay in, none left out, American values at work.

Insisting that the Earth was the center of the universe required convoluted and irrational orbital paths for the planets on cosmic maps; Copernicus moved the Sun to the center and the planets assumed concentric circular orbits in astonishingly simple and elegant harmony. Take the complicated and convoluted proposals Congress is drafting to try to satisfy all "players" and ideologues, and substitute for it a single-payer plan, and watch the plan become elegant, simple to administer, and simple to communicate to the American public. Like the Copernican heliocentric planet map, single-payer is simple because it is RIGHT.

Universal healthcare is the way to go. Get rid of all for profit healthcare insurance and facilities. This would also spur a reform of the USDA and FDA whose practises are of dubvious benefit to overall citizen health.

Short of that starting with a "Public Insurance Option" so those unemployed or otherwise not able to afford insurance can get regular care, physicals, dental cleaning, eye exams, etc and more if thier tests show necessary.

Short of that Lowered Medicare age to 50 is acceptable if the issues with drop outs in the now lousy private insurance go away. This should be in combination w/ Kucinich plan.

Short of that give states the option of thier own plan a la Dennis Kucinich, but honestly this alone would be a last desperate attempt at citizen self determination.

Thank You!

Yes I support public option! I'm not as easily fooled as most Americans because I'm not a republican or democrat, I'm an American. Medicare, Medicaid, & Social Security would all be fine if not robbed by our mis-representatives either directly, through fraud in which rep.s don't do anything to stop, or are a part of.

The two parties have the people split, United States divided! Are we safe from terrorist now that we're broke? The two parties should be eliminated & campaign finance taken, put in the general fund, & replace trillions stolen from Social Security. We need to also hold mis-representatives accountable by forcing full finacial disclosure by all representatives, family, & lobbyists.

Insurance, pharm. co.s & others are spending millions to stop health care reform. Why? Profit. If they are willing to spend millions, like banks, defense, & others, those profits, & payback must be huge!

Look at www.opensecrets.org & you can see who contributes to who & how much. Many of the politicans receving millions over the last 20 to 30 years, suggest public option, single payer, or any health care reform in legislation isn't right, will raise taxes. These same representatives who haven't accomplished anything in all their years in office in health care reform, while receiving millions, while premiums have gone up 20%, need to be reminded how much they have gone up by doing nothing! If they would have done anything years ago, instead of stopping reform as they are trying now, & manipulating into more crime, we wouldn't be in this mess today. We the People are NOT being represented, we're being taken in the greatest scam the world has ever seen, we call it representation!

We pay all the campaign finance, lobbyists, CEOs, accountants, lawyers, & more in premiums. If we didn't pay all the above how much would health care really cost? If we didn't learn from the financial crisis, {our representatives accepted $64 million & stopped regulation,} how much damage campaign finance is doing to US, we better wise up, the same crooks who broke US after making trillions are manipulating the market, & doing the same thing they were before, derivatives!

We have the same problem with our infrastructure. Representatives have accepted millions, handed out tax cuts we as individuals aborb, & not kept our infrastructure up. The American Society of Civil Engineers have given our infrastructure a D or D- for years, claim it's in need of $1.6 trillion. Now we're paying billions in stimulus, & people are crying about Obama spending all this money? It costs a lot more today then it would have to keep the infrastructure up years earlier so the reality is, we're paying more than we would have if corporate un-America & agri corruption wouldn't have been buying our representation & teh crook son ou rpayroll wouldn't have been making millions selling US out while on our payroll.

The American people are manipulated through campaign finance & our representatives into paying for the infrastructure contributors need to produce & move their product. At the same time they have promoted illegal immigration, busted unions, put Americans out of work, held down wages, took Amerians out of the insurance pools, drove up the price of insurance because we're paying to care for illegal immigrants, which led to more unions faling because contracts couldn't be sustained because health care costs were driven up & those costs weren't, couldn't be negociated into contracts.

Consumers drive 70% of the economy & can no longer do so because we're paying for everything because camaign finance has our mis-representatives making millions along with contributors. They are flaoting our money back & forth like bad notes from bank to bank & we're paying as individuals in so many ways it's breaking US as a nation.

The media needs to either report this or get out of the way! How could the media miss any of what I just wrote? How could the media miss the fact that our mis-representatives, after claiming to be fighting communism for the last century, are selling US out to communist China through free trade? Does China sell weapons to the Taliban?

The same DC Dead beats sent 58,000 Americans to die in Vietnam, thousands more wounded, in front of weaponsbought from commuinst countries like China. We were fighting communism or financing it? Are we fighting terrorism or financing it as well as terrorism today?

Everything our representatives do contradicts the original concept, ends up costing US ten times as much as if they wouldn't do the things they do. War, finance, health care, illegal immigration for cheap labor, free trade for cheap goods, & a list perpetual.

The best thing the American people could do is get rid of the two parties & campaign finance. Put America ahead of the two parties & contributors instead of the other way around.

Hurrah for PDA! Of course, you should fight for single-payer healthcare, and not get sidelined by the public option. That public option won't stand a chance as long as the insurance companies hang around. They'll make sure of that. And yes, we WILL get single-payer if we just keep plugging!

We need a health care even if it is like the VA's. I don't see why we can not have that for everyone, pick one major hospital in area and make the the main Dr office; let each person have a free choice of Dr. if the need a specious than the other Dr can regimen one. simple and neat

Single payer healthcare is the best way to reduce healthcare costs! The insurance companies should not be making money on peoples good health. The practice of medicine should not be based on the business model. It is most of all an art and a science. It's purpose is caring and compassion. Healthcare providers should be paid for their services, not some interloping insurance company.

A fatal - perhaps unconscionably calculated - flaw committed by outfits like HCAN, MoveOn, and their weak-kneed cohorts in Congress was signaling their support for a yet to be written “public option” prior to going to battle for single payer. (Imagine negotiating for a wage increase. Two demands are submitted. One is for a dollar raise and the other is for twenty-five cents. Guess which one employers will choose to bargain? A fifteen cent increase would likely be the outcome of such a lousy bargaining “strategy”. Any rank and file worth its salt would fire its negotiating committee for making such an egregious blunder!)

Whatever form of public option that may emerge will bear little semblance to the original deficient public option as proposed by Jacob Hacker eight years ago.

It is trendy to point to polls showing broad support for a public option. What is left out of that sleight of hand ploy is mention of at least six prior polls wherein a huge majority of Americans voiced support for single payer.

There is justice, and there is a measure of justice. A laboratory beaker is only full when it is filled to the brim. Less than full means exactly that. The same is true of health care justice. Is there such a thing as one-third or one-half of justice? Would you accept “a measure of justice” for a loved one?

Perhaps the people who support less than justice douse themselves with “Eau I Got Mine” each morning.

Make no mistake about it; caving in to less than justice will set true reform back for years! When it becomes apparent that major improvements are needed, Congressional surrogates for the medical-profits industry will be able to alibi that it isn’t in they cards….”we just did reform, don’t ya know”?

The same corruption that exists in the halls of Congress has seeped into other venues in our nation’s capital. Although a huge majority of union members support single payer, the suits and ties that make up its hierarchy took a dive on real reform before entering the ring!

If “robust” is part of a public option, it will be in name only. The sell-out has already taken place. The best thing that could happen is for all the lousy, inhumane, socially unredeemable bills currently under consideration to be ripped into shreds. Then start anew.

Have you ever asked why single payer never got a fair and unbiased hearing in Congress? Follow the money for the answer. In the past decade the unholy troika of health insurers, for-profit hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry lavished $2.2 billion on Washington, D.C. They purchased access and results. How much access or results did your $50 or $100 contribution buy you?

Nothing changes if nothing changes. It is up to us to make the change. Vote “NO” for the sell-out public option. Next, get on the phone and make a promise to your Members of Congress. Vow that you will only support and vote for them if they oppose the sell-out “reform” bills under consideration and instead support single payer. Then, deliver on your promise!

The solution to our nation’s health care woes is the collective images that look back at us from mirrors.

Accept nothing less than justice! Accept nothing less than HR 676!

Rich Austin

Thank you for a very well constructed article. I agree with many other previous comments. It is too late to salvage a robust public option. They began with far too weak a bargaining position. However, having said that, if a robust public option with everything laid out in the Progressives Principles for a Public Option were to be acheived, I could support the option.

Total failure could produce a failed Obama presidency. Insurance reform by itself would not be a total failure. It would save thousands of lives, although the insurance industry will predictably bend all its energies to sabotaging it - that's how they maximize their profit, so that's what they must do, by their very nature.

But a reform that included fines for people who fail to buy insurance and that strips funds from medicare to cover costs of a public option that didn't even result in universal coverage would be a disaster. It is unlikely that the fines will be large or immediate enough to get people who can't afford insurance to buy it, so you will have millions of people paying fines for the privilege of being uninsured; and those of us on Medicare, which is threadbare already if you can't afford supplementary insurance, will be ripshit. We just lost a member of the progressive community in Worcester whose cancer went undiagnosed until much too late because she couldn't find a personal physician who would take Medicare patients, and I am told the plans in the works would cut physician reimbursement even further!

We didn't make this disaster, and we may not be able to save the Obama presidency from itself. We need to force a vote on Single Payer just to push it forward on the national conversation for next time, and our terms for voting for this abortion should be inclusion of the Kucinich Amendment that will allow us to implement Single Payer in Massachusetts and show the way.

Otherwise we should urge our Representatives to vote to kill it.

The Blue Dogs will take notice if they know we mean it. Their own fortunes are cooked if the bill dies; they need a "win" or they will get swept out of office along with Obama!

I appreciate the basic thrust of this blog post and poll, but in one major respect, you're contributing further to the confusion regarding public-option legislation and proposals.

Legislators and media, including the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) and most individuals and organizations boosting the public option (eg, HCAN and the front-pagers at firedoglake.com), have moved the goalposts yet again regarding what kind of public option proposal merits the adjective "robust."

The CPC robustness criteria to which you link, published in June, are dead. They are no more "on the table" than single payer itself. They exist in none of the bills currently under consideration, and it's a pipedream to think that House and Senate deliberations and conferences will strengthen the public option to anything close to their standards.

Most crucially, those criteria call for the public option plan to be made available to all individuals and employers without restriction and to derive to the greatest degree feasible from Medicare and other existing government health care financing structures.

In the strongest legislation now under consideration, HR 3200, the public plan would be made available (starting in 2013) only to the uninsured or to employees of very small businesses. The bill allows for gradual expansion of access to the public plan but leaves the scope of such expansion to the discretion of a future, potentially Republican, administration. Moreover, legislators are looking to de-link the public plan from Medicare infrastructure, instead structuring it as one or more nonprofit insurance companies, precisely to avoid accusations that it would constitute the seed for Medicare for All single payer.

HOWEVER, we're hearing a lot of "robust" nowadays from House leadership and CPC members. But what they're now referring to as "robust" is a public plan that pays providers "Medicare + 5%." Now, tying a public plan's payment structure to Medicare's is a good thing, but it is not the same as fulfilling the CPC's robustness criteria. It does not ensure universal access to the plan, and it's no guarantee that the plan itself -- as opposed to just its rate structure -- will be "Medicare-like."

CPC leaders like Grijalva and Woolsey have already walked back from their published robustness criteria. If something gets passed that Democrats call "robust," it will still be the minimally accessible, structurally hobbled, weak entity currently in HR 3200; it's only saving grace will be its Medicare-based rate structure.

So for PDA to poll its members as to whether they'd support a bill containing the CPC robustness criteria, without making clear that no such bill even remotely exists and that "robust," as currently used, is a craven misnomer, is to poll about an utter fantasy.

PDA must not support such a fatally compromised bill as that which we will likely see coming out of Congress as "healthcare reform". The individual mandate with IRS-administered penalties (big red flag), the weak public option that limits enrollment, the (hopeless) state not-for-profit "co-ops/ exchanges" run by the gov't to lower costs: these are elements of a dream list foisted on Congress by health industry lobbyists. One need only recognize the insurance industry's current embrace of the public option to realize something's amiss in this legislation.
The CPC's robust public option, on track toward single-payer (a joy to read), should be supported. The Weiner amendment is obviously what we have all been working for, Kucinich also progressive and valuable in some measure. The Kucinich amendment without the CPC-RPO does not go far enough and should not be endorsed, even if it will likely pass.
PDA has correctly and courageously stood for something more than a token rehash of our broken health clusterf*@&: healthcare for the People. Please do not go back on that. Please do not second guess yourselves, it is cold and lonely in the wilderness sometimes, that's one of the reasons we like it! We are neck-deep in big business domination, at the expense of every taxpayer, really every person in the world. PDA is one of a few on the front line in this debate, and I support you. Thank you for all your effort.

If *every* goal stated in the link herein for the 'robust public option' is *fully* satisfied then I don't think it would be unreasonable for PDA to support it as a significant step forward: even though it certainly won't guarantee coverage to all, since it includes no provision for subsidies for those who can't afford whatever its rates may be (though the truly indigent do have some other existing options for aid in this area), it should help keep rates reasonable by providing real competition as long as the playing field is kept level (e.g., all providers are required not to exclude pre-existing conditions or discriminate based on other factors).

That said, I won't be personally supporting anything short of a Medicare-for-all-style single-payer system: it's what I believe is the right choice and I'm damned if I'm going to support anything weaker given how assiduously so many nominal progressives have worked to keep single-payer solutions completely out of the debate (nor am I likely to be supporting them any time soon at the polls or otherwise).

This comment is from another site. I didn't author it but wish I had.
"The private insurance system is like a cancer. It is analogous to a malignant tumor, composed of cells that use up all the body's nutrients, while performing no useful function. In the same way, private insurance is eating up the health care dollars that should be spent for direct delivery of patient care. In an effort to cure cancer, do we open up the patient, do some artful carving on the tumor to rearrange its shape, and then sew the patient back up, leaving the tumor intact? No. We do everything in our power to remove the tumor completely." C.E.
.
Progressives must not compromise on this as everyone else has. We need to fight for HR676 and the elimination of predatory practices and corporations profiting from the suffering of others. Anything less is morally wrong.I lived in Europe and being free of this one concern makes a huge difference in your quality of life. We need to pass single payer now. It needs to be in effect on 1/1/10. Once Americans see the difference and understand they have been screwed for decades, politicians will never be able to take it away.
That's what the corporations are afraid of.
Lets get this done and go after the banks next!!

I think we need to keep it open and not have just one path...the public option you cited. This needs a potentially creative solution and not black or white. We could lose it all.

Absolutely agree with this position. The public option has been so neutered in an attempt to make it sellable to Rs that it is almost worthless now in most proposals. If it were truly robust it might make a small dent in controlling costs. Single Payer will absolutely be necessary for universality, affordability, sustainability, probably with a major effort also to get away from fee-for-service provider reimbursement to group practices and salaried physicians. The original concept of public option envisioned by Political Scientist Jacob Hatcher of Yale, then of Berkeley, was to cover 130 million and lead to single payer. It has been so gutted and restrictions on who can enroll, what providers can be reimbursed, it would only cover 10 million in current proposals and those would be poorer and sicker folks so the risk pool would be problematic. Insurers would try to dump the sick into that pool and game the system. Assurances have been written in to prevent it leading to single payer. Bad.

If the Kucinich amendment and robust public option is not passed, then I urge the entire Progressive caucus in Congress to oppose any other health care bill. When this happens we should have mass protests all over the country supporting this action by the Progressive caucus and should notify each member of the caucus that PDA is organizing such an event for a certain day. Such protest should contain a petition that says if my delegation does not join the progressive caucus vote, he or she will not get my vote in the next election and "i will summit a write in vote or vote for an alternate independent candidate who supports universal health care. And the petition ought to state that if Obama does not veto any bill not approved the the PDA, then my vote will not go to him in 2012.

When such action occurs, I believe that it may, just may, move Obama to veto any other bill that comes before him.

I would like to hear from PDA what they think of my proposal!!

I cannot vote on the PDA Straw Poll because there is no clear public option ...robust or not.

In general, as long as private companies are a mainstay of the system a public option of any sort will not succeed.

Single payer is the solution. We may get there over time and via various routes. If a public option is passed, robust or diluted, we need to be sure we continue to differentiate that option from the single payer plan. People are very confused and uninformed about single payer. If/when a public option fails we do not want the single payer system to be identified with it.

"Consist of one entity, operated by the federal government, which sets policies and bears the risk for paying medical claims to keep administrative costs low and provide a higher standard of care."
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but that (from the 'Robust Public Option') sounds like a single payer system. Or is it meant to refer only to persons opting for the public option rather than private insurance? The whole thing is too confusing for words!

Let's go for the Kucinich bill because it has the best chance for eventual single payer.

I thank you for your strong support for Medicare-for-all, the only way to go to provide equal coverage for everyone regardless of conditions. Aside from contacting members of Congress, what actions on a mass scale have been planned to demonstrate the widespread support for this program?

If only the "public option" were available, I suppose you would have to support it or no reform at all would happen, and I want Obama to succeed in his promises, but a reform based on the continuation of insurance corporations' abuses of the public (and profits on the backs of ill members) is not reform at all.

I support #1 of the list of options in right hand column.
After 60-+ yrs. of seeking to make health care a right instead of a commodity, we are finally close to success. Please keep fighting because Pharma and Insurance Co.s are fighting to the death and they have propaganda tools and money that the public lacks. Our voice falls on deaf
Congressional ears ... the democracy aimed at in our Constitution... is about to succumb to fascism.

I have tried to follow the healthcare debate, and I am not certain that my views are covered by anyone. I believe that in every community, small or large, that a clinic should be available with no charge to the patient. I would even pay a little bit more in taxes if I could drive to a local clinic with my medical complaint and they would see me, give me care, test me for the full extent of my complaints, and then either handle the problem, for a small problem, or send me to another care facility to receive more extensive care. I do not believe that this facility would ask for my insurance card, for my money, just identification and the problem. I believe that the facility could be staffed by health care workers who, although they would be paid, would also get breaks on their student loans. Around this system could be built long care facilities, like hospitals, testing facilities, out patient cancer treatment facilities, and other private or public offices that would be able to treat any variety of health complaints. Once we have a system where all people know they can receive care, it would take a great deal of strain off the system and allow us to create effective and efficient facilities to make a healthy and much less stressed population. that would go a long way to increasing our productivity, adjusting our personal relationship attitudes, and bringing good citizenship back into our lives.
Thank you for listening.

If medicare for all cannot be passed, then I would hope that PDA
would support a STRONG PUBLIC OPTION.

I don't know what kind of health care reform will come out of this session, but I strongly suspect it won't be much. There is, however a silver lining behind this very dark cloud. I am reminded of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Don't be embarrassed if you've never heard of it, there really isn't a hell of a lot to remember about it; a mere pittance, really - a scrap of leftovers tossed out to "American Negros" (in the parlance of the age) in order to appease them. But it made the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - the one we remember - all-the-more easier seven years later.

We'll live to fight another day.

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

i don't understand the 'straw poll' offered today ... so will instead state what i DO understand. We must not allow any bill that makes one single additional customer for insurance companies. Whether paid by citizen or (worst scenario) by gov't, not one CENT should go to these hideous corps, whose sole mission is to prevent people from getting health-CARE, so they can swell profits for multi-bazillionaires. This is unthinkable. We need health CARE, like the rest of the civilized world, as part of our citizenship ... and the word "insurance" has no part in the topic. We must end the perverse actions of so-called insurers, and control pharma's vicious practices ... by whatever revolt tactics are required.

Warning do not log onto disqus it will prevent you from posting

Bobby Scott, the only progressive House of Representatives member in Virginia outside of the Beltway, has said that the public option is a first step toward eventual Medicare-for-All, which he also supports but does not believe is politically viable at this time. I tend to trust Scott, who has been steadfast on most progressive issues, and so have drawn a line in the sand with my Representative Glenn Nye and Senators Warner and Webb: while I support single-payer, Medicare-for-All, I understand the politics, and if they don't support a strong public option, they don't get my vote in their next election. Other than a standard form letter, I haven't heard back from any of them with a comment on this.

No health insurance companies, NO MORE, they have had their era and suck.
Single payer only is my position.
A compromise is single payer only and leave the insurance companies to "twist in the wind" and available for Rush, Glen, and the Tea Bags.
The poll questions are poorly written BTW.

Has the CPC "robust public option" been submitted as an amendment? There are already 2 or 3 (at least) anemic "public option" amendments. If not an amendment, by what mechanism would "robust" be incorporated into HR 3200? I am inclined to the position that any talk of a meaningful "public option" inclusion at this point is either naive or worse. The bill has been crafted by stakeholders, and anyone close to single-payer advocacy has been rejected in the process, sometimes with force. The fix is in, the money is already in enough politicians' pockets.

Right now, many good people confuse single-payer with public option. The first is an actual system already in partial (and successful) implementation right here in the USA. The second is a varying mirror of people's hopes designed to gain their acquiescence in probably the biggest peacetime pork barrel that has ever been contrived - the forced universal sale of private health insurance coverage and (with help of public option) at taxpayer expense.

We have a robust public option already. It is called Medicare. What is needed is its expansion to cover all age groups, not just the most costly, leaving the healthier age group sectors to be cherry-picked by the insurance profiteers.

I would advise PDA to stay on track - demand no less than what most of the advanced world already has - a universal health care system not based on private insurance. Support existing Weiner, Kucinich, and Sanders amendments. Be prepared to continue the fight for real reform whether the current bogus health bill passes or not. Do not fall for siren songs and scatter your forces.

Thanks for this comment. A "varying mirror of people's hopes" is very apt, and I may need to borrow it.

For myself, I could live with a compromise that faithfully embodied the June CPC robustness criteria, because I think it could actually trigger the rush away from private insurers and toward the public plan (and thence to single payer) that corporatists fear and progessives crave.

But those criteria exist in no bill or amendment.

Getting a public option in the door will be like getting your
shoe in the door with the insurance companies as gatekeepers
on hand to slam the door on our toes. (to make sure that
the public option is very limited and will not expand into
something good and low cost like medicare).

My hopes, in voting for a 'robust public option' (if that is the best that can be done) is that it opens up the possibility for Congress to revise our health plan towards a more meaningful Medicare for all or single payer the following year. Seeing that 15 years elapsed since the previous time that Congress even dealt with any kind of health care worries me. Of course, a single payer system makes the most medical and financial sense but we also have to vote for public financing of campaigns and until we do we are stuck with corporate rule and control of our lives.

This is almost like pinning down a Senator or Congressional person on defining what a “Robust Public Option” means. These are hollow words that allow one to escape when the heat is on leaving us holding the bag again.

The only bill that will truly put people in front of Insurance and Drug Company profits is HR-676.

While the bills are being modified on a daily basis there is nothing to commit to except ensuring the success of HR-676. Anything else is a patch work that will find a way to place Insurance and Drug companies profits before the people. You know .... us .... you and me and still leave millions without Health Care. What an illusion of Health Care any of these bills has contained within there structure, with the exception being HR-676.

Health Care is not a commodity: Doctors, Nurses, Patients, Business, our country, all of us for that matter besides less than 1% of our population will continue to loose out until we have a Nationalized Health Care System. Single Payer – HR-676, now that’s a robust Public Option.

Single payer is the only option that will really improve medical care in this country. As long as insurance and drug companies are making deals, we have lost.

REVENUE CAN BE GENERATED BY HEALTH CARE! We should scrap that which has not worked; Insurance Company Health Care (HC) is not controllable! We have a great medical establishment (Medical Facilities) that provides outstanding medical services, but we have Insurance Company Membership Coverage that has jacked up coverage costs by 10% to 16% per year for the last 50 years! Over 50% of all Bankruptcies are due to the lack of HC Coverage. In only 8 years the Insurance Company Membership Cost will be $1 in every $5 of total GNP! And, will double that cost in only another 8 years!
THE PLAN THAT I HAVE OUTLINED HEREIN WOULD GERERATE REVENUE, SAVE MEDICARE, SOCIAL SECURITY, AND THE SOLVENCY OF OUR U.S.A. TREASURY! UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE; FULLY PAID FOR BY REALLOCATING SIN TAXES; WITH NO NEW TAXES!
The GNP is Greatly Depressed due to The Insurance Company Health Care System! In my opinion, we all would be better off economically, with a Universal Single payer Health Care System. Let’s Get One Thing Absolutely Straight; Insurance Company Health Care Is NOT Sustainable!!!... The Choice Is Eventual Insolvency, or Universal Health Care for All U.S. Citizens; All Cities, Counties, States, and Federal Government would benefit greatly with the Huge Revenue generated by Universal HC Funded entirely by REALLOCATED SIN TAXES!
Do you want unhealthily people who do not have Health Care Harvesting, Processing, Cooking, or serving your food? Do you want unhealthily people who do not have Health Care working in Stores, Hotels, or Homes? Do you want unhealthily Children who do not have Health Care going to Schools with your Children? We all come into Communicable Contact with many people as these everyday!
I recommend that the Most Fair, And Reasonable, H.C. Funding Would Be with Federal taxes only (No State or other Tax on these items) from Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Fat Pills (High Fat Foods), and Marijuana, (Cannabis) Production & Sale (SIN TAX). The savings of a Universal H.C. System funded by SIN Taxes would more than offset the loss of the Tax base for the Taxed items. Everyone would then be a participant in providing for the Quality Health Care that an, “All Inclusive”, Single Payer H.C. System, like Israel has, would be provided! Do not try to pawn-off a Hocus-Pocus H.C. on “We the People”!
This Health Care System would provide Huge Savings in the Cost incurred by Businesses, Police, Eliminated Incarcerations for Marijuana sale and use, and the funding of Health Care presently being incurred in every City, County, State, the Federal Government, and We the People! Now ask yourself this question, “Do you choose illegal
Sale and use of Marijuana from drug pushers, or would it not be better to Control the sales of Marijuana by licensed Liquor Retail Stores”?
We are currently spending about $86,000.00 per year, on each of the thousands, of Incarcerated prisoners who were convicted for growing, selling, using Marijuana; to be sure, they do get complete medical services including dental and eye care, as well as schooling, correspondence courses, a leisure life with few financial worries.
SPENDING OUR TAXES FROM THESE SOURCES ON HEALTH CARE WILL GENERATE REVENUE!
Sincerely, Gerald Blancett, 677 Connie St., Santa Rosa, CA 95407, 707-578-7980

Right on target, and The Kucinich/Sanders Amendments must be retained !!!

The Health Insurance Industry has already tipped it's hand. They have no incentive to keep costs down, and lots of incentives from Wall Street to keep them high.

The Public Option is the second best way to achieve that (Single Payer, or just opening Medicare are the most cost effective) and no legislation not containing them should be considered.

I agree that single payer universal health insurance, with small or no premiums, and without involving private health insurers who have failed us for 70 years, is what we desperately need. Special interests have bribed our representatives to take single payer off the table; although I would vote for any amendment which includes single payer, I would also continue support of a Public Option as a plan B and work to broadcast what is needed to correct its deficiencies and lack of detail.

Prime amongst those deficiencies is the limited access to the Plan, as noted in other e-mails. If the Plan is to "be competitive with private insurance" then surely it must be available to everyone, including those who are insured but do not want to support the private insurance companies. Equally important is that the Plan must be offered in 2010 not 2013: are we to broadcast the deaths and suffering that would be saved if it were available in 2010! Is there no shame that we are prepared to continue to allow thousands to die, suffer, and go bankrupt because of lack of health insurance or inadequate health insurance, and representatives who focus on marginalia, not real reform.

There should be no deductibles, caps, co pays, complete choice of providers, and require no or only a small premium - e.g. ca $100/month, from persons who are working with a wage above the poverty level.

At present all we have "robust" in the public plan is that it is not linked to employers and by inclusion with other amendments will not use pre- existing conditions to exclude from health insurance persons most needing health care or rescind insurance, again for those most needing it. But the other details are unclear or not specified. We need to press for details of a Public Option, and make them talking points so that, as Plan B, the Public Option will have some real value should single payer not be passed.

Bottom line, we cannot afford to wait any longer for real health insurance reform. Our health care status quo is rightly an international disgrace.

Even if Single Payer fails (I'm working on that in Minnesota) and a Public Option prevails, I'm afraid it will be a logistical nightmare to make it work efficiently. At that point, Single Payer may arise as the only alternative, eventually. That is what I hope happens!

The name for our new healthcare system should be called Americare.

it would be nice to see someone say "no more bullshit!" "NO!"

I see the idea of Medicare for All as the most sensible, least costly, and simplest solution to health care reform. However, I see Public Option as the only way to get there with the current set of circumstances. I do not see enough people being educated in the media as to what a Single Payer plan would do for America. Obama should be doing this but he is not. With the exception of Jay Leno mentioning to Bill Maher a few weeks ago, just in passing, that the term "single payer" is a bad term because the term doesn't tell you what it is and that all it really means is "Medicare for everyone", I have seen nothing educational in the media. Not even the Democratic Party is clarifying misconceptions. For instance, reform is not about medicine. But insurance lobbies convinced the right and the independents that the left wants "socialized medicine". And the Democratic Party will not come out and straightforwardly admit that it just wants socialized insurance, not socialized medicine. The left does not take the opportunity to tell people that we already have a socialized insurance plan. It's called Medicare. And it costs one tenth the cost of non-socialized insurance while covering an older less healthy population. So the right gets away with focussing on the word "socialized" when no one in goverment is talking about owning hospitals and turning doctors into public servants. E-flipping-gads! It's about non-profit, government-run, public, socialized INSURANCE. It's not about medicine. People who hate insurance companies are screaming about big government and the government taking over our health care. It's about INSURANCE, not health care. Single Payer and Public Option supporters need to get together. If we are for Single Payer, which I am, we need to support Public Option as a way to get to Single Payer. If we call our Congress and tell them not to support Public Option, we will get neither one. People are already too confused and Obama is not speaking up to clarify, nor are any in the Democratic Party. I was shocked to see that Orrin Hatch said the other day that Obama's plan is not about socialized medicine and even defined what socialized medicine is. A Republican! Where is the Democratic Party on laying into people who call it socialized medicine? It's socialized INSURANCE. Truth is truth. No wonder the right thinks we lie. We do. We tippy-toe around the politically correct term and confuse the heck out of people. Call a dang spade a spade. People respond favorably to truth. That's why I love Jay Leno.

A robust public option is a potentially viable albeit not the most desirable outcome to be achieved. Politics however is truly "the art of the possible" and at this juncture I fear that a single payer approach is politically impossible. Although I loathe the thought of incrementalism vis-a vis health care reform there is a huge difference between the current proposals in congress and a robust public option. Evolutionary rather than revolutionary change may be the best we can hope for.

Single Payer is the only real solution. Supporting a public option ("robust" or not) will only continue favorable situations for both Big Pharma and the Insurance racketeers.

The robust public option described at the link is not too bad as a compromise, but it leaves out two essential ingredients. In order to keep premiums as low as possible, payments to health care providers should be the same as Medicare, and all providers must be required to accept these payments in full.

We should also remember that a compromise is not something we propose, but, rather, something that we grudgingly agree to after a long battle. Every other word out of the mouths of our supporters in Congress should be "SINGLE PAYER is the only real solution", while participating in the negotiating process. Furthermore, the Kucinich Amendment has to be part of any compromise we would agree to in the end. No state should be hindered from adopting a true single payer solution.

I consider that a "robust public option" would have the following characteristics:
- Open to anyone who chooses it.
- Pays set rates, like Medicare + 5%, to physicians and hospitals (NOT negotiated rates).
- Premiums subsidized at the same rate as for private insurance.
- Requires participation by physicians and hospitals that participate in Medicare.
The first two criteria are critical, the 3rd and 4th less so.

The public option, if available to all Americans, presently insured or not, is acceptable for the time being. The vaguely defined public option being reluctantly pushed by Dem. leaders, Obama included, will probably be limited in scope and not meant to be truly effective so as to keep insurance industry and pharma money flowing to them.
I do not trust Obama as he seems to be the latest corporate merchandise offered to Americans; the well spoken likeable intellectual in place of the total failure of their plain talking country(club) cowboy. I hope I'm wrong.

The public option, if available to all is an acceptable start. Anything less, which I believe Obama and the Dem. leadership will try to give us in hopes of keeping corporate money flowing their way, is crap and should be shoved back into their faces.
Obama is on the left wing of the DLC, and as such is nearly worthless, no matter how beautiful his voice and how well crafted his speeches. He is the latest corporate merchandise foisted on us, their previous country(club) cowboy being such a total failure.
The Dem. Party, if they had any of their 60's character would be feasting on the situation facing our country today, each issue taylor made for progressive solutions, but instead these guys are largely corporate whores of some sort and seem to think that we should be happy eating Dem. vomit in place of Rep. feces.
This whole mess, from Wall Street fraud, needless wars, anti-American trade policies etc. will lead to our downfall, and that may be our only solution.

Single-payer with strong independent oversight on costs, quality of service, is the only humane option...public option looks like just another welfare-for-the-wealthy opportunity for the insurane and pharmaceutical corporations.

It seems you must support a bill with a public option (unless it's co ops or opt out) as a step towards a medicare for all future. We know the congress must compromise to pass something.

It will have to be a super robust "public option" if you want me to consider it.

The straw poll didn't include a question about mandates, and it's a crucial question when it comes to supporting the bill at all. We need to vociferously oppose measures that require Americans to purchase insurance from for-profit companies -- it's devastating.

About 7 billion people live on this planet. We all must SHARE its land, water, products, and wealth. Bullies of all kinds, whether in our poorest neighborhoods or our greediest corporate offices, must share their power, wealth and space to benefit everyone. Those who would grasp everything for themselves are playing a no-win game of Monopoly. If they take from everyone else, they destroy the very people who produce their wealth, and the walls come tumbling down. What sad, foolish people they are. We can start building a strong foundation of a healthy, vibrant world where all can share in its bounty. We can start by providing everyone with universal, quality health care. Even the bullies will benefit!

We should support NOTHING BUT Medicare for All, and all bills MUST start 01/10/2010 or asap nearest that, bc PEOPLE ARE DYING (122/DAY or 45,000/yr) AND up to 1 MILLION ARE GOING BANKRUPT OR LOSING THEIR HOMES bc of inadequtae health care.. THIS IS TOTALLY WRONG, IMMORAL, UNACCEPTABLE & UNAMERICAN.. 15x the # who dies in 9/11 and 22x those lost in Katrina.. but this is ONGOING/IT MUST BE STOPPED!!

HERE'S THE KEY: ANY plan THAT DOESNT START RIGHT AWAY, with THE UNCOSNCIONABLE 4 YRS WAITING PERIOD MUST BE DEFEATED.. UNTIL & UNLESS BANK BAILOUTS & WAR FUNDING ARE DELAYED BY 4 YRS, DELAYING HEALTH CARE WHERE PEOPLE ARE DYING CANNOT BE AN OPTION.. EITHER START IT NOW, OR VOTE AGAINST ALL THOSE & OTHER PROGRAMS..KAMAKAZIE

W/THE LOSS OF LIFE & HOMES CAN WE SUPPORT MEDICARE FOR ALL NOW? YES WE CAN! COULD WE SUPPORT A ROBUST PUBLIC CHOICE OPTION? YES WE CAN! COULD WE SUPPORT A WATERED DOWN VERSION? NO WAY JOSE!

Simply stated: Single Payer, NOT FOR PROFIT, healthcare for every single man, woman, and child in this country.

I like PNHP's nonofficial/official stance: to "do the right thing", advocate for universal access to healthcare services, however it happens. I believe that the reform bills we've seen so far are destined to fail, and that we will still be working for single-payer in a few years after the reform crashes the economy. This is not a sprint, it is a marathon—hard to know at what milepost we are now, but still not in sight of 26.2, IMHO.

Paul Revere and Tom Degan: Well said! to Deborah S: the quote to which you refer may indeed sound like single-payer, but it is not available to anyone whose employer offers insurance unless the employee's contribution is >12% of his or her income, which seems to cut out most of the middle class.

I wanted to point out, support for a mythical public option is a radical position change for PDA.

Norman Solomon articulated PDA's long standing position against Medical Apartheid here:
http://www.pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-07-24-11-48-13-news.php

I don't believe an organization can simultaneously work for Single Payer and the Public Option at the same time. Single Payer is based on the fact Health Care is a Human Right. The Public Option maintains that Health Care is a financial product. The Public Option does not guarantee health care for all. The public option does not provide equal treatment to everyone.


Highlights of PDA original position:

Even while straining to put forward a “public option” as some sort of stunning government intervention to level the healthcare playing field, media coverage rarely comes to terms with the situation that would actually remain under such a scenario.

How does “healthcare apartheid” strike you?

For the government to offer the public a multi-tier set of options for health insurance--in the words of the New York Times, “different levels of coverage” such as “basic, enhanced and premium”--is to imitate the approach of the corporate healthcare establishment.

After all, isn’t it implicit that the government plan’s “different levels of coverage,” offered to the public, would be based on ability to pay?

Missing from the dominant healthcare debate--not only along Pennsylvania Avenue but also along media row--is a principle that could be debated and should be debated.

In a few words: Healthcare is a human right.

And a human right should not be contingent on ability to pay. Nor should it be divided into “basic, enhanced and premium.”

Type your comment here.

Hi All:

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) offers a detailed definition at its website of what they call the Principles of the 'robust' public option.
See: http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?ItemID=...

Their plan includes some good features that offer the possibility of replacing wholesale corporate control of health care with public influence. One feature in particular is note worthy, namely, the ‘robust’ PO should, "Be available to all individuals and employers across the nation without limitation." That’s definitely a step in the right direction.

However, the CPC proposal lacks one crucial provision. The public option, no matter how well devised, is still only part of a larger reform packaged that includes mandates and subsidies. As written, huge amounts of public money will flow to private insurance corporations. So to be a viable progressive reform, the robust plan must prohibit the use of public funds used to subsidize the purchase of private insurance. Public money should be use only to buy public services.

Also, does the CPC plan to offer their robust public option as an amendment to HR 3200 or as stand alone legislation? Either way, they must put it in writing on the floor of Congress. On the website, it's just a wish list.

I agree with robertiverson. I don't think a single payer option like that cited above can co-exist with private insurance. Providers favor privately covered patients over those on Medicare. I'm afraid this bill with this "robust public option" might mislead people to think the problem is solved while the rot grows back from underneath like a cheap auto paint job. I don't understand all of the Progressive proposal, but any private insurance left standing tends to beget more of the same. I'm not sure, but I think S703 or the Kucinich Amendment with no public option might be preferable, since states could opt to eliminate for-profit competition altogether, as in HR 676, which forbids private duplication of coverage and requires that participating providers be non-profit. Then these state plans would finally appear side by side with for-profit and the choice would become clear. The only reason I hesitate to vote to hold out for HR676, Improved Medicare for All, is that a bill with the Kucinich Amendment or the Progressive option would provide some relief for the many who suffer and die as we deliberate. Above all, reject any bill which requires anyone to purchase private insurance: i.e., pay protection money to racketeers!

I tried again, and I cannot decide how to vote in this poll. If the Progressive Caucus rejects any bill which includes for-profit healthcare, the people will be even angrier at "liberals." If the caucus supports a bill with a "robust option" or the Kucinich Amendment, they'll lose the chance to demonstrate that Democrats can't pass a bill without us and they'd better listen up. Our caucus deserves way more respect than the GOP or even the Blue Dogs, but they also need constituents.

If there's progress forward on healthcare for Americans in the bill, regardless of how much progress it is, PDA should support the bill. The only exception would be the ludicrous idea of fining Americans who can't currently afford insurance for not having it.

Change is the only option with regard to Health Care, the system is broken, corrupt and quality of delivery absent.
We are fighting us (those in Congress elected to serve us, but are concerned about the next election and contributions) from the Government system that provides a single payer for Congress, including pensions benefits for life that the tax payers are supporting. When a retired state worker in California is entitled to a $ 200,000 State pension, an average New York state pension is almost $ 100,000, and the banks and Wall Street are allowed to get bailed out because of no regulation and incompetence, I imagine quality Health Care at affordable rates isn't common sense. What happened to a Government of, by and for the people. I guess an unhealty society will die off soon enough because Washington and their Corporations know what's best.

CandiToni is exactly right! Until we make a more concerted effort to achieve the same benefits as those afforded our representatives (how soon they forget, in their haste to cash in their corporate contributions), we will remain in a trick bag of our own designing. We need to speak with one LOUD voice, but such organizing seems beyond our time and energies.

Re. Opt-In/Opt-Out and Triggers. Vote for these and I will vote to opt YOU out. These provisions make passage of "Health Care Reform" an empty promise. I still won't be able to afford it. I will still go bankrupt trying to pay what insurance doesn't. Just because health insurers have to offer a policy if you have a preexisting condition doesn't mean they have to offer one you can afford. Some Democratic representatives and spokes people seem to thing that simply passing a bill called Health Care Reform will be enough to guarantee them votes. I'm a 3rd generation Democrat and I WILL opt out my vote and money and organize to get others to do so if you think we are that stupid.

My representatives are for Universal Health Care, and I have sent numerous e-mails to my representatives recently on this issue. The problem is that representatives in other jurisdictions don't seem to get it right. What can I do?

Kucinich himself has stated that he would vote for an otherwise bad health reform bill as long as his amendment was retained. Canada's single payer system started out province by province, and it appears that it would have to proceed state by state here in the US.