http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/blog/why_not_single_payer/

I am also surprised that Elizabeth Edwards has signed on as a HCAN spokesperson because a private-public insurance system will perpetuate the “two Americas” her husband railed against. US taxpayers should not be giving 20 to 30 cents on every health care dollar to the administrative costs (incl profits) of the health insurers. Insurers are not PROVIDERS. That money could be used for cancer research.

Deriving their principles from polls, pollsters, PR firms and focus groups, HCAN sounds a lot like AHIP –the public face of the health insurance industry.

HCAN claims that Americans want “choice” above all. That is not so–Americans want high quality preventive and therapeutic care for every man, woman and child. They want choice of physician and hospital, plus affordability and cost control. They want the end of denials, inequities, endless and confusing paperwork.
In short, Americans want what HR 676 promises.

Read the bill at thomas.gov. Urge your rep in Congress to co-sponsor the legislation.

HR 676 explains how we can fund health care as we now fund fire and police protection. We can care for each other. Now there’s an American value–and we don’t need a focus group to tell us that.

If you agree with those principles, then you are welcome to join us. We intend to fight industry lobbyists until all people have quality, affordable health care they can count on.

I understand that this organization has fought for a long time to solve the health care crisis. I respect and applaud those efforts.

However, we are simply open to additional solutions that will get us all to same destination. I hope that you can consider this, and realize that we have more in common that separates us.

I will not comment after this, since I know that I will not change your minds. But, I hope that will spend your efforts promoting your position instead of opposing us.

I think one of the best ways to attack the “some people like what they have” line of thinking, is to point out that no matter how good your coverage is with what you have, you can lose it in an instant. The only good coverage is through employer plans, and these disappear when you lose your job. I had a lunch table discussion with co-workers recently and made this point. They just looked at me and had no reply, but a few mumbled, “she’s right.”

People don’t stay in jobs forever anymore, and where I live (Detroit), the economy is so bad and mortgage defaults so numerous that it’s pretty hard to afford health insurance if you don’t have good coverage on the job. I’ve had to buy my own in the past, and I’ve watched the premiums go higher and higher and the coverage get skimpier until I have to conclude that such “insurance” is not worth the money.

Michigan has been ruined by the gold-plated health benefits of the auto companies, and my mother and sister never pay a dime with their General Motors retirement benefits. Our auto plants are shuttered, but health care organizations and fancy hospitals are everywhere. But now General Motors is facing bankruptcy, threatening those fabulous benefits, and those of us who did not spend our lives laboring in GM factories have very few options. I’d like to retire, but I’m two years away from Medicare age. Our current healthcare environment has created healthcare haves and healthcare have nots.

That brings me to attack plan number two, which is all the people who can’t get insurance at any price. They are sick, they are old, or they take Lipitor or went to a psychiatrist seven years ago. All these things mean insurance companies will turn you down. I don’t think many Americans, even those lucky enough to have the gold-plated coverage, find this a fair situation.

I wonder if all those well-paid medical specialists with offices around Flint (a city devastated by job loss and poverty) will move to the sun belt when General Motors stops paying for health care.

I know, the pushers of “you can keep what you have” say they will make insurance companies operate more fairly, with community ratings and guaranteed issue. But is that really going to result in affordable prices? Nothing trumps “everyone in, no one out,” and, with single-payer, you’re in automatically when you are born and you’re covered until you die. No insurance company can give us that!

We need to just keep beating the drums for what works, and keep pointing out what doesn’t work. And we need to keep pointing out those polls. Yes, the results vary depending on how you phrase the question and who you ask, but government-funded universal health care is what people want, and we need to keep pointing that out until these well-meaning idiots get it.