By Independent Record
Helena Independent Record
Posted: Monday, September 21, 2009
Last week’s Question of the Week, “If there were a national referendum on single-payer health insurance for all, how would you vote? For, or against?” touched a nerve.
Since moving to a new Web site (where, admittedly, the Question of the Week is harder to find, but still not difficult) this question for the first time garnered the type of heavy response we are accustomed to seeing.
And it generated more e-mail comments than any poll since, say, the horse slaughterhouse question.
Indeed, health care reform is a major topic at the national scale with trickle-down effects for every single American.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., unveiled his and the Finance Committee’s health reform bill last week, but it didn’t contain any provision for single payer or a government option.
An overwhelming percentage of respondents to our unscientific – and hypothetical – poll wished there was such an option.
As of Friday afternoon, 593 respondents said they would vote for a single-payer health insurance option if it were a national referendum, while 130 said they would not. That’s 82 percent of the 723 respondents who would vote for single-payer.
Only time will tell, of course, if Baucus’ bill musters enough bipartisan support to be enacted into law. Most Republicans have been outspoken against health care reform, and even some Democrats have voiced disapproval with Baucus’ bill.
If it doesn’t pass, it’s even more uncertain if the American public would ever be able to vote on such a matter.
Here are some of the many comments we received:
– I would vote for the single-payer option. If it wouldn’t work and improve the system for all Americans, why are the various health insurance companies fighting it tooth and nail – with our money paid in premiums, I might add? They are more concerned with their obscene profits and CEO salaries and bonuses, again using our money, than they are the actual health and well being of the American people. A vote for single-payer is a vote against greed and a vote for covering all Americans against illness and injury.
– I am for a single-payer option, as it helps to level the playing field between those of substantial financial means and those less fortunate. Americans consider themselves to be a nation founded and governed on Judeo-Christian values, yet we turn our backs on the poor when it comes to health care. Senator Baucus, are you listening to your constituents, or are our voices (and campaign contributions) of less importance than that of the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries?
– No. Health care reform is too complex for a massive quick fix. We need a series of targeted, smaller bills. The problems that will be created for individuals, families, health care providers, businesses – all of us! – are almost beyond comprehension.
(For example, Montana rewrote the complex, but relatively simple by comparison, tax collection and distribution relationships between counties and the state in SB 285 during the 2005 legislative session with a team of very talented, dedicated professionals in both the executive and legislative branches. But bills have been required every session since to continue fixing problems that even they could not foresee.)
– No. Cost reduction comes from free market competition not government monopoly. It’s irresponsible to tax your neighbor to pay for your health insurance or add its cost to the national debt. Forced compliance is unconstitutional and a significant loss of freedom. Control of health care is a necessary component of the Obama change of freedom and capitalism to socialism and fascism.
– It’s really sad to see this country be prevented from implementing a single-payer system. If we had a clean slate and did not have to be browbeaten by those who have vested selfish interest (and misguided political agendas) we would implement single-payer.
I have friends in other countries who just shake their heads in total astonishment about how totally inept, narrow and reactionary this country has become. We used to be the gold standard; now the rest of the world is moving on without us.
– Thank you for running the single-payer poll. As a former medical sociologist, with colleagues in Australia and China who have researched global health care systems, I know the American model of for-profit, insurance-based, co-pay dominant health care is among the most exploitive in the world, and the least dedicated to patient care.
We all like our doctors. We feel fortunate when we do not file for bankruptcy immediately after a major illness. But we know the U.S. system is not worth propping up, and we need a whole new system to replace it. Let us begin now and not when our grandchildren are unable to afford a childbirth in a well-equipped hospital maternity ward.