Obama vs. Clinton: Single-payer healthcare viability

1. "Jaba would never fit out the front door"

Over in California Steven Maviglio talks about a certain "Nunez/Perata health care bill" being debated--which the rest of the country has never heard of and has no reason to ever have--and lays out why federal healthcare is a politically unviable tease (article's title: "Single Payer Dreamland"). Independent from the right-wing's militaristic defense of the private (a.k.a. vulture) insurance companies against the Socialist Michael Moores of our great nation, Maviglio (he seems like a liberal realist) advocates indeed for a middle-road healthcare built on top, and incusive of, the current broken-system. Why? Inertia. Inertia of a big country, with big Insurance, Inc. that had come when you needed coverage to stay over on your couch, then ate your food, played your TV, and got fat and is now a staple in your living room like a big Jaba bully collecting protection money, stealthily locking out undesirables in the cold (residents of their own home) who can't/won't feed it properly or who request it to exert costly effort, and Jaba has no intention of ever leaving. Of course, there are always the many who befriend a bully, or else the rest have rooms comfortably tucked far enough away from the bully to enjoy the status quo, or at least not to give a mind:

The trouble with [single-payer-or-nothing] logic is that 2/3 of Californians get their insurance through their employer. They are largely immune from that implosion. And then there's the court of public opinion: single payer polls in either single digits or low double-digits...

A single-payer health care bill would have to pass the legislature. That's been done before, only to get vetoed by the Governor. So that means there's no shot of single payer health care being signed in California by 2011 at the earliest, since Gov. Schwarzenegger will be in office until then. ...

But I'll play along and say, okay, we'll have a Democratic governor willing to sign a single payer bill. Fine. Then guess what: that law will be put up for a referendum by a massive coalition of groups against it. And mark my words that every special interest group in creation will chip in heavily to make sure it never sees the light of day. Remember the prescription drug initiatives in 2005 that went down hard? Picture that times 25. The drug companies. The doctors. The insurance companies. Whether we like it or not, they kick ass when it comes to initiatives.

But wait, single-payer shoppers, there's more! Single payer will need billions of dollars to be implemented, billions of taxpayer dollars. And that means a 2/3 vote of the Legislature. Chances of that happening? Zero. Particularly when the state is bleeding red ink.

Maviglio's article goes on to conclude: Hey, despite the logical and near-unanimous understanding that Private Insurance sucks (our lives, our health, our medical practices, our wallets), Obama, Clinton, and even Edwards are right to abandon unpopular revolution--Instead, go for treatise! Let the beast stay fattening on our couch! At the end, Maviglio even graciously shows the inevitable pitfalls of ever reimagining our healthcare system, with the case in point of a YouTube link to Obama's own moderating evolution on the issue, courtesy of Clinton & Co.

2. Striaghtforward Health-care-for-all, language, & employing the obvious

David Moberg's article yesterday in the Valley Advocate is not so insightful and ends in a whimper, but it does single out the Republican stench--I mean, the elephant--in the room, that the Democrats have yet to flat-out say the 3 words, expansion of government, despite that

a strong majority sees an accumulation of problems—from uncaring healthcare to gross economic inequality, from global warming to globalization—that require profound government response. And in the aftermath of a botched war in Iraq and a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina, they want a government that is effective, honest and open.

Further along, this article has been the most helpful in terms of laying out a particular way to gain momentum on a better health system, not because of David Moberg but because of David Moberg's paraphrasing of brilliant political linguist George Lakoff, Lakoff's paraphrased ideas, which I, in bulleted form, will quote here:

• "[Despite our innate distrusts of government,] Americans want government that will both protect and empower them, says George Lakoff... He says that a democratic government is based on empathy and caring for each other."
• "Lakoff says progressives should argue that protecting people against the inevitable threats to their health is as important as protecting them against national security threats."
• "Lakoff says that Democrats will fare better on health issues if they talk about guaranteeing care—not insurance or coverage. Lakoff, who argues that care should not be determined by the marketplace or private insurance companies, says that a government single-payer plan is conceptually correct but linguistically flawed. Instead he describes the progressive alternative as run by doctors and patients, who can choose what care they get and from whom, in order to cut through right wing fear-mongering about “socialized medicine” (the tag that Republicans will try to stick on any progressive reform, however modest)."
• "Democrats, like Obama, often say that the best healthcare plan would be a single-payer plan, where everyone is guaranteed care and can decide with their doctors the care they need. But none of the leading candidates, including Obama, advocates it.
  
  " “Why do so many leaders surrender in advance?” Lakoff asks. “It has to do with neoliberal thought. They’re not talking about the moral issues of care and empathy, but interests.” Democrats too often talk about the needs of children, veterans, the poor, or the middle class, not about a failure of the market or the moral mandate for government as a protector of the entire national community."
  

I hope the next President--of course, I go with assumption it will be a woman or a mixed black man--hires Lakoff as a key advisor and squeezes Jaba out the door already. Or just throw him off the balcony.