by BAR executive editor Glen FordPresident Obama attempts to depict proponents of Medicare for all as lefty health care “extremists.” But that’s precisely the kind of “robust” public plan favored by two-thirds of Americans, according to a recent poll. Obama is to the Right of the people, and the GOP is off the map.
Poll Shows Public Wants Medicare for All
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“Most people favor a public option that is a lot more “robust” than anything the Congress is offering.”
Despite the infamous Max Baucus Senate committee’s long-anticipated rejection of even a fig leaf of a public health care “option,” public opinion remains remarkably firm in support of allowing everyone access to a comprehensive government health plan. A New York Times/CBS News survey last week provided the best polling evidence in recent months that most people favor a public option that is a lot more “robust” than anything the Congress is offering, aside from straight-up single payer.
The poll once again confirms that something very much like single payer remains an idea whose time has come. After all these month’s of the Obama Administration’s attempts to shrivel into near nothingness the very concept of health care “reform,” and despite the mad howlings of Republicans about the evils of “socialized medicine,” two-thirds of the American people still support a Medicare-like government health care plan. Unlike some recent surveys, the language of the pollsters’ question was straightforward and unambiguous:
“Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government-administered health insurance plan like Medicare that would compete with private health insurance plans?”
That is the definition of a very “robust” public health care option. Sixty-five percent of respondents said they were in favor.
“Americans overwhelmingly endorse expanding Medicare to all who want it.”
It’s a pity that the New York Times and CBS News neglected to ask how the public feels about a full-blown single payer plan, which has for years commanded strong majorities. But the poll does show conclusively that Americans overwhelmingly endorse expanding Medicare to all who want it – and let the private insurers sink or swim on their own.
Still, it is a wonderment that, with all the disinformation from the Hard Right, and almost a year of backroom dealing, backstabbing and dissembling from President Obama and other corporate Democrats, who have mangled reform into a giant subsidy for the privateers, the people still know what they want: Medicare for all, at the very least.
The tragedy is, none of the bills under serious consideration by House and Senate committees provides anything close to what the public desires. As my colleague Bruce Dixon has written, the “robust” public option does not exist in any practical sense. (See BAR, “The President, Progressives, and the Myth of the Robust Public Option,” September 9, 2009.) A version of Medicare for all does exist, in the form of Rep. John Conyers’ HR 676, the Enhanced Medicare For All single payer bill – but the measure is anathema to President Obama, who spent most of his energies marginalizing Conyers and his allies in the early months of the administration. Obama has consistently (and viciously) tried to depict single payers and their “robust” fellow travelers as the “extremist” lefty mirror images of rightwing “tea-baggers.” Yet at the end of the day, the public center of gravity on health care remains situated in the political realm of the Congressional Progressive and Black Caucuses. Obama is way off to the Right somewhere, in the general vicinity of his soul mate Sen. Baucus, whom the president early on empowered as his health care torchbearer (more like fire-quencher).
“The ‘robust’ public option does not exist in any practical sense.”
The NYT/CBS poll shows the public is not in the least confused about what it wants from the president and the congress on the health care front. Rather, they are befuddled about what Obama wants (55 percent say he has not clearly explained himself), and near-totally up in the air about what the Republicans want (76 percent don’t understand the GOP’s position). The more the people learn about both, the less they’ll like either of them.
Which brings me to the most uplifting aspect of the poll: It is the best recent evidence that Obama has not succeeded in narrowing public perceptions of the scope of health care “reform” to fit his own puny, corporate-vetted positions. The real reform genie is permanently out of the bottle, and he is quite “robust.”
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Comments
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So many of them...
There are hundreds of thousands of Julias, Juliuses, Julios and Judases out there. I see no sarcasm in her comments. It's not like what she says is far-fetched as far as the drinkers of Obama's Kool-Aid are concerned. These people are everywhere. In Africa, Europe, Asia, South America with the exception of the likes of Chavez, Morales, Ortega, etc.etc. Obama's apologists and supporters do occasionally show up here and attempt to spread their ignorance around. Plus, I've been told that he brews the best Kool-Aid out there. Cheers!
Medicare isn't enough
I understand that the term "medicare for all" is intended to be digestible for the majority of citizens for which terms like "single payer" and "universal" prove too difficult.
Considering the inadequate coverage actually provided by medicare (about 80% of actual costs, excluding prescription, annual check-ups, eye, dental, podiatric and more), we should be careful to insist that real health care legislation must include universal and comprehensive care.
We know, in fact, that medicare is so inadequate that even the hated republicans felt compelled to construct the horrible medicare "Part D" prescription ceverage, and states provide Medigap, medicaid, public aid, and myriad other supplemental health coverage, because they know medicare by itself is utterly inadequate, although it is, of course, better than no health care at all.
Perhaps we could call it "medicare plus" universal health care. Oh hell, let's just call it a basic human right, like FDR did in 1943, proposing a second bill of rights and is today found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Take the Medicare For All Voter Pledge
Medicare For All, also known as single-payer health insurance, is favored by a majority of Americans.
How can we convince our Members of Congress to enact what the people want?
Let them know that unless they support Medicare For All, you won't support them.
Take the Medicare For All Pledge today:
http://bit.ly/medicareforallpledge
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I,too was pleased (almost not surprised) that the majority of
folks in the survey know what they want and have not been
"fooled", - so far. Singlepayer - Medicare for All. I was
amused this AM, listening to DemNow on WBAI (I support the
"undo the coup" movement at WBAI See www.takebackwbai.org )
that a quote, sound bite, was saying in answer to "Is Medicare a gov't run program?". The conservatives are opposed to gov't run programs. The soundbite quote of the member of Congress, pointed out that Medicare was "partnered" with private insurance companies (which is a flaw of recent years). I have resisted going into an HMO and
staying on Medicare.
There are few sources critical of Pres. Obama policies, from the Left.
Polls are the best in the US
if i had an opportunity to face our President, i would give him thanks for everything he does. he is a special man and it bases on my knowledge about his programs of social, educational and public health programs. he knows what he does and i respect him. whenever i address English essay service i ask them to write about my favorite person - about Obama^)
I hope julia1 was being
I hope julia1 was being sarcastic in her comments. If she actually meant what she wrote, she should make an appointment with a mental health professional post haste.
I hope so to, but... don't be surprised
To weigh in on Julia1, I hope she was being sarcastic, what is scarier, however, is she could easily be "for real."
Sarcasim or not, her comments are very real, not real in any actual sense of informing on who is Barack Obama and what his policies reflect (vs. "what he stands for"), but real as an example of the facile, child-like infactuation and attribution to Obama that is operative today. Even as Obama and his European and Israeli fatalists and fools push the propaganda leading to a war with Iran, the "secret" site they knew about in GWB's term and Obama soon briefed on, the children can find no fault in their drunken, abusive parents who continue to lie and exhort exemplary behavior, while failing to wash their dirty droughs.
Ask these adoring "children"--Black, White & Purple-- "where is the Straits of Hormuz?" and they'll probably think your referring to a Mexican seaside resort featured on MTV "Springbreak" or "Bridget's Hottest Beaches." Oblivious to the fact that it's a twentysomething stretch of water that holds in the balance whether gas is $8 gallon or metro transit passes quadruple, or the balance between a permanent recession and a Great, Great Depression.
I make these observations as a "lone voice" in my community's wilderness. If youtube and CNN had video of Obama making out with Newt Gingrich, wrapped in a 69, many would still believe in "Dear Leader." I kid you not. (If you think it's farfetched think of the RW response to their "Dear Leader" sex scandals) There are masses of Black folks committed to sinking with Obama, tons of White, Asian and Hispanic ones too. They'll keep on grinning, equivocating and cheerleading til shit hits the fan. Let's see the Government "fine" millions who are unemployed for no health insurance.
What will usher in the blatant police state? H1N1 (whatever happened to bird flu pandemic?) or rounding up deadbeats who can't afford health care?