No Reason to Demonize U.S. Single-Payer Health

Commentary by John F. Wasik
Bloomberg.com
March 11, 2009

It’s time to stop kicking sand in the face of single-payer health care. It may be the strongest solution around to insure every American at a lower cost.

After decades of industry campaigns against this model — dubbed by its critics as “socialized” medicine — it’s important to stop whining and evaluate the many economic benefits. Health care is a fundamental human right.

If President Barack Obama wants real change in American health care, he will have to get over the fear of even mentioning single-payer concepts. At his health-care summit last week, only the threat of a demonstration garnered late invitations for Oliver Fein and Congressman John Conyers, two leading proponents of the single-payer plan.

Health-care costs have become a crippling personal-finance burden for 45 million uninsured and 25 million underinsured Americans. Those outside of the fractured employer-based system are only one illness away from financial ruin.

Lose your job and most likely your health coverage will disappear unless you want to pay exorbitant rates. And it’s getting worse. Because of the growing jobless rate, some 14,000 Americans are losing their coverage daily, according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

A single-payer plan would cover everybody regardless of employment situation and save money by cutting out middlemen.

(John F. Wasik, co-author of “iMoney,” is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_wasik&sid=ao58otXrmrPM

Single payer should not only be back in the national dialogue on reform, it should be front and center as the golden standard by which all other options are compared.