Minnesota Public Radio
News
January 13, 2004
Durenberger forum likely to advocate health care for all
Minnesotans have a strong appetite for major changes in the health care system that would both lower costs and lead to universal access to care. That’s the conclusion of a state forum being led by former U.S. Sen.David Durenberger.
“Minnesotans are afraid they are going to lose their health insurance,” Durenberger said. “They are afraid they can’t switch jobs because they’re going to lose their access to health care.”
The forum’s poll, which had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, showed that while most Minnesotans believe the government should guarantee health coverage, they want the system itself to be run by the private sector and not the government.
Four of five Minnesotans say they would be willing to pay higher taxes to provide health care coverage to more people. More than 90 percent of poll respondents said they want the ability to choose their own doctors.
There seems to be strong support for universal insurance backed up by a willingness to pay for it,” said panelist Dr. Glen Nelson, a former surgeon and former vice chairman of Medtronic. “You could argue that, politically, the people do support universal insurance.”
http://news.mpr.org/features/2004/01/12_ap_healthforum/
Comment: It is truly remarkable how far we have come when a former Republican Senator is advocating for universal health care coverage and access, which contains costs, and is always guaranteed regardless of unrelated factors such as employment status.
We agree on almost all major issues, including the fact that the government should guarantee health coverage. The only major clarification left is defining what we mean by a system “run by the private sector and not the government.”
We are even remarkably close to agreement here. Single payer advocates support a health care delivery system run by the private sector. It is only the funding mechanism that we believe should be public. Our own publicly-owned system of universal insurance would ensure that our agreed upon goals would be achieved.
Instead of looking exclusively for more permutations and combinations of private health plans, let’s now take a serious look at funding our private health care delivery system with our own universal program of public insurance. It would achieve all of our goals.