Paul Krugman (NYT): One Nation, Uninsured

[Dudley_DUright]

Harry Truman tried to create a national health insurance system. Public opinion was initially on his side: Jill Quadagno's book "One Nation, Uninsured" tells us that in 1945, 75 percent of Americans favored national health insurance. If Truman had succeeded, universal coverage for everyone, not just the elderly, would today be an accepted part of the social contract.

But Truman failed. Special interests, especially the American Medical Association and Southern politicians who feared that national insurance would lead to racially integrated hospitals, triumphed.

Sixty years later, the patchwork system that evolved in the absence of national health insurance is unraveling. The cost of health care is exploding, the number of uninsured is growing, and corporations that still provide employee coverage are groaning under the strain.

So the time will soon be ripe for another try at universal coverage. Public opinion is already favorable: a 2003 Pew poll found that 72 percent of Americans favored government-guaranteed health insurance for all.

<snip>

We need to do this one right. If reform fails again, we'll be on the way to a radically unequal society, in which all but the most affluent Americans face the constant risk of financial ruin and even premature death because they can't pay their medical bills.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/13/opinion/13krugman.html?

I think we are already there, especially after the bankruptcy vote.

[BayCityProgressive]

1. This is what

depresses me about the Democrats. We have so many issues we could seize. Universal Healthcare has HUGE support with the public, a majority of Americans want us out of Iraq, Americans want outsourcing stopped....but the Democrats are nowhere on the issues. Most moderate Dems wont even mention universal care after the Clinton debacle. If we don't take a strong stand on these issues we aren't going to get the public's attention and it is therefore easier for the GOP to frame the debate around Abortion and gay marriages.

[barb162]

4. the way Dean is getting attacked by other Dems... I say there is

NO HOPE anymore. You are right. the issues are there and the Dem leaders (other than for people like Conyers, Dean etal) are just standing around attacking each other or voting with the fucking pugs

[mike_c]

5. I agree-- the democratic leadership has allowed...

...republicans to frame the public policy debate ever since 2000, so now we have dems stumbling over themselves to be better-than-Bush on the WOT, war against Iraq, and so on, instead of framing a separate debate on matters that voters really care about, like health care.

[Dudley_DUright]

6. Krugman is right

Beltway dems learned all the wrong lessons from the Clinton healthcare failure. Now they don't want to go near the issue, even as our healthcare system collapses.

[barb162]

2. we are indeed already there and I think any vote will fail with this

GOP Congress. No bill will even come to the floor

[barb162]

3. PS and evn those with insurance are often getting killed as they

or we are so underinsured

[newswolf56]

7. I have the best non-governmental health care...

...available in America, Group Health, a non-profit cooperative (aka collective) in the Puget Sound area. Even in its carefully cost-controlled Medicare program, the premiums in the past five years have risen more than 500 percent -- every penny of this increase inflicted by the Bush Administration's refusal to address the glaring inequities of Medicare-reimbursal formulae.

While BushCo dishonestly blames this problem on Congress, in truth it is the administration that has failed to take the initiative. Why? I don't know. But I strongly suspect it is because every time Group Health's premiums are forced higher, it aids Bush's allies in the insurance industry by making Big Insurance's infinitely greed-motivated rates "more competitive" -- i.e., less glaringly expensive in comparison to Group Health rates.

Even so plagued, the Group Health model would make a splendid template for national healthcare reform: a single-payer system based on a national network of locally managed cooperatives -- in other words, socialism at its very best, without the pitfalls of remote bureaucracy that have destroyed other socialistic systems.

But as to the prospects of health care reform, don't hold your breath. Even before they were boosted to absolute omnipotence by the Bush Regime, the powers of the special interests -- Prescription Drug Lords, Big Insurance, Mega Medicine -- had already twice killed off universal health care in favor of the present system's greed-pandering and murderous social-Darwinist selectivity. And -- majority sentiment not withstanding -- I believe there is absolutely no hope at all of wresting back the controls. Not until the Democrats again truly become the Party of the People -- and that will take another generation at least, and perhaps another Great Economic Collapse as well.

[Dudley_DUright]

8. Welcome to DU newswolf56 (no relation to Blitzer, I hope)

:hi: I have relatives on Whidbey Island. The Puget sound area is really beautiful. Unfortunately, I tend to agree with your pessimism.

[newswolf56]

9. No kin to Blitzer; the wolf and the dog

...are my favorite animals -- my spiritual totems in fact. News is my obsession and has been for many many years also my primary occupation.

[Coastie for Truth]

10. It failed because it would have destroyed the insurance companies

For a good set of studies, with hard numbers go to and search on "Woolhandler" and "Single Payer." The server is slow tonight - but Dr. Woolhandler has done a lot of comparisons--

"Fraud, waste, abuse, duplication, and bureaucracy" eats up about 25% of our health care dollar in a "share holder owned, for profit, insurance carrier world dealing with share holder owned, for profit, private hospitals" (Like Frist's HCA Health Care). That goes away until "single payer."

Notwithstanding what BushCo says - according to Woolhandler and Himmelstein "malpractice and defensive medicine" eats up about 2% of our health care dollar.

Somebody's making the big bucks - and in most cases - altho doctors are well compensated - they are not making the "big bucks" of hospital, HMO, and insurance company CEO's.

[Demeter]

11. Of All The Reasons NOT to Have a National Health Care System...

bigotry and fear of integrated hospitals has got to be the sickest, stupidest, most incomprehensible....

[Coastie for Truth]

12. Followed very closely by

"return to shareholders" and "preservation of shareholder value" and "preservation of officers and directors incomes and perks" for the shareholder owned, for-profit, insurance companies and the shareholder owned, for-profit, hospital mega-chains - like and owned by the family of