Santa Ana Baby Boomer Examiner: Silencing the single payer public option

[Bluebear]

...I was one of those Americans who tuned in yesterday morning to hear the summit at Blair House live via internet. What I witnessed was a lot of posturing, and talk about a lot of different things: dropping insureds, risk pools, preferred providers, pre-existing conditions, arguments on across the board rate deductions, and more posturing. I did not hear about the quality of health care provided, the decisions of care necessities being returned to physicians, and I specifically did not hear about a single payer public option....

The option for a single payer public option was notably missing from the discussion. The fact that any reform in our healthcare is being discussed without this option, it would seem, signifies the compromised positions of all of those in Washington who have succumbed to the financial bargaining of the industry lobbyists....

President Obama has stated, when asked about a single payer public option, that “we don’t want a huge disruption.” The question is disruption for whom? Certainly not for the millions of Americans that would benefit from such a plan. Dr. Sidney Wolf of the PNP put it best when he said "what we need is a culture of courage, as opposed to a culture of cowardice."

According to James Capretta with Real Clear Politics, “The only way to slow rising costs without lowering the quality of care provided is to improve the efficiency of the interactions between doctors and hospitals and those they care for. The question before policymakers is what is most likely to lead to better care at less cost.” If this is truly the question, then we must put and keep the single payer public option on the table. Albert Einstein's definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." The single payer public option is the only truly different approach to our healthcare system.

Recently, Dr. Margaret Flowers, currently the Congressional Fellow of Physicians for a National Health Plan, was arrested trying to get a letter to the president which outlined the PNP’s recommendations for a single payer public option health plan reform. Their studies reveal that an effective system could be in place in just a year. There are currently 46 million Americans without any insurance whatsoever. There are 14.8 million currently unemployed. The more we are silenced, the less meaning “We the People…” holds.

http://www.examiner.com/x-35017-Santa-Ana-Baby-Boomer-Examiner~y2010m2d26-Silencing-the-single-payer-public-option