What happened to single payer? Anybody who knows anything about Washington DC knows that the "devil is in the details". With all the lobbyists and politicians in corporate pockets is there any doubt that the "public option" will be legislated into operational failure. Then the I told you so's will rule the day... for a decade ...

Chances are Private Health Care Companies will get the go ahead to cherry pick the youngest and healthiest leaving the rest for "public option" whose costs will soar from having to cover those with the most problems.

Hope for the best but plan for the worst and keep an eye on those details because it's the details that will make or break any "public option". God help us the first Republican Administration that comes along ...

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One of the talking points that the Right Wing bloviators keep repeating over and over and over again is the "superiority" of the American health care system when compared to Europe or Canada. Pahtooie! They know that most of the American people have never lived abroad and they think they can casually spout those lies amd get away with it.

My brother Pete has lived in Toronto for over ten years and assures me that the health care system up there is perfectly fine and dandy, thank you very much.

Brother Jeff had lived in France for almost twenty years! Recently, the company he works for offered him the chance to re-locate to the United States. He turned them down. One of the reasons is because health care in France is far superior to that in the United States, or, to be perfectly blunt:

HEALTH CARE IN THE USA SUCKS.

Have a lovely day, kiddies!

Lenny Bruce's House

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

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I love to hear politicians say the Gov't either is incapable of running anything (healthcare, industry) or is to wasteful...Are they trying to talk themselves out of a Job? Promoting Anarchy? why they hell are we paying tax dollars to let these inept/corrupt SOB spend their days PRETENDING to be our Representatives, playing as if they are performing the 'Peoples Work'? Everytime I hear such statements I think - theres another one who needs to be fired.
Personally I like having a national defense. Prefer all children are 'on the same page' educationally. Appreciate a collective helping hand when disaster strikes. Want the elderly who gave their blood sweat and tears to build this country to be afforded a life of diginity. I honor the Wisedom of our Founders in providing a tightly Unifying Set of Principles that make our States UNITED and not just a loose Union (European) or a geographic cluster of Tribes (Afghanistan).
Besides We the People were granted the Right to access the Free market not only as consumers, but also as Producers/providers. If not allowed to be on the 'Sellers' side of the table then we have been denied 1/2 our rights to the Free market place.
don't tell me you are a 'Public Servant' if you have no confidence in the Federal Gov't. Don't tell me you are a Free Market proponent if you limit the number of competitors. Don't call yourself an American Patriot if you relegate 'We the People' to merely the consumers side of the table.

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As for the author, he's a fucking idiot for siding with a fake "compromise" plan. The Democrats sure as hell know how to piss more people out and head for defeat the same way the 19 hijackers smashed planes into buildings and took thousands of lives with them !

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Cenk needs to catch up with the party line. The MSM now refers to "the government plan" or "government-run insurance," all the better to scare the public and provide cover to the politicians who are about to screw that same public yet again.

And shame on Cenk for parroting the party line that "the free market" does a better job of providing health care. That's pure BS, as has been proven repeatedly. But we understand, Cenk. A blogger who hopes to get his column printed on the Huffington Post and other MSM outlets has to phrase things pretty darn carefully these days.

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How many companies, especially small ones, may tell their employees that they are ditching their health care insurance and tell them to go to the public option out of their own pocket? Many employers want to save money, they don't want to deal with the issues of offering health insurance. We need the public option, with co-pays and premiums base on one's income, but no limits on necessary care, access to quality doctors and facilities. The current system is a disaster, making too many suffer and die prematurly.

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As with many public issues, we can't seem to address the underlying problems and spend all our time and energy discussing the superficial.

Universal health care, in whatever revised form, will more than likely fail and it will fail due to the unparalleled power of the lobbies. The real problem is the influence of money in our politics and this will continue until we take the position that "money" is not "free speech", regardless of what the Supreme Court decided. There is no earthly reason why those with money should have more voice or better access to our Congress than we the people. This is the fundamental problem with our so-called democratic Republic and this is what must be addressed before any of the people's needs can or ever will be met.

We have the ridiculous spectacle of a clear majority of Democrats, with a Democratic president, admitting that they're powerless to enact legislation that is favored by another clear majority of the people, and this is all due to the power of the monied interests/lobbies.

Our efforts should be directed towards outlawing lobbies once and for all time. Lobbies were created and they certainly can be discontinued.

The irony of this permissive attitude concerning lobbies, is that we have laws forbidding any "lobbyists" from gathering within so many feet of our polling places, lest they exert undue influence on the votes of the people, yet we have an open door policy when it comes to allowing them to approach our legislators where the truly important votes are cast.
We must get the corrupting influence of money out of our politics and it is entirely possible if we will only address the real problem head on, as if we the people are in fact sovereign. Lobbying is just another word for bribery and anyone claiming otherwise is a damn liar as well as a traitor to the concept of democratic governance.

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The US has the most expensive and worst health care system of all modern countries. It is suited to benefit corporations of the health industry, not patients. The US is a corporate dictatorship in democratic disguise, and lobbying is institutionalised corruption. But nothing is forever, and the first lights of hope are showing. Good luck.

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My forecast is that, despite the many powerfull entrenched vested interests,long overdue US HEALTH CARE REFORM WILL HAPPEN IN 2009

And it will include a public health option which will be a first good step toward single payer.

So "single payerites" - stop whining and get real.

Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton, Pa

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There are a lot of these meetings around the country over the Biden/Obama "Public Option", like the one in our town today. I was going to go, but I was informed that Single-payer would NOT be discussed here! I wrote them:

I must admit, it is very disappointing to learn that we will not even discuss Single-payer at your meeting.
Why not? What's the point?
Only the Insurance industry and crooked congresspeople benefiting from their lobbying bribes don't want Single Payer. THEY have plenty of platforms for their bully-pulpit, as does Obama.
(Did you know, many of the biggest Insurance companies also hold stock in TOBACCO? What does THAT tell you?)
Meanwhile, the actual Health Care professionals, the doctors and nurses, (like the ones Baucus shut out and ARRESTED at the Senate Hearing for just asking for Single -payer to be DISCUSSED) as well as the Public, is clamoring for it.

It is the only way to contain costs and eliminate the obscene profits of the Insurance Industry (which, make no mistake, is their ONLY interest in this! Up to 50% of every premium dollar goes to their profit) and finally, finally allow Health Care to be seen as a HUMAN RIGHT, instead of a priviledge reserved for the likes of our corrupt leadership and an opportunity for profiting from people's sickness and misery.
Otherwise, opponents of the Public Option will just continue to water it down, and MAKE it fail, like Olympia Snowe's ridiculous ten-year "Trigger" allowing the Insurance giants to screw us for another ten years if they don't "shape up".
Canada did it! It was tried in Saskatchewan first for ten years and the rest of Canada demanded it!
The only reason Obama HAS now come out for a public option is precisely BECAUSE of the enormous public demand for Single-payer!
This is the time to push for the REAL THING, not this timid halfway measure that leaves the Big Rat in the middle of the pantry!
Yes, maybe I WILL stay in my garden, for my health.
Maybe we should have another meeting next week for Single Payer, and get the job done right.

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( I was basicically told to stay home from the "Public Option" meeting) So I added this:

It seems to me it would be alot better if your groups made it clear that Single payer is the ultimate goal, and the first and most obvious choice, but that Obama's plan is the MINIMUM we'd accept. That would at least re-inforce the Public Option and insist on the basics. The Basics, as I see them are that Healthcare be seen as a RIGHT not a priveledge, a SERVICE, not a for-profit industry. This is why the government should be the insurer, and then standards can be set, both for costs and for quality.
This will help the greater economy in so many ways...Small businesses can be relieved of the burden of providing healthcare insurance, which is dragging many of them under in this economy...either that or they just discontinue coverage or make it unaffordable.
These "Public Option" band-aid measures are doomed to fail, no, designed to fail.
Quite simply, the Insurance Industry needs to BUTT OUT!

Medicare was OK too until it was hijacked by the Insurance Industry. My friend from Georgia writes:
Don't know if anyone has thought about this but..there are alot of poor people in rural America that rely on medicaid. BUT...when they call a doctors office--some doctors say that they are not taking any new medicaid patients at this time. From what I understand it happens often. I wonder if these docs are rejecting cash paying patients too???
At any rate--I had heard about this awhile back in some side conversation but never really thought about it until this whole idea of single payer started to sink in. The way things are going now--will those of us who chose the 'other' option be treated like we have the plague because we don't carry around an overpriced insurance card?
Just a thought.

..to which another friend in Florida writes:
And what a most EXCELLENT thought! Where I live, there are many elderly people who are on Medicaid. Yet there are, to the best of my knowledge, no doctors on the island who accept Medicaid. I have a very close elderly friend who qualifies for Medicaid but has NOT applied due to the fact that none of her doctors will accept Medicaid. They are, in fact, starting to become reluctant to even accept Medicare. We are most assuredly in one HELL of a MESS all the way around and I am deeply disappointed that Obama cannot see through this and start a wave for SINGLE PAYER!

We just have to keep pushing it forward and hope for the best for all people.
...Then there's the story from a friend who keeps her Canadian citizenship precisely BECAUSE of their Single-Payer Medical program) about a woman, 59 year-old lawyer, who moved to Vancouver in 'o6...now pays only $49 a month ...under $600 a year...for health care. When she had to go to the hospital, she got excellent , no-frills service and money was never even talked about. Then, while visiting in San Francisco she fainted, was rushed to the hospital, and was immediately asked how she would pay. Nothing was seriously wrong, but the bill came to $8,789.29 !
The bottom line is that America's Health Care system spends nearly TWICE as much per person as Canada's (Building the wealth of Hospital tycoons like Mr Scott, who ran the very misleading "swift-boating" ads against the Public Option; he had to resign as CEO after defrauding Medicare) . Yet our Infant Mortality rate is 40% higher than Canada's, and American mothers are 57% more likely to die in Childbirth than Canadian ones.

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You state, "If in the end, more people choose the public option, then obviously it worked. If they don't, we've lost nothing because they can still get private insurance."

This argument buys into the insurance industry's own wrongheaded notion that health care is just another commodity to be bought and sold--and endlessly shopped for. It also completely ignores the fact that it's not always possible to get, or to afford, private insurance. Insurance companies can and do reject anyone likely to make a claim, charge exorbitant premiums, set impossibly high deductibles, and refuse to pay claims for any or no reason. A weak public option without regulation of the protection racket that medical insurance has become is not significantly better than the deadly system we have now.

The public option may (or may not) be the best we can do right now, but that's no reason either (1) to pretend that it's the best possible solution or (2) to accept the "compromises" Congress will impose on it to make it no solution at all.

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It will never happen. There is just too much money at stake here and you can rest assured that the "lobbyist" have the law makers in their back pockets, bought and paid for.

RT
Absolute Anonymity

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We need Universal Health Care, anything less than that is caving in to the insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and lobbyists. Insurance companies dictate what drugs you take, what options your doctor has, the tests he can do or not do, what procedures he can do, if you're inpatient how long you can stay, whether or not you are covered on and on. Pharmaceutical companies dictate how much you pay for drugs and what is available. Not profitable? They won't make it. These two for profit entities are the single largest roadblocks to good and inexpensive healthcare and have superseded the M.D.s in decision making. This system is falling apart and bankrupting Americans. Congressman Conyers has the right idea, support H.R. 676, it is the only way to go, a for profit health care industry is NOT the way to go. Skimping on health care itself which is what is done now is not the way to save money, it costs more in the long run.
Check out Conyer's website for H.R. 676, I could not put the link in. (the "word" is too long (haha!)

Robert Young R.N.

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I keep hearing about how bad Single Payer Health Care will be.
"Just look at Canada," they say.

Now, they are saying that Health Insurance Companies can't compete.
Solution: let the people go without.

All double-talk.
Ever since the Roman Empire, when the elites were treated differently from the peons.
The Communists have a similar set-up for their leaders.

I don't hear any of our Senators complaining about their own, government-paid, free health CARE program.
Nobody wants to talk about that subject, because we need our leaders clear-headed and healthy.
So they can make good decisions for us.
Right.

Their solution for those who cannot afford it:
Pass a law that everyone has to buy health insurance, or be fined.
So now, the government is enforcing gambling.
Way to go!

Single Payer Plan is Health Care without the Middle Man making all the profits.

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Congress and the senate are corporate shills.
Corporate thugs are worshiped by most of us.
What's REALLY happening will never be aired by the corporate press.
WE're OWNED, lock, stock, and barrel, by corporate America, and they want what's good for TMEM, not us.
They've ALWAYS gotten their way, and always will.
Welcome to the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength.

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Public option? What option is that? The option for the sick care industry to continue to rake in their obscene profits and to dicredit and corrupt a new Government agency? The only real alternative is a single payer system that provides "healthcare". The sickcare oligarchy will not allow competition. The insurance industry will fight to the death to maintain their control as they know a single payer system will end their involvement with the exception of supplemental premiums and would also impact profits from liability and auto insurance that contain a large medical component.

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The public option is not the answer either, it will get bulldozed into the ground and buried by the insurance industry mob. This for profit system needs to be legislated out of existence, until it is it will continue to run our health care and we will continue our march down to the bottom of the WHO list. Incidentally I have lived in Peru which is below #100 on the list and their healthcare is much more accessible than ours and a hell of a lot cheaper.

Robert Young R.N.

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That's what Johnson said when he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Now, imagine Obama signing into law a single-payer health care system. He will have won, for the Democrats, the southern poor and middle class vote for the next forty years (at least), and just let the Repubs TRY to take that away from them.

I don't have a lot of hope for that, but if the Dems really want to build for themselves a 'permanent majority', they could not do better than single payer health care.

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Single payer is in mexico.At some point soon the sucking sound will come from the south.Unbelievable the resistance to single payer in the US.

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What the hell is going on? This is not free insurance. Simply because it will be our money aka tax dollars paying.

What could be more american than allowing USA people to pay for THEIR OWN insurance with THEIR OWN tax dollars?

Why do legislators on both sides of the aisle think OUR tax dollars is their money? Since when I ask?

USE our existing pie of tax dollars to insure all in the USA for 24/7 health care!

Don't force employers to pay one thin dime! There are plenty of tax dollars in DC to cover all of us.

Yes this National Health Insurance concept is the most practical and comprehensive in this nations history.

Tax dollars come from the hard working people NOT from the government. It's time to give peoples tax dollars back to the tax paying people.

Yes to National Health Insurance = a wise investment in the people and america!

Remember RATIONING is what the medical insurance industry has been offering for many decades.

The level of care is dependent on how much money one is able to put on the table. Yes this is no question about it corporate american style rationing and/or class warfare.


What could be more american than allowing USA people to pay for THEIR OWN insurance with THEIR OWN tax dollars?

Tax dollars come from the hard working people NOT from the government. It's time to give peoples tax dollars back to the tax paying people.

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Has anyone drawn the analogy between the proposed public option in health care and the New Deal's TVA?

Seriously!

Down to 1933, there was a stark contrast between parts of the country that had electric power, and often paid too much for it to excessively pyramided holding companies, and regions where people had no electricity at all, because private utilities did not see much profit in wiring them.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, in addition to its much-advertised flood control and fertilizer-producing potential, was meant to serve as a "yardstick," as people said back then, to demonstrate how efficiently and cheaply power could be generated if the profit motive was removed. It was intended to smoke out the private utilities firms and prepare the way for their eventual firmer regulation or breakup.

The fury of the companies thus affected (remember Wendell Willkie?) was a measure of its success.

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Dont't forget the lawyers litigating to avoid coverage, the CEO bonuses, the lobbyists, the duplicate bureaucracies.

Then figure in that if profit has preference then the avoidance of coverage also has preference.

If the health of a society in general depends on the health of all the individuals then a plan that tries to evade coverage is just an epidemic waiting to happen.

Plus we all share to some extent, particularly the corporations with the pollutions, unintended consequences, and our own preferences, in the risk factors and society in general should cover the costs and try to regulate the pervasive risks without being too invasive.

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Thanks for putting the issues into context and answering most of the excuses the opponents of the public option use against it. The public option is the first step toward solving the out of control costs and coverage problems we have with the current system.

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While single payer health care advocates may appreciate Cenk Uygur's motives in supporting a "public option," we believe such a system is deeply flawed and, if implemented, will inevitably fail.

Because it retains the private insurance companies, a public option cannot recapture the $400 billion in administrative waste that these companies generate in their efforts to contest claims, issue denials and screen out the sick. A single-payer system would redirect these huge savings back into the system, requiring no net increase in health spending.

Further, the public option will require huge new sources of revenue, currently estimated at around $1 trillion over the next decade. Rather than containing costs, it adds yet another layer of useless and complicated bureaucracy that serves no function other than to police and broker private insurance companies.

Because the public option fails to contain the cost control mechanisms inherent in single-payer, any gains in coverage will quickly be erased as costs skyrocket and government is forced to choose between raising revenue and cutting benefits. Thus the coverage and benefits offered under this system will turn out to duplicate those offered by private carriers--which have caused millions of insured Americans to go without care and have led to an epidemic of medical bankruptcies.

To those, including President Obama, who claim that a single payer system is “unfeasible” and would be disruptive to our population, we say: Just look at the dysfunctional, fragmented, wasteful, completely inequitable system we have now! And remember that Medicare, a plan that works much better than private insurance, despite its flaws, was efficiently instituted nationwide in less that a year— before there were computers.

The only thing preventing us from embracing a single payer model in the United States is lack of political courage and leadership. It is up to us to force our elected representatives to take that step.

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I heard Dr. Dean say he would expect the public option to cost about 30% less. No one ever seems to say whether they expect there to be deductibles, drug coverage, and what the co-pays might be. These things could chip away severely at any savings on the basic cost of coverage. Might we need to buy supplemental insurance for $200 a month like those on Medicare now?

I sincerely appreciate the authors plain talk when it comes to the #1 reason for the public option. IT HAS TO BE CHEAPER! I fear all politicians fall short of really understanding that even those with insurance are on the edge of ruin and not because they have cheap policies. Mine has a big price tag AND a $7500 deductible. I know others are in that position. Health care costs have already ruined many of us. What many fail to realize is that even President Obama admitted last week, nothing will be in place for 4 or 5 years. How many of us will have lost everything (including some lives) in 5 years? How much will your insurance cost in 5 years?
I suppose a little economic and social cleansing at the lower levels might not look too bad to some folks.

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The government's problem is that it's thinking only of the next 4 years.

If universal health care begins, then all the jobs related to paper pushing of insurance will go away relatively quickly: salesmen, secretaries, administrators, etc. It is all these workers that make health care so expensive.

So from the government's perspective, that will put at least half a million people out of work at a time when the economy is not doing well.

It's the right thing to do, but they don't want to be the ones to put a huge number of people out of work.

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I am tired of your oral masturbation and lack of action. Flapping your lips and pontificating. So if you want changes on anything you need to call your congressman or senator and tell them you will not vote for them if they don't represent you. We need to send a strong message to these guys. We voted for Obama in and we can vote in other Democrats, independents or liberals in too. But we need to make sure they work for us not for the special interests and that means doing a little home work. Like calling and asking if they support drug or pharma companies. And then you need to call their office and tell them that you will not vote for them again unless they support a single payer system. We have killed almost a million people in Iraq. Try to wrap your mind around that and then imagine if that was us. And what do we do - do we care? No- not as long as those bombs are not hurting us. And do we care that they are spending 10 billion per week on the Iraq war of our tax dollars as they are telling us that they don't want to give us national Healthcare and our entitlements are the elephant in the room- Sorry its the military budget stupid. Do they tell us that they have already looted Medicare and social security? While people are rioting in the streets from Ireland to Greece we are flapping our lips on blogs not taking personal responsibility. Like writing letters to editors of your local paper demanding a single payer system. I got my first documentary on national PBS, what are the chances of that? It was about the impact of Uranium mining on Americans in our South West. But it was also about the millions of tons of radioactive wastes left uncovered all over the South Western US. I took a chance and made a contribution and so should you because this is your country - you live here and so do your children and all OUR children. So get off your buts and take some action. 202 - 224 3121

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This is because we will lose the very thing that makes Single-Payer so cheap and effective. We will lose the money from well people. The public option will go broke trying to cover all the sick people. The insurance companies will make a lot of profit insuring the WELL! This is not health care reform. This is a STUPID idea meant to RUIN ANY PUBLIC OPTION! THAT IS ITS REAL REASON FOR BEING! On top of that THERE IS NO COMPETITION HERE! The VERY reason touted for this plan,i.e., the idea that it will cause competition between the private insurance plans and a publicly funded plan, is a false premise. Here is what will happen. All of the young and well will keep their private insurance they get from their employer. Everyone else will go into the public plan BECAUSE THEY WILL BE UNABLE TO GET COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH CARE FROM PRIVATE INSURERS! Single-Payer works by having everybody in and nobody out. Single-Payer here is relying on the payments of well people to offset the more use of health care by people who are sick. That is the way insurance is suppose to work BUT IT DOESN'T BECAUSE OF THE PROFIT MOTIVE.

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Guess what . . . .
Single payer / public option will NEVER happen in the U.S. Wanna know why?
Because the system is already in place and $$$$$$ talk and bullshit walks. That's the way it is and will always be. I predict a few more months of this and the media (as in the corporate controlled one) will deliver and new diversion that will take away the attention from health care to . . . . whatever they want.
Change was the promise . . . . reality will prevail.

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There was no good reason to exclude gays from the military, but the GOP managed to get Clinton to sign on to that canard, too.

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Anything else is likely to be watered down so much that it will only increase profits to the HMO & Pharamcy businesses at the expense of the government while simultaneously increasing the cost of healthcare for everyone!

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The Congressional Budget Office released a report this week stating that the Public Option will exclude 36 million Americans. How will these millions of people be able to afford to purchase private insurance? This is not universal coverage.
Single-payer would still give Americans CHOICE: your choice of doctor, your choice of hospital, etc. The government picks up the tab. No one is excluded or turned down.
Single-payer is the only solution for real health care reform, but your senators and representatives are too beholden to the insurance industry to even discuss it!

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