Democrats have already compromised by abandoning the goal of a single-payer system

[kpete]

Fundamentally — and infuriatingly for the Democratic base — Obamacare is inherently a compromise because it is a health insurance reform law rather than an overhaul of the structure of our nation's healthcare system. [...]

Yet the single-payer system had already been compromised away when the final 2009-10 healthcare negotiations began. ... Many Democrats compromised, even those who considered the single-payer approach to be by far the best policy.

Instead of pushing for single payer, they rallied around another approach: the "public option." The public option would have preserved the current employer-based system of private health insurance coverage while providing a government-run healthcare insurance alternative as well as a safety net for the uninsured. Importantly, it would have also injected much-needed competition into an environment where private insurance plans are increasingly consolidated.


MORE!:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mansbridge-obamacare-democrats-single-payer-20131015,0,7930456.story
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2013/10/15/democrats-already-compromised-abandoning-goal-single-payer-system/

[blkmusclmachine]

1. YAY, "bipartisanship."

[msongs]

2. considering obamacare = romneycare w/tweaks, no wonder single payer was ignored nt

[Enrique]

3. except we get nothing for that compromise

because it was off the table from the start. as always, dems start by giving free concessions to the gop.

[Igel]

4. Who did they compromise with?

And if with Republicans, why didn't any vote for it or speak out for it?

If the compromise got them nothing, then undoing the compromise would have cost them nothing.

This makes no sense. Unless we have the old "we compromised with ourselves, trying to be fairer than is possible, only to have our self-sacrifice for them be unrequited." Then it means we "compromised" for a greater principle, one that must surely be worth it now if i was worth such a sacrifice then. Don't see the principle. It's not "bipartisanship," not with straight party-line vote in favor of the ACA (and not all (D) voting for it in the House). If anything, voting against the ACA was more bipartisan than voting for it.



Then there's the question as to why there were all the negotiations and changes just to get 51 votes in the Senate and a majority in the House. Looks rather like the compromise was Democrats with Democrats, with no hope, for months before the vote, of any kind of "bipartisanship."

[uppityperson]

5. Exactly. Remember the brouhaha then? Compromise has already happened.

[gopiscrap]

6. Yeah I agree with you and it pisses me off they did that

[solarhydrocan]

7. Max Baucus

and Karen Ignani are traitors to the people

Baucus’s Raucous Caucus: Doctors, Nurses and Activists Arrested Again for Protesting Exclusion of Single-Payer Advocates at Senate Hearing on Healthcare

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/13/baucus_raucus_caucus_doctors_nurses_and

Advocates of single-payer universal healthcare — the system favored by most Americans — continue to protest their exclusion from discussions on healthcare reform. On Tuesday, five doctors, nurses and single-payer advocates were arrested at a Senate Finance Committee hearing, bringing the total number of arrests in less than a week to thirteen. We speak with two of those arrested: Single Payer Action founder Russell Mokhiber and Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Transcript at link

If a republican had done that more people here would have remembered

and been outraged

[leftstreet]

8. When did the Democratic party ever support single payer?