Single-Payer Healthcare Coming to Missouri

Canada did not create a civilized healthcare system nationally until its provinces led the way. Clearly Congress is dragging behind the states in our country, and it is through state successes that we will eventually compel the U.S. government to provide our people with this basic human right.

Hawaii has a single-payer healthcare system. California's legislature has passed a single-payer bill three times but not yet found a governor to sign it into law. Single-payer healthcare bills are advancing in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and a growing list of states, including New Mexico, where State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino, a long-time supporter of single-payer healthcare, is running for Lieutenant Governor. In Minnesota, single-payer champion John Marty is running for Governor.

I recently wrote about North Carolina house candidate Marcus Brandon, who has pledged to introduce a bill to create single-payer healthcare in that state as his first act in office. Now a formidable candidate for state representative in Missouri has made a similar commitment.

Byron DeLear, whom I have known and learned from for years, said on Monday: "If elected, I will sponsor the 'Melanie-Care for All Act', providing a simple plan to get all of our Missourian families the coverage, protection and care we deserve." DeLear, is a state rep. candidate in the 79th District of Missouri. (See http://www.ByronDeLear.org ) and who is Melanie?

DeLear explains: "A dear friend of mine, Melanie Shouse, recently passed away from breast cancer. She found a lump in her breast but couldn't afford to see a doctor. Through the course of her disease she tirelessly continued to advocate for healthcare for all as a moral imperative. I met her through our shared work as concerned citizens and like many of her friends and colleagues was inspired by her unbridled energy and enthusiasm to effect positive change. Even in the midst of great personal suffering, Melanie selflessly put it all on the line and did the best she could to help us all. Her story was propelled to the national stage with President Obama mentioning her in a speech and culminating with 'Melanie's March' from Philadelphia to Washington DC, ending with a rally attended by Senate leader Harry Reid and other members of Congress."

DeLear is proposing to accomplish something, however, that neither Obama nor Reid will even entertain any discussion of: taking the profit-motive out of healthcare coverage. "If Melanie had access to affordable healthcare," DeLear says, "her untimely death might have been prevented. Seeing a doctor was simply too expensive, just as it is for tens of thousands of Missourians, whose fear of skyrocketing healthcare costs are justified. Health insurance premiums in Missouri have risen 82.5% in the last decade, consequently, the vast majority of all personal bankruptcies are due to medical costs, for both the insured and uninsured alike. This creates a specter of fear for families all across our state. Melanie's death is one of thousands of needless lives lost due to our current broken and inhumane healthcare insurance system."

DeLear provides the statistics for the nation and his state: "According to a recent Harvard Study, 45,000 Americans perish each year due to lack of preventive or primary healthcare. This equals approximately 800 Missourians like Melanie. 800 Missourians die each year due to our broken healthcare system. This is a moral crisis, and suggests that we should all take a step back from the raging debate to ask ourselves, in a perfect world, what would our ideal system be? What do we want for the family of Missouri? And then takes steps to make that ideal a reality, or get as close to it as possible."

DeLear proposes something that has never been mentioned in over a year of endless, tireless, and tiresome healthcare debating in Washington, namely looking for a minute at all the nations that have already solved this problem and asking how they have done so: "Many nations have struggled with the health-care debate before us. What's the best way to adopt complete healthcare coverage for all? The world is full of examples of different solutions to this question. But the trends over time are very specific. What they show is that . . . universal coverage, regardless of class distinctions, is the desirable end result. This goes to the heart of what insurance is and mathematically what 'risk pools' are all about. Pooling risk makes a community, state, and nation stronger. It protects us all against personal catastrophe. Currently, in the United States, health insurance corporations cherry pick through the populace to determine who's worthy of coverage, or how to deny care once you become sick. This is at odds with the healing mandate of the medical profession, and has to be turned around."

DeLear makes an unequivocal commitment, saying "The right thing to do, is to cover all our citizens with healthcare. Medicare covers and protects more than 800,000 Missourians. The first bill I will support will be a Medicare-for-All type plan for Missouri. In honor of our local heroine, Melanie Shouse, if elected, I will sponsor the 'Melanie Care for All Act', providing a simple plan to get all of our Missourian families the coverage, protection and care we deserve."

Byron DeLear's website is at
http://www.ByronDeLear.org

He needs all the help he can get, and there is a little button on his site reading "Make Donation". Those who want a real healthcare system in this country would be wise to pour money into his campaign and those of other state leaders across the country.

Alternatively we could keep putting all our eggs in the basket of fantasies about the United States Senate getting its act together and fixing bills after they're passed.

I thought that was mostly for show because the dems knew it would be vetoed, and they had no way of funding it.

I believe Illinois is making good progress on single payer as well (I can't remember if the bill is out of conference or not though). They have large dem majorities in both houses as well as the governorship. If Illinois, California, NY and PA all go single payer, that is 80 million people.

http://www.progressillinois.com/2008/10/07/columns/young-skala-single-payer

But you are right this could be the kind of head-fake thing like we got with Rockefeller and the Public Option.

You say they need a way to fund it, yes it would have to go to state-wide initiative to be funded. This would be an ugly battle to say the least, the insurers would drop 100 million into the defeat easily. I'm not sure what the pro single payer forces could muster.

And there is the issue of the governor. Gerry Brown is going to walk with the nomination and he won't even state his position. He's moved massively to the right-wing. He used to be for Single Payer. I wouldn't bet on him singing it. He'd probably come up with some bullshit excuse like Cali will be come a haven for the sick. When more likely Cali would become a haven for jobs. Like when GM wants to put factories in Canada because of the free healthcare. But yeah... For these reasons I don't think that California will be first in the nation.

The state to be most hopeful about is supposedly PA they have a really great group there fighting for it and I understand they are making huge inroads. Not sure if Rendell is supportive tho. Colorado has some good momentum too I understand.

Ideally it would be a red state that would go first to really shatter the idea that its only hard core leftists that want what the rest of the world has in health care.

Also the idea of 80 million is kinda irrelevant. As I understand single payer makes sense with as little as 100K enrollees. So even the smallest state can save serious cash by switching to single payer. States don't need to poll together necessarily.

My home state (NY) has an active state single payer group and the chair of the NY Assembly used to be single payer guy but has dropped his bill. It passed the Assembly once but the Republican senate killed it. But Wall Street would come after this with all barrels blazing. Wall Street prevents NYS from being a leader on any issue, IMHO. We do have generous medicaid benefits tho, supposedly.

The biggest pragmatic thing a bill could do is ensure that a surplus is built up in the trustfund and the money invested in Wall Street so that Wall Street won't use its veto on legislation.

If we get reconciliation health reform, it will expand medicaid and SCHIP. Combined with programs like the VA and medicare, that means about 90 million or so people have health care through the public system even w/o single payer on the state level.

Add in 80 million via state single payer, which is closer to 50 million after you take out those already in medicare, medicaid, VA, SCHIP, etc. in those states and now you have nearly half the nation on public plans. So it'll be harder for propaganda against government run health care to have an effect since nearly everyone will be on or know people on public plans.

My hope/dream is that then you can see some of those plans conglomerated to increase efficiency and decrease costs. That'd be awesome.

But it seems like that may be a realistic path to national single payer. Combine programs like medicaid, SCHIP with medicare and state single payer, and the % on public plans keeps going up. Soon the public plans might be consolidated to keep costs down.

There was a diary on KOS recently which found that companies tend to self insure with over 1000 employees.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/2/28/841466/-A-Look-Inside-the-Health-Insurance-Industry-Death-Spiral

So the scale of 80 million vs 10 million probably doesn't matter. But it is more a question of increasing patient choice and decreasing cost by consolidating public plans, which will make national single payer more appealing.

Medicare = government run insurance

Then there is the fact that public funds account for 65% of all spending on healthcare TODAY.

SO as far as the propoganda. The arguments against Publicly financed healthcare are bogus today. We don't need a single state to switch to single payer for the propaganda to be any less bogus. What we need is the media to tell the truth. Or for us to become the media.

Your arugment for 80 million kinda sets the bar very high for state single payer to be a success. You are saying we need 5 states to go for single payer for it to be a success. That is simply not true and your argument about it busting the propaganda, as I have pointed out, holds no water.

The right wing can always lie. Hell Fox news says that Hawaii's healthcare system is a disaster because it has the employer mandate --- meanwhile Hawaii has one of the best/cheapest/most people covered healthcare systems in the 50 states.

We don't change our tactics or our goals in order to evade right-wing attacks. That's the DLC way -- the right thing to do is GO ON THE OFFENSIVE -- COUNTER ATTACK.

My point is... single payer will be a success when just one state goes single payer. We don't need 5 to go there and we don't need a state to go single payer to defend PUBLICLY FUNDED, PRIVATELY delievered healthcare when everyone over 65 and a good part of the disabled community has such just a system and loves it despite the few flaws (Part D, Part B, etc.) And then there are the entire countries such as Canada that have it.

I wish people who advocate for Single Payer could learn the basics about it!

Under Single payer the government is the only insurer and *everyone* has said insurance provided automatically and the whole thing is paid for with progressive taxation.

What Hawaii has is *an employer mandate* -- all employees over 20 hours must be provided healthcare insurance.

This is not SINGLE PAYER! Not even close.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/health/policy/17hawaii.html

Or are they just mandated to offer it to employees who will pay for it themselves?

I don't know much about their system.

thanks

sshhhh. don't talk about it until after the election. but if pat quinn is elected, expect him to at least try to get it in illinois.

derail efforts of states to adopt single payer?

Like Microsoft releasing operating systems and then piecemealing them for years because they don't work. And THAT certainly isn't frustrating and counter-productive! :evilgrin:

could be

Is it the poor whites in the Ozarks that make up a major share of the ones dying?