They cheered loudly on September 8th when Brian mentioned that Rick Perry oversaw 234 executions. They loved it at the next debate when Ron Paul said a dying man without health insurance should have to face the consequences of his choice.

One member of the audience even shouted “Yeah!” before Paul even answered.

So is this mob mentality or just good ol’ conservative values?

I’m definitely impressed by how ideologically pure the GOP base is. Unlike the conservatives of the past, (see Romneycare) they’re so committed to shrinking government and the prison population that they’re willing to let people die.

I’m also impressed by the number of people who disagree with candidates who take such positions but admire them for “sticking to their guns.”

The debates over health care and the death penalty are incredibly similar. They’re polarizing, liberal vs. conservative, life vs. death debates that disproportionately affect those too poor to afford health insurance or a good lawyer.

They also need to be had in Texas more so than anywhere else, where Republicans who control every level of state government are not interested in having them. Texas leads the nation in both its annual number of executions and its percentage of uninsured people; two statistics that Governor Perry isn’t exactly ashamed of.

There are things these crowds don’t like. For example, gay soldiers. The crowd at the September 22nd debate booed one who (luckily) was on the other end of a webcam when asking Rick Santorum a question.

So when someone dies from a toothache and a lack of health insurance, it’s a good thing. But when a soldier wants to reenlist in a military that discriminates against him to protect a country that does the same, it’s deplorable.

That’s what happens when everyone in a room full of a couple hundred conservatives wants to be the most conservative. Someone may win (like that guy who shouted “Yeah!” from earlier), but anyone who can’t afford health insurance will lose.

In 1945, President Harry Truman announced that “the time has arrived” for America to guarantee care to our sick. He had proposed that we enshrine “the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.” At sixty-five, that proposal has run into a Democrat death panel.

The health care reform ideas coming from the White House and congressional leaders were inadequate from the start, even before a punishing series of compromises stripped them of any hint of positive value. The final bill does more harm than good.

Our health care system is a failure. It leaves too many untreated, it favors expensive reactive medicine over smart and efficient preventive care, it contributes to innumerable bankruptcies and economic insecurities, it produces substandard results by international standards and is unbelievably wasteful. At the root of all these problems is the system of for-profit insurance.

A competitive marketplace of health care providers gives people the chance to choose the best doctors. But no one should be without insurance—without regular access to those doctors of their choosing. Monopolistic insurance companies drive the cost of health care in America through the roof with redundant bureaucratic overhead, advertising expenses, obscene executive pay (one former insider drew a dramatic line from the gold-plated silverware on the corporate jets to all the Americans with no healthcare) and all the money that is flushed out of the bottom of the system as profit. The right solution was clear—a single payer system that replaced the insurance corporations with one government plan, while maintaining a free market of doctors.

What the Congress has given us is the plan that has already failed in states like Massachusetts. Forcing people to buy private insurance is proven to fail on both fronts of the health care fight: it doesn’t get coverage to everyone and it doesn’t control costs. Single payer would do both.

President Obama recited more of his signature empty rhetoric after House passage of the health care bills. It’s hard to count how many times his remarks were 180 degrees from the truth. “We proved that this government…still works for the people,” said Obama. In fact, the health care bill is a crystal clear example of the suffocating grip corporate lobbyists (who essentially wrote it) have on the US government.

He spoke of “conviction that change in this country comes not from the top down, but from the bottom up” after he and his allies deformed the debate. They bent over backwards to silence and suppress advocates for genuine universal coverage, while promoting an impossibly compromised proposal written by the same selfish interests who should have been the targets of actual reform.

He said the bill “answers the prayers of every American who has hoped deeply for something to be done about a health care system that works for insurance companies, but not for ordinary people,” describing legislation that coerces ordinary Americans into buying coverage that is ineffectively regulated, and potentially prohibitively expensive, from insurance companies.

Perhaps most dishonestly, as he frothed to his conclusion, Obama said, “we did not shrink from our challenge. ” Shrinking from his challenge is all Obama has done on health care.

The Democrats made several attempts to stir emotions by anointing the bill as the legacy of Senator Ted Kennedy. Kennedy died this summer, but if he was behind this bill, who knows how long ago his heart died. Decades ago, he had this to say: “We cannot have a fair prosperity in isolation from a fair society. So I will continue to stand for a national health insurance…The President, the Vice President, the members of Congress have a medical plan that meets their needs in full, and whenever senators and representatives catch a little cold, the Capitol physician will see them immediately, treat them promptly, fill a prescription on the spot…If health insurance is good enough for the President, the Vice President and the Congress of the United States, then it is good enough for you and every family in America.”

When Judit Castello came to Stony Brook University as a visiting researcher, she had done her studying. Only, it wasn’t for any related coursework that Castello studied. It was the United States healthcare system that she looked into before leaving from her native country of Spain.

Judit Castello

“I was never worried about these things because I know the other European countries have universal healthcare,” said Castello, a 30-year-old PhD student who attends Maastricht University in the Netherlands. “But here, even if I am covered and everything is fine, I still have to know who is my insurer, what I have to do, that was kind of difficult to get into this healthcare world.”

For Castello, who is nearing the completion of her research on services to help the disabled in find jobs, the United States’ system of healthcare may seem foreign, but even to Americans, the current debate of health care reform is just as puzzling. In a recent 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair poll, roughly 70 percent of Americans polled could not explain what the “public option” was.

Part of the reason why the debate over healthcare reform is so complex is because of varying interests, comparisons to international systems, and differing policies within the reform currently on the Senate table. While the current reform is puzzling, the debate is nothing new.

***

Since the administration of President Harry Truman, health care reform has been brought up time and time again. Because of the business and political interests that come along with healthcare, any true reform has been limited at best, says Dr. Charles Robbins, Associate Dean of the School of Social Welfare at Stony Brook University.

“Healthcare is big business. Healthcare is money. It is the largest sector of our gross national product,” Robbins said. “There’s an incredible pressure on elected officials to maintain the status quo, to tweak it a little bit, to make people believe that you are changing something, but not changing it fundamentally.”

The Washington Post reported that the insurance industry has spent roughly $1.4 million a day attemptong to influence the outcome of healthcare reform. This, according to Robbins, is just one part of the problem.

The other falls in line with a cultural belief to keep that government should stay away from business. “People don’t want to be told what to do, they don’t want anyone getting in their business,” Robbins said. With healthcare reform, Robbins says that many Americans fear that the government will get in the way of their health and their doctor, but that they fail to realize the involvement of these insurance companies in the same scenario.

“Neither you or your doctor can do anything without the approval of insurance companies,” Robbins said. “We are naïve to believe that insurance companies are this benevolent organization looking out for our own good. They are looking for their own profit and their own shareholders.”

Ultimately, what Robbins argues that is the current system of health care, which is driven by market forces, is not working. The profits of one company will determine who gets what coverage, what rates are offered, and most of all, the affordability.

***

At the core of this reform lies policy, a term that Dr. Sabatini Dwyer, chair of healthcare policy and management at the School of Health Technology and Management, says is both overlooked and ignored. Policy, as Dwyer defined during a healthcare seminar for students, is the deliberate plan to guide decisions to achieve a rational outcome. This simple definition, Dwyer says, goes a long way into understanding the core of the healthcare debate.

According to this definition, rational outcomes, as Dwyer discussed in her lecture, was to be determined by society through, in America’s case, elected representation. At the end of this all, the point Dwyer emphasized was that behind every policy is a clear objective, and in the case of healthcare reform, is to lower costs. This comes after the fact that since 2000, premiums have increased at a rate faster than before, while health expenditures have increased faster than the rate of inflation since the 1960s, according to Dwyer.

“It really takes people to feel the pain before they realize they need change,” said Dwyer, a former senior economist in the Social Security Administration. “The culture is that we only embrace government intervention when we realize we need them.”

Because healthcare is market based, in that the majority of care providers are through private insurance companies, much of the availability and efficiency is determined by profits. If insurers find that they are taking too many demanding high risk patients premiums for the average, healthy American would increase to maintain a profit.

But in the past, there have been times where the government set up programs to help deal with the higher risk patients and work towards increasing availability, easing the burden from the private sector and providing care to those in need. The implementation of programs such as Medicare, which provides funding to those 65 and over as well as residency training; Medicaid, government funding for low-income households; and employer tax incentives have been key components of what Robbins calls socialized health care.

But when arguments against reform are brought forth, such as, that the government is seeking to have full control over healthcare, Robbins says that these are inaccurate and misguided.

“These are scare tactics going back to the Clinton reform, the reality is what they are describing is what the Medicare program is or Veteran Assistant programs,” Robbins said. “To call the health reform socialism wouldn’t make sense.”

***

Roughly one month ago, the House had passed their version of the health care bill, 220 to 215 votes. All but one republican had voted against the legislation while 39 democrats had voted against the bill.

Currently, there are revisions being discussed to H.R. 3962. Initially, a “single-payer” system was thrown around in the beginning of the summer. However, that has now been reduced to a public option that critics now say has been watered down.

“The public option is for people have no other way of getting insurance,” Robbins said. “Whether they can’t afford it, don’t qualify for Medicaid, or have a condition that would have them paying high expenses at a private insurer, it’s a pool of last resort.”

This would free up, according to Robbins, the demanding patients that were once covered by the private insurance companies resulting in profits for these insurance companies. “Initially, the public option was to be done in a manner that was cheaper than the insurance companies,” said Robbins, who was involved with the Clinton healthcare reform of the early 1990s. “But if your people are high demand, to run it at a cheaper cost is highly unlikely and just about impossible.”

Dwyer suspects that, given the public option, those who are currently insured, either independently or through their employer, will likely remain unaffected if the health reform were to pass. “The way the law is written, large employers are discouraged to participate in the public option,” Dwyer said.

The Senate is currently debating whether to drop the public option and replace it with a government monitored, private-run, non-profit system.

***

Having experienced a universal healthcare system in Spain, Castello, who also has private insurance, finds it confusing that people would be against a universal system.

“I cannot possibly understand why people would be against having a public sector. Some people want it private, fine, sure why not? Why should it prohibit someone from having public insurance?” Castello asked. “I am also willing to pay taxes so someone, not as fortunate as me, can have access to health care.”

Stony Brook junior Aditya Ramanathan believes, having a government-run healthcare option would severely limit insurance companies, and is a misguided attempt at true reform.

“The public option won’t make the healthcare costs go away,” said Ramanathan, a member of the Stony Brook College Republicans. “The idea is that we want to make insurance affordable, to have a balance of private and public,” Ramanathan said. “We are not doing that by increasing the tax on Cadillac [high premium] healthcare plans. These taxes increase cost on private insurance.”

Ramanathan argues that with the increase of this tax, private insurers will be looking to charge more, become less likely to cover high risk patients, and have employers drop from private coverage to a public-run option.

“The public option is not just going to cover 40 million uninsured,” said Ramanathan, a Biochemistry major. “It will be covering a lot more high risk patients and be a lot more expensive than imagined.”

The alternative to taxes on the higher-priced plans would be to open competition rather than restrict business with taxes. Private insurance companies, for the most part, operate at a state level. They are faced with competition only in that region or state. This competition does not cross over state borders and allows companies to essentially run premiums with less competition.

Ramanathan argues that, by opening competition and freeing up the market, the system of health care wouldn’t need the giant overhaul that is being proposed, and prices would lower due to the increased competitiveness among companies.

“We want the model of what’s going on in France. We want the plans at the top of the list. We are not choosing that,” Ramanathan said. “It’s misguided to think we are going towards a European model. We are going towards a very strange, different, absolutely catastrophic model, as far as I see it.”

***

The question that remains unanswered is how the American populous views healthcare. Is it a right or a commodity? Other issues that factor into this debate also range from the cultural aspects of health in America. Should there be an increased focus on preventative care to avoid chronic diseases and illnesses? As of now, the support and opposition amongst the American people for health care reform is roughly the same. Some are worried by the price it may cost the country.

Independent research by the Congressional Budget Office done in early October found that the Senate healthcare bill, at the time, would cost roughly $850 billion over 10 years and cut the federal deficit by $81 billion, all while expanding those who are insured in America to 94 percent.

It remains unclear as to what will happen with the House version of the health care reform bill and what the Senate will do.

As for Castello, who will return to the Netherlands to continue her studies, the differences of healthcare between the United States and Europe were part of her educational experience at Stony Brook.

“Its very interesting to see how all these different systems work,” Castello said. “I think it’s all due to culture.”

]]> http://sbpress.com/2009/12/the-great-debate/feed/ 0 http://sbpress.com/2009/12/magazine-preview-insuring-the-invincible-part-i/ http://sbpress.com/2009/12/magazine-preview-insuring-the-invincible-part-i/#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:21:14 +0000 James Butler http://thinksb.com/?p=1006 Part One of a Two Part Series

Over the last few months, the most prevalent issue in the national political discussion has been President Obama’s crusade to reform our broken health care system.  As one of the only developed industrial nations without a universal health care system, the United States ranks shockingly low on many international health rankings.  Whether one is a single parent, a small business owner, or a college student, the fight to provide suitable health care coverage is a salient issue for most Americans.

The Stony Brook University Medical Center is home to the best ideas in medicine, save for one: universal health care. At least not yet.

Fortunately, legislation has recently been proposed in Congress to remedy this problem.  Although not perfect, the proposed health care bill recently put forth by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nevada) would expand coverage to 94% of all Americans, and would simultaneously reduce the federal budget deficit.   Rather than fit the stereotype of an intrusive liberal program, this bill allows those Americans who are happy with their coverage to keep it as is. This bill will clearly be a boon for our federal government, for many Americans struggling to provide their families with proper health insurance, and not least of all for businesses weighed down by the overwhelming costs of providing their employees with health coverage.  Here at Think, we wonder whether these expected positive results will also translate to college campuses.

Many of the uninsured are college students or recent college graduates.  Currently, college students are usually covered by their parent’s health plans, but upon graduating they are left to fend for themselves.  The proposed health care bill would extend the aforementioned privilege to include young adults as old as twenty-six.  This would ease the burden on college graduates, who are one of the most susceptible demographics to health care problems.  Already saddled with student loans and the pressure of finding gainful employment, the news that health care will be provided for college graduates is a good sign that the Obama administration has remembered that even college graduates need assistance at times.

While it is true that many young Americans do choose not to purchase health insurance, believing themselves to be invincible, this is not as widespread a phenomenon as the opponents of universal health care would like the public to believe.  To hear conservatives tell it, the vast majority of the uninsured are arrogant young people in their twenties who distort national statistics by refusing to purchase coverage that they could easily afford.  In fact, a majority of the uninsured truly are those who cannot afford it, including a great number of college graduates who do not possess the financial means to insure themselves.  Furthermore, there are an unknown, but substantial, number of college students who are electing to intentionally delay their graduation in the hopes of remaining on their parent’s insurance.  The resulting glut of college students has had a negative effect on the college experience, most palpably felt by students who are now struggling to find housing on campus.  Many of these older students have conditions that can only be treated using the health care available to them as college students.

I recently spoke with Dr. Raymond Goldstein to discuss the Baucus health care bill and its prospective effects on college students, and on the country as a whole. The following are a summation of his thoughts on the issue, prompted by three overarching questions I asked him during my interview with him.

What effects, if any, will the proposed health care bill have on college students?

The health care bill as it stands right now will not do enough to remedy the current situation.  Rather than excise the harmful inclusion of insurance companies in our health car system, the Baucus bill will be a windfall for these same companies who have so badly harmed our nation.

In regards to college students, Dr. Goldstein’s prognosis is hardly more promising.  Although he predicts that the stipulation in the bill that young adults can remain on their parent’s coverage until the age of 26 may result in short term improvements for our demographic, he believes that this is only on the margins of our age group, and that this part of the bill will also help the companies.  The lack of regulation in the bill will allow insurance companies to charge higher premiums for the young adults remaining on their parent’s plans.

Dr. Goldstein believes that real reform would be a boon to college students, but that any bill without a strong public option included will do nothing to alleviate any current or potential suffering that we experience.  Without a public option, or at least clear regulations on predatory practices by insurance companies, this bill may exacerbate current problems in our system, rather than cure them.

Does the University Medical Center have an official position on the proposed legislation?

The University has not officially weighed in on the issue, although the individuals in the medical center obviously have their own strong opinions.  Dr. Goldstein referred to Dr. David Brown as being a strong proponent of a single payer system, although he assured me that most doctors on campus are opponents of any progressive health reform.

Are there any common myths and misconceptions about health care that you would like to dispel?

It is important to stress that Americans should look to Western European health care systems for guidance, rather than demonizing them for simply being “un-American”.   Dr. Goldstein thinks that our pervasive ideology of what he calls “rugged individualism” has harmed us in this area, and that this mode of thinking is responsible for the insurance companies being able to maximize their profits at the expense of public welfare.  In an interesting side note, he also submitted that the current state of our health care system in relation to Western Europe’s is a definite contributing factor in the continuing weakness of the US dollar compared to the Euro.

In the 08-09 budget, Paterson cut $146M from SUNY while trustees approved a tuition hike (the super-majority of which went directly into the state’s coffers). It’s the darndest thing, though: New York spends three times as much on health care as it does on education. Now, certainly, the proposed plan includes cuts to Medicaid… But are cuts the appropriate answer?

Let’s talk about health care in New York. New York had the fourth highest per capita spending on health care ($6,535) as of 2007. New York also has some of the highest insurance premiums. Nationwide, medicaid enrollment has had a positive correlation with unemployment (many people rely upon their employers to provide health care), the effect of which has been obvious: greater strain on the budget and poor, myopic decisions by state politicians.

One of the reasons for such high premiums in New York has to do with the way in which we’ve pursued health care reform (very similar to the way Obama hopes to address the national health care system). Under Cuomo, state regulation of health care resulted in two well-intentioned but horrible rules: (1) insurance companies can’t adjust prices based on health/age and (2) insurance companies can’t deny anyone coverage who can afford it.

Here’s the thing: the major non-profit provider of health care at the time (who, might I add, endorsed these regulations in an effort to prop itself up against the insurance companies) failed to report that because of these kinds of mandates it had been suffering losses and eventually dropped out of the game entirely. This resulted in private insurance companies raising their premiums across the board in order to maintain profits (nearly a third of which go toward marketing and CEO salaries, mind you) which has helped to herd people into Medicaid.

Parente and Bragdon, writing in the Wall Street Journal, advocate “market based reforms”. These sound neat and it’s easy for us to say that government interference has caused New York’s health care problem and therefore contributed to budget concerns, but this is a shallow view of a complex issue. The problem here is profit. The problem here is “competition”. The problem here is the commodification of health and the ensuing class-based discrimination and subsequent hands-free (or not so free) genocide (45,000 uninsured die each year).

If you believe that health care is a human right and that therefore we must find the most optimal solution to ensure universal, quality coverage as well as economic stability within that solution then we’re on the same page.

I’ll reiterate that around 1/3 of insurance premiums go toward marketing and CEO salaries, two things I fail to see as integral to patient care and research and development. The reason premiums skyrocketed after New York’s petty health care reform efforts doesn’t just have to do with breaking even and covering the cost of high-risk clients who they’re now forced to cover. It has to do with meeting that criteria and then surpassing it, not only to reproduce CEO salaries but to increase those salaries! That’s the thing about for profit industry: it’s all about the growth of profit.

So, peep the strategy:

Let’s ditch these high rollers and archaic class-based health care system and establish a state-wide single payer system. Medicare for all. A single, public entity propped up by a progressive tax which will be, without a doubt, cheaper than most New Yorkers’ current premiums as well as an employer tax only for those employers who currently provide health care which will almost certainly be cheaper than what they currently pay for their employees under-coverage.

A single payer system doesn’t require a CEO salary or marketing and so all of that money can go to providing care, research and development and new technology. A single payer system doesn’t require a wasteful and horrendously expensive system of paperwork and filing. A single payer system doesn’t include the legal fees that come from dealing with clients you’ve denied coverage. Best of all: a single payer system may be the best antidote to an ailing state economy.

The Fountainhead by Moiz Khan

The 2009 Human Development Rankings were released recently. The US is placed 13th on the latest rankings. Though, we were also placed 26th on the Life expectancy list. While it is the case that 13th or 26th on lists such as these is not that bad, I would argue that it isn’t quite good enough. At the very least, it reveals that there is clearly room for improvement of the American system. I would suppose our low ranking in the life expectancy list has something to do with the lack of health care. Whats even worse is that these health care companies have a complete disregard for human life. To add insult to injury, some health care companies even sue entire states.

By Matt Willemain

Apparently reluctant to say that President Obama was a liar, the Hunger Action Network of New York State (HANYS) decided to “call on President Obama to be Truthful with the American People.”  HANYS is a 27-year old statewide antipoverty activist group, accessible online at www.hungeractionnys.org/.  HANYS, advocating for a single payer universal health care system to cover every single one of the tens of millions of Americans without health insurance, implied that the President was being dishonest in a press release critical of Obama’s national leadership in the health care policy debate.  The question of the President’s honesty in this situation has serious implications on the way national decisions, with huge impacts on our lives, are made.

The March 6 press release echoed a similar criticism made on the advocacy-journalism radio program Democracy Now that same morning.  The day before, Thursday, March 5, Obama had convened a high profile White House health care summit with 120 “stakeholders” to kickstart the policy making process.  Both HANYS and Democracy Now co-anchor and New York Daily News columnist, Juan Gonzalez, noticed an inconsistency in the Obama administration’s statements.  In the lofty rhetoric of his opening remarks, written to sound good on television, Obama said that, “every voice has to be heard. Every idea must be considered. Every option must be on the table.”  But other public statements by the President and his allies and, tellingly, their actions, suggest that the minds of Obama and others in Washington aren’t quite so open to finding the best solution, wherever it may be.

For his part, the President has already ruled out the single payer system preferred by HANYS.  “The President doesn’t believe that’s the best way to achieve the goal of cutting costs and increasing access,” explained White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in the March 6 daily press briefing.  Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus, a Democratic leader in the inner circle shaping proposals in congress, has been more direct, issuing flat rejections of the single payer proposal.  In a mirror image of Obama’s words, for example, Baucus declared single payer “off the table” in public appearances he made travelling his home state.

The actions of these Washington insiders add even more weight to their words.  Press Secretary Gibbs joked with reporters that the White House wasn’t the Washington Nationals’ ballpark, in order to apologize for the limits on who could be invited to the summit.  But with 120 seats to fill, Obama’s bias was exposed by his choice of house guests.  The administration was careful to invite the selfish special interests most vocally opposed to single payer, for-profit insurers and pharmaceutical companies.  At the same time, they initially invited no supporters of single payer, whatsoever.  Long-serving Congressman John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee and the sponsor of HR 676, a single payer bill with broad support (100 cosponsors in the last House session), had to beg his way in.  Facing protests, eventually Obama allowed Conyers and one single payer activist a seat.

Embarrassingly, Senator Baucus was caught trying to bully congressional bean counters into fudging the numbers to make proposals like his and Obama’s look better.

What’s going on here?  Why is President Obama lying about hearing everyone out and considering each proposal?  Why is Senator Baucus trying to “adjust” the facts?

The Democratic leadership is caught up in some serious cognitive dissonance because the fix is in on making the wrong decision for America.  Single payer, similar to the health care system used by virtually ever other wealthy country in the world, is an overwhelming winner.  After exhaustive studies and debate, the evidence is in, single payer is without a doubt the best way to both take care of everyone in America and control costs at the same time.  The arguments articulated by single payer advocates, like Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org) can’t be beaten in any fair fight.  The analysis of experts is in line with the popular will; clear majorities of doctors, health economists and the general public all support single payer.

Even Obama seems to know that single payer is the right thing to do.  As HANYS points out in their press release, Obama representatives have admitted that if “he was starting from scratch” he would choose single payer.  Luke Mitchell, Senior Editor at Harper’s Magazine, and a guest on that Democracy Now broadcast, found even more evidence that Obama knows what he ought to be doing.  In his Harper’s article “Sick in the Head: Why America Won’t Get the Health Care System it Needs,” Mitchell reports:

“I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health-care program,” Barack Obama said in 2003. “As all of us know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, we have to take back the House.”… And now that Democrats have the White House, the Senate, and the House, it is clear that a single-payer program is not a part of their agenda.”

Not everyone supports single payer, however.  Influential campaign donors and media oligopolists, for example, oppose the system.  That Washington insiders are poised to once again defer to these interests and knowingly enact bad policy speaks volumes about the glaring deficiencies in the instruments and practices of our democracy.  The marketplace of ideas—the idea that candidates who champion ideas with merit will win out in an open competition for votes—has been distorted beyond recognition by monopolies of power that perversely limit which candidates and lines of inquiry are allowed into the conversation.

Writing in the Sunday Washington Post, Dan Egger reported how the “health sector has donated millions to lawmakers.”  While the health care industry has “long ranked with financial services and energy interests as one of the most powerful political forces in Washington, and it spent nearly $1 billion on lobbying in the past two years alone,” as Eggen reports, in the past four years they have stepped up their donations to candidates’ campaign funds.

The Post story is based on a report by Consumer Watchdog (a nonprofit consumer education and advocacy group online at www.consumerwatchdog.org) which analyzed federal election data and counted the campaign donations from health insurance and drug companies to the ten lawmakers in each house who received the most such legalized bribes.  Those twenty individuals alone raked in more than $5.5 million.  Senator Baucus, for example, was at the front of the pack, with $400,000 of his campaign funds coming from these special interests.

At the same time, newspapers and television news programs are whitewashing single payer out of the picture.  Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), a media watchdog organization accessible online at www.fair.org, searched through all major national newspapers and news programs on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and the PBS News Hour for the week leading up to the health care summit.  FAIR found hundreds of stories about health care policy, and a grand total of five of those stories included the perspective of supporters of single payer.

Given all the evidence and popular support for single payer (FAIR cites one recent opinion poll that finds the public prefers single payer by a 2-1 margin), the challenge HANYS issued to Obama in their press release is a tricky one.  If Obama, Baucus, and others of their ilk in Washington, are honest, they will have to admit that they are ignoring single payer in their search for a health care policy.  If they make that admission, they will have no leg to stand on, and will be forced to consider it.  Once single payer is in the mix, and assuming Baucus doesn’t cheat and get the data changed to suit his preferred results, they will have no choice but to support single payer. It is the best solution for America’s health care needs.  But if they support single payer, what will happen to the regular infusions of millions of dollars from the tiny, selfish minority of single payer opponents—money they count on to help them buy the crooked elections that put them in power?