Carol on Health Care--a better, more complete transcription

[gottaB]

Carol's health care speech has been posted to her website. It includes the Q&A with Vilsack. Please refer to that instead of the one I posted here, and if you haven't read it--do!

Oh, and I'm so happy that Carol's website is getting regular updates now. Her campaign is really picking up steam.

[gottaB]

1. kick

:kick:

so people will consult this transcript and not the one I did

[burr]

2. more problems with Braun's statement...

(From Senator Braun's statement)
"Right now the federal government has a -- the national government has a program of health coverage for federal employees, the FEHBP. I'm sure you've heard a lot about it. But the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program is for all intents and purposes a single-payer system. And under that system all sorts of health care, from mental health to dental health to vision health -- all of these things get covered in a comprehensive system that winds up costing less than the private insurance system that we have. Right now we have, if you think about it, two special tranches with different divisions. We've got a private system and a public system."


I think the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program is a fine system. It is a perfect example of how the private market and the government can work collectively to provide quality healthcare to government workers. Both Dean and Kerry have presented plans that would enable the uninsured to buy into similar types of programs.

However, this is not a single-payer system. In the FEHBP there are several insurers, and many different profitable companies which are paid the premiums that cover the medical care. In single-payer the government, not the private market, acts as the single insurer. The payroll taxes or a tax on employers, like the one Kucinich is proposing, is used to fund the system. Then all citizens are insured by the single-payer with their medical bills, presciption drugs, and other medical treatments being paid for.

Comparing single-payer healthcare to the FEHBP is like claiming there is no difference between fire and ice!

[gottaB]

4. Didn't mean to leave you hanging

You're obviously doing your homework. At the moment I can't provide you with an intelligent clarification on what Carol means by "the Federal Employess Health Benefit Program is for all intents and purposes a single-payer system." Well, you did state in the earlier thread that you wanted to read her full proposal before seriously considering her plan. Perhaps I should have heeded that.

When she does publish her health care paper, I'll look forward to hearing your response. In the meantime I'll try to look into this FEHBP and further my own education on this issue.

[burr]

5. Unchallenged statements will be viewed as the facts by many voters.

My fear is to see other candidates like Lieberman, Gephardt, and Edwards attacking the Dean and Kerry plans as unpassable single-payer plans. This would only further reduce public support for the concept of single-payer healthcare, and make the moderate plans of Dean and Kerry look like the ever undefinable liberal extreme that most neo-Democrats always flee in terror from.

Don't worry about me hanging, no bigot will ever get a rope around this neck.

[LWolf]

3. Keep up the great voice for CMB,

gottaB. I really like her, and enjoy reading positive things about her campaign. I'm a Kucinich supporter and will give him my vote in the primary. I have been hoping all along that we could get Braun in the VP slot for '04, setting her up for the presidency down the line.