[lizzyj]

Mandates: Heart of the Healthcare Debate
From Iowa to California to Massachusetts, the national healthcare debates are finally starting to hit the key point: the problem of the health insurance corporations.

Cross-posted at the [http://www.GuaranteedHealthcare.org/blog National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s] Breakroom Blog, as we organize for GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

[http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071121/...ma_health_care The key issue is being played out now on the Presidential campaign,] in exchanges between Sens. Clinton and Obama.

Clinton (and Edwards, Romney, Schwarzenegger, etc.) supports the individual mandate, requiring every person to carry health insurance, most likely purchased from one of the huge insurance corporations that have been busily gutting out health care system for their own profits. Obama is put into a difficult spot by charges that he doesn’t support “universal” care, but argues that the reason people don’t carry insurance is because they can’t afford—not, usually, that they don’t want it.

Of course, both sides are ignoring the key point: every other industrialized democracy is successfully operating some version of a single-payer system; only we put insurance companies ahead of public health needs. Nonetheless, it's important to decide if we want to hand over more customers, influence, and revenues to the same insurance corporations that are speedily wrecking our health care system.

Out in California, Schwarzenegger and the legislature is considering their own mandates, cheered on lustily by insurance donors greedy for more profits. [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../MNP9TGRHB.DTL One key problem?]
<blockquote> public health officials who provide most of the care for millions of uninsured residents are increasingly concerned that the proposed system could leave big financial holes in the state's safety net. </blockquote>

Which only makes sense…if you channel billions in public subsidies to insurance corporations, and guarantee their profits; of course the public health systems take a huge financial hit. That’s where the money comes from.

The good news for Californians? [http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/520089.html A deeply-divided state government might just make this harmful "reform" impossible to pass.]

[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../MNFPTFCHU.DTL Meanwhile, kids in California are about to start getting dropped from the public rolls, while the politicians debate their plan for insurance company subsidies. Unbelievable.]

Massachusetts is starting to experience the problems with its own mandate experiment. [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/us...in&oref=slogin Short answer: only people who get subsidized insurance are signing up], while the insurance corporations are gleefully jacking up rates 10 to 12 per cent a year on everyone else.

[http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/25/212436/36 Finally did you catch NYCEve taking on the NYT editorial board?] Wow.