"There Are 3 Types of Single-Payer 'Concern Trolls' — and They All Want to Undermine Universal Healthcare."

I’m familiar with it. I still have not seen one single person at DU be against universal healthcare.

There are a number of legitimate concerns with how it would be implemented. Questioning doesn’t make people either trolls or inflicted with Stockholm syndrome

and is one form of it.

Stockholm syndrome? Huh? That is a rather interesting analogy. Hm. Never considered that before but I get what you're saying

big, phony ones. The current, mostly enemy-manufactured wedge issues they're hammering at on literally dozens of threads each week are the role of Bernie Sanders and which healthcare delivery system we should have right now.

You're new but posting a great deal, CherokeeFiddle, which means your investment in DU could become a force for unity, for opposing and exposing these attacks on the Democratic Party from our enemies both onshore and offshore. Please consider that.

You should start a thread with this post.

You'll be seeing a lot of new faces relatively soon on here as I spoke of DU at our local meeting this past Thursday evening. Unity is a good thing!

I won't be, CherokeeFiddler, but I will be watching for the suggested role and hope to be able to join in to support. 277 posts in 9 days is very impressive. We'll be watching for your new invitees also. What group was that?

I suppose you can say I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment to having surgery a few weeks ago.

We are a "Our Revolution" group which consists of Democrats and unaffiliated progressives.

It is quite easy. It seems only in certain corners of the internet is it something that's difficult to achieve. I think a lot of it has to do with the unending badgering and people who are salty but in real life, that doesn't seem to translate, at least not in my experiences.

The age group is pretty diverse. Lately we have seen a LOT of young people, under 25 join us. Since January of this year, our membership has more than quadrupled. We have people who are 80 and we have people who just turned 18 last month. Of note; the younger members from 35 and under all say one thing; it was Bernie would caused them to become politically active and take notice to what is happening. Their biggest concern? Student loan debt, health care and wages, all social issues. Another interesting statistic is that only 20% are registered Democrats and the rest are indies. When asked why "indy", they said that they don't like how certain aspects of the function. I would explain more but I'm afraid some people wouldn't it. When it comes down to it though, they vote Dem.

It is really an interesting thing to see happen and engage in.

we had and have solid, achieveable, economist vetted plans to make them happen. And yet people who had flocked to this group had previously mostly rejected the Democratic Party.

Well, it's good to know they've gotten tired of dissension and losing and are now flocking to DU to support the Democratic Party, its leaders, and its goals.

Together, those seditious and bastards infiltrating DU to try to divide us and turn the nation over to corrupt, Russia-friendly archconservatives won't have a chance.

like that, invited in by the organizers to provide expertise. The only gardens that succeeded were one that became dominated by hobby gardeners and one that was taken over from the project-- as it very much should have been, I was proud of them -- by POC in their own neighborhood. However, in the end all but the hobby garden failed. Of course. I'm afraid I only hoped it would be different.

Except when done for enjoyment and personal satisfaction, the investment of time and labor required to grow even a tiny amount of food on a tiny allotment is simply not sustainable, the returns incredibly small for investment. Hugely, one has to tend living plants constantly. Any lapse can cause failure. And when individuals fail to maintain, the entire garden project begins its downward slide.

All entirely predictable. Subsistence farming, even on the tiniest scale, is simply not an answer for people whose real need is for higher wages so they can purchase food produced at far lower costs. Critically, the real work day for people who work at or near unsustainable wage levels is far longer than the paid one. People without their own washer and dryer, without bank accounts and credit cards, without grocery stores, pharmacies, doctors, banks in their neighborhoods, and often without cars have to work longer hours every day just at the task of maintaining after their paid hours are over.

And on that point: What happened to the unifying call to fight the extreme income inequality created by the right? How have both Democrat and the Sanders "revolution" discussion been subverted to scrabbling inside the party over repeal-and-replace of the ACA?

And just WHO sent people here to distract DUers away from the little issue of income distribution? I won't suggest one guess, since these days they're coming at us from all sides.

getting single payer for Vermont??

I'm lost

is that right?

We were talking about where online people could find like minded individuals outside of facebook and twitter. I brought up Democratic Underground and explained to them it isn't just about politics but more along the lines of a complete liberal lifestyle website which it is considering all the subforums). Several folks said they would check it out and probably join. I explained it was free.

familiar and thankful for that term.

....heard about Democratic Underground years ago.

seems like something done under the guise of supporting Democrats. Fortunately, that is very apparent and easy to spot.

this sounds a lot like you're trying to involve me in some sort of conspiracy theory. Believe what you will, I pay no bother

Some are very new to politics. In the overall scope of things, DU is a very small site. Most people, as in the majority of the human population just about is on 2 places; twitter and facebook. There are political groups on facebook that are over 100,000 members. That is ONE single group of many.

that Our Revolution will not just support Democratic Party candidates, and maybe even repugs.

Is that true?

What are you even talking about here? Seriously, level with me because I don't have a clue.

The fact that Adam Johnson (the author of the linked article) doesn’t know this hardly inspires confidence in the value of his somewhat random musings. It's troubling that the author of the linked article, who is not even well-informed enough to understand a fundamental distinction, sees fit to lecture others on important policy.

Universal coverage has been a core value of the Democratic party for many years. From our most recent platform:

Securing Universal Health Care
Democrats believe that health care is a right, not a privilege, and our health care system should put people before profits. Thanks to the hard work of President Obama and Democrats in Congress, we took a critically important step toward the goal of universal health care by passing the Affordable Care Act, which has covered 20 million more Americans and ensured millions more will never be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition.

Democrats will never falter in our generations-long fight to guarantee health care as a fundamental right for every American.

don't have the single-payer system Bernie and his supporters dream of.

His plan is just one way of getting to the goal of universal healthcare that Democrats all support.

opposed to single payer/Medicare for All?

and I think he is the wrong person to be defending the ACA -- which he wants replaced by single payer -- in a debate.

The timing was perfect in my view. Two different perspectives.

and it allows the Rethugs to reframe the debate.

so that he could introduce his own single payer bill. Going on 25 years ago, the Clinton's had a real life plan that was something Bill Clinton campaigned on, but it wasn't good enough.

edit; this is why so many see the destructive possibilities that Sanders will hand the GOP a gift by arguing single payer over the current, hard-fought Obamacare. They want to confuse the issues to dismiss it all as socialism.

"To be sure, Sanders, who was a member of the House in those days, didn’t work with Clinton to pass the administration’s overhaul of the health care system."
http://www.factcheck.org/2016/03/clinton-on-sanders-health-care-history/

I invite you to watch the debate over it from 1993

I see you ignore the Clinton's Universal health care proposal.

Not sure why you want to bring up Hillarycare which wasn't single payer and left the insurance companies in charge.

What we need is to insure EVERYONE and make it affordable, along with getting big pharma and health insurers out of being in control. Why try to reinvent the wheel when we know what already works?

of the land. Twenty million people are in jeopardy of losing their coverage, and the only concern is that "He was focused on his own plan." Are you kidding me?! That's EXACTLY why and what the criticism of him is about lately. For a quarter of a century, he is focused on "his own plan". In the meantime, life goes on and we have to deal with reality.

And it's laughable that you say "we know what already works." Single payer obviously hasn't worked, so it's just a bizarre red herring to even insinuate that. What worked was Obamacare, so work to support that.

And I realize you've only been posting 9 days, so that's why I posted a good base of context about the Clinton's introducing universal health care to counter some of your negativity about Democrats, and the fact you didn't realize that universal health care and single payer were not the same thing. That's why this article is really a RW talking point -- it's deliberately trying to muddy up the terms, and you apparently fell for the bait.

We obviously see things rather differently.

Single payer is universal health care just like a pizza is a pie but doesn't come in pecan flavor.

And you are apparently in disagreement with Bernie in your definition of single payer vs. universal health care. That's why I posted that the Clinton's introduced universal health care a quarter of a century ago. Even in this thread you are advocating only for Bernie's "single payer", but now you say it's all the same anyway, lol.

Since when do I not support Democrats? News to me. I advocate for a single payer system which insures everybody and gets rid of the high cost of prescription medication. Is there a problem with this? I don't think so. It isn't all the same. Universal health insurance has many different facets, again, pie analogy. A pie shop sells pie, it isn't all the same pie however. Each has a different taste and flavor.

universal health care is different from single payer. You obviously know to parrot the "single payer" line, which is why I posted that the Clinton's introduced universal health care over a quarter of a century ago. During that push for universal health care, Bernie focused on "his plan", which you also acknowledged in this thread.

Then isn't it a shame that Sanders' didn't unify with the Clinton plan over a quarter of a century ago?? What a lost opportunity.

and takes insurance companies out of the equation.

Also the scoring that would support your assertion that "Hillarycare would have been an disaster" and while you're at it, the math on Bernie's "precise" equation?

People were losing their minds that a CBO score was requested, surely there is something to back up these strongly held beliefs other than simple faith in the greatness that is Bernie and his remarkable powers of precision that only the initiated are privy to?

Explain to those of us who have not achieved this level in the faith, please.

Sanders was one of 90 co-sponsors of McDermott's bill in 1993, but he neither wrote, sponsored, nor introduced this bill. Democrat Jim McDermott did.

McDermott introduced this bill several more times, and Sanders wrote a Senate version and introduced it as well.

Both MedicareForAll.org and PNHP preferred the Conyers bill, HR 676.

http://www.medicareforall.org/pages/HR676_and_S915

http://www.md.pnhp.org/docs/Comparison-HR676-and-S703.pdf

https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/1200/cosponsors?resultIndex=1200&pageSort=alpha

....and introduced it just about every year since then until he retired. His son, who succeeded him, took up the cause and has been introducing universal/single payer healthcare legislation every year that he was in Congress. And then when he retired his wife succeeded him and she's been upholding the family tradition.

Single payer in one form or another from one family in Congress for 74 straight years. That's impressive. I wish they'd gotten more support from other Congress people.

But Canada and all the rest still use the single payer system as the base. There is the ability for private add ons for employers but the vast majority of medical spending is through taxation so that everyone is covered from cradle to grave.
That is the main crux of the argument. Whether Bernie and the Dems behind him have a variation on it is not the issue.
It is the system of funding basic healthcare through mandated taxation instead of private insurers.

Canada's system doesn't cover drugs for instance. France and Switzerland use heavily regulated private insurance companies. Neither is single payer.

Which is payed for by the single payer taxation.

Whether it is administered by private insurers or there are extra for profit add ons or not. Everyone is guaranteed coverage by law regardless.

it isn't single payer (in Switzerland there are several private companies and the government isn't the single payer but there is universal coverage).

.. is if there is a law which states that. A law BACKED up by the Single Payer. ie: Every person no matter their age or circumstances is covered for even serious conditions.
It is this philosophical shift that is the big difference, not the details. Where healthcare shifts from a privilege to a right.

in which everyone was guaranteed coverage.

The reason it isn't universal is because some states chose to reject the Medicaid expansion.

The government still makes sure that a basic medical coverage is provided.

can work.

Switzerland does not have a single-payer system.

What I'm trying to get at is that it is guaranteed and regulated by elected people.
Ultimately it's in the hands of the government (single payer) to make sure everyone gets healthcare. That is a fundamental shift.

That fundamental shift is what we are talking about, not the details of how it would finally end up.

I don't even understand your beef. You can scour the planet and find a couple of instances where countries have a different version and that means that nothing like that would work here? Or you think Bernie and the Dems would be locked into their original structure proposal with no room for adjustment?

My "beef" is that you and others don't recognize that the ACA itself represented a "fundamental shift." If it had been fully put into place in all 50 states, then our insurance mix would have been similar to countries like Switzerland. It would have provided for universal insurance with guaranteed benefits, fully regulated by the government.

And it would have been a structure to build on. Individual states could have experimented with single payer, and the national system could have added a public option. Depending on what the public wanted, it could have been the vehicle for getting us to national single payer.

If we let the Rethugs kill it now we'll be set back for years -- or even decades -- and tens of millions will lose insurance and vital healthcare in the interim.

...(less than Maryland), Canada has a population 36 million.

It's not impossible, but also not easy coming up with a system that can cover a country with a population 10 times that of Canada.

Another point - the tax rate in Denmark is over 60%! They also have a sales tax rate of 25%. Try getting rates that high in the US.

Medicare for All, Single payer, universal coverage, even for those not signed up?

Can you get behind any of these or shall we file you under lost cause? Are you saying America is too big to afford health care for all?

They don't want high taxes and so Americans, no health care for you.

Can't you get behind Medicare for all at least. It's working well for millions of the population who are most likely to need care. Why not add in the younger, less needful? Americans actually support medicare and are happy to have it after turning 65. They reluctantly, but regularly paid into it with payroll taxes and reluctantly but regularly pay their $125/MO. Premium. Are you really concerned that we might have to pay 60% in taxes and 25% sales tax? Or are you just saying?

Are you working in the healthcare insurance industry like others posting in this thread? Lets be up front if you are.

...you making rash assumptions about my opinions based on your interpretation of what I said?

Once again, I suggest you reread what I said, carefully. There are no hidden meanings or motives in that post.

"Once in office, Bill Clinton quickly set up the Task Force on National Health Care Reform,[7] headed by First Lady Hillary Clinton, to come up with a comprehensive plan to provide universal health care for all Americans, which was to be a cornerstone of the administration's first-term agenda. He delivered a major health care speech to a joint session of Congress on September 22, 1993.[8] In that speech, he explained the problem:

Millions of Americans are just a pink slip away from losing their health insurance, and one serious illness away from losing all their savings. Millions more are locked into the jobs they have now just because they or someone in their family has once been sick and they have what is called the preexisting condition. And on any given day, over 37 million Americans—most of them working people and their little children—have no health insurance at all. And in spite of all this, our medical bills are growing at over twice the rate of inflation, and the United States spends over a third more of its income on health care than any other nation on Earth."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan_of_1993

What's up with that.

of many that might achieve universal healthcare. It is not universal healthcare in and of itself.

That's the problem with people just screaming about Single payer, they don't actually know what it is.

Related but not interchangeable.

Is that clearer?