There will be changes in the way health care is provided, but we are not likely to ge the kind of comprehensive reform we need. Single-payer was taken off President Obama’s table a long time ago and, as if to emphasize his centrist bona fides, the president brought together the so-called stakeholders in the reform debate today — insurance companies, drug makers and “providers.”
Consumers, you say? Single-payer advocates? Nope. Forget it. They weren’t invited.
The president is calling it a consensus approach, but as with many policies Obama has pursued, consensus means capitulation, a willingness to bend and leave much of the status quo in place.
Don’t get me wrong. Obama has been a godsend after eight years of disaster. And he’s done quite a lot of good, so far. But on the big tickets, he has been too willing to give in — assuming big change was ever really on his agenda.
David Sirota thinks it was, but that
he’s afraid of being attacked by moneyed interests that enjoy the status quo, and he’s surrounded himself by Clintonites who, after the health care debacle of the early 1990s, aren’t interested in antagonizing the insurance industry.
It is up to us to change his mind.
Hank Kalet 
We need one payer health insurance, we needed it ages ago. All the other wealthy advanced industrialized democracies have some form of universal health care, most have one payer. People do not go bankrupt from medical expenses in those countries and everyone is covered. We have rationing in this country, we have denial of care in this country because of all the millions uninsured and all the millions under insured. However, one payer is off the table here because of all the rich corporate people who oppose it. I hope that Obama at least keeps the publicly funded health plan as an option amongst all the private plans. Hundreds of thousands of people are losing health care every month, something real has to be done and soon.
You\’re right–it is up to us to change his mind, and the minds of our representatives. Every European nation, except Portugal, has better health care than we do, and it costs us more than twice as much as Germany–the nation in Europe with the highest per capita health care costs.\”Socialized\” medicine works, and it can work in the USA–just as our socialized interstate highways and our socialized public schools do.