Harry Reid stated on Friday that Obamacare was just a step in the direction of a single-payer health care system:
Reid said he thinks the country has to “work our way past” insurance-based health care during a Friday night appearance on Vegas PBS’ program “Nevada Week in Review.”
“What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,” Reid said.
When then asked by panelist Steve Sebelius whether he meant ultimately the country would have to have a health care system that abandoned insurance as the means of accessing it, Reid said: “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”
It was treated as breaking news.
Some Republicans also seemed shocked:
Now they tell us! "Reid says Obamacare just a step toward eventual single-payer system" http://t.co/bfA8dd2yE2
— Tom Price (@RepTomPrice) August 11, 2013
This announcement, however, was neither breaking news nor reason to be shocked. Democrats have been saying that Obamacare was just a step in the right direction since the days in which Obamacare was first proposed:
@RepTomPrice @gatewaypundit They told us they wanted single payer long ago, ppl just weren't listening http://t.co/dLLGfXk5rJ
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) August 11, 2013
Obama has been telling us that single payer was the goal since the time he was just a twinkle in the eye of the Chicago political machine (video via Hot Air):
Anyone surprised that Democrats envision Obamacare morphing into single payer hasn’t been listening to what Democrats have been saying.
The collapse of the private insurance market under Obamacare isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
But you would have known that if you had been reading Legal Insurrection in the summer of 2009, including Deception and Tyranny Key To Health Care Reform:
The only way the Obama administration and Democrats can force through the types of changes they envision for the health care system is through deception and tyranny.
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“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
That’s all I need to know about Obamacare: They passed it without even knowing what was in int.
And, the bigger the ObamaCare Train Wreck – the more likely will be the calls for single payer. But, many people still don’t understand what a Single Payer system is.
Single Payer: when you have to ask your congressman to put your Mother on the list for a new hip – and he checks your party affiliation and donation history before he agrees.
Shows you how much our congressmen know. ✔ @RepTomPrice
Now they tell us! “Reid says Obamacare just a step toward eventual single-payer system”
What does he think we’ve been fighting this atrocity for??
They need to step out of the DC bubble and see what is happening in the real world.
Professor, perhaps now is a good time to revisit the central thesis behind “The Weight of the Poor” and how Professors Cloward and Piven have polluted our politics like a Chinese mercury factory.
People like Nancy Pelosi knew full well what was in the Obamacare bill – every single word. They (Democratic operatives) had been working on it since Hillarycare went down in flames twenty years ago.
She also knows that its unconstitutional, and that it did not matter that it was unconstitutional. It’s a moot point as the Constitution is much like the Grand Canyon – eroded by years of scoring by the Colorado River such that its original appearance is nowhere to be found.
And yes, Democrats like Barney Frank could be heard whispering the truth about single payer, just as they can be heard whispering about other socialist goals that they secret from the proles.
But behind all of the faces that you know are sinister figures that most may not know. I’ll be that 2/3ds of Americans would not know who George Soros is or what he has done in his life or what he stands for. Same with Bill Ayers, Bernadette Dohrn and a host of other America-hating traitors that openly work towards the destruction of the United States from within.
We are not going to emerge from this quietly; this time the house divided will not stand. If we mean to renew and restore the Constitution of the United States to it rightful place at the center of our Governance, then we are going to have to literally fight for it.
That is the realization that came over me the night Obama won his second term.
The CEO of Kaiser-Permanente has been instrumental in the writing of Obamacare. I worked for Kaiser for 40 years. I understand how this kind of organization stays alive. There is a reason you won’t find Kaiser in places like Florida or Phoenix. I’ll leave it to your imagination to figure out why.
I am shocked,shocked.
Next you’ll be telling me we can’t trust McCain.
I’m not so sure at all that Obamacare is (or ever was) a step toward single payer, notwithstanding many conservative concerns that it was/is. No thinking person actually believes that Obamacare is a “step” (i.e. “something better than”) single payer, which at least holds promise to cut out the middleman profiteer, and was a goal that was/is endorsed by physician’s groups who now are decrying Obamacare. It’s not (and never was intended to be) a step toward single payer because that wouldn’t please certain insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies (and campaign contributors). What it does is entrench these interests in a complicated bureacracy that once in place, will be impossible to remove.
Rather than in fact being a messy (weird, and unnecessary) “step” toward single payer (which would require the same sort of extraction of the stakeholders that currently is proclaimed to be imminently “impossible” with regard to repealing Obamacare, I suspect that now that Obamacare is becoming the foreseeable mess that it is, even to the believers:
This newest blather from Reid is to re-hearten pro-Obamacare progressives to not abandon ship, given that Obama flipped on what progressives saw as his pro-single-payer position.
Single payer, whatever you think of it, is not “Obamacare on steroids” or something worse. It’s something incompatible with and different from Obamacare.
Hi Janitor.
I don’t think you’re looking at it through the right lens.
Obamacare is the step toward single payer in the sense that it will severely damage the system, by driving many of the players from the market.
Those few remaining in the market, will then both have a disproportionate influence, as well as a distinct lack of competition.
Once that lack of competition occurs, there will be nothing other than government “policy” to prevent those remaining players from increasing insurance premiums. At some point, the remaining insurers will either be required to spend more than they are collecting in premiums, or will be regulated so tightly that there will no longer be profit available. When that occurs, the few remaining insurers will say “let us raise premiums, or we will no longer offer insurance.”
AT THAT POINT the Socialists are hoping and praying for a friendly administration and control of Congress, which can then say to the American People: “Hey, we tried. The big insurers are trying to steal from you. But we’re the Government, and we’re here to help. So if you’ll accept just a little bit more taxation of the ‘ultra wealthy’ (those making more than $125,000) we’ll provide healthcare to all.
That will be the collapse of the system, and it is the ENTIRE predicate of Obamacare. To set up the system to collapse. The only reason that the Insurers who ARE playing ball with it are doing so is that they think that there is profit to be made short term before they get out.
Chuck,
Nothing I want more than the repeal of Obamacare. It not only do all of the damage you note and more, but it also will increase the government grab over our lives, cause huge prospective damage to our privacy, and cause prospective damage to any appropriate reform of private insurance (risk pooling, less regulation, etc.) and the health care system. It will pull in massive numbers of illegal immigrants (who will not be able to be removed from the “system”), and create a ready-made vehicle for increased “mandates”, er taxes. The damage includes, however, for those who advocate for it (and I’m not here advocating), any reasonable proposal for a single payer system (with co-pays and so forth to prevent fraud.
I believe Reid is pandering. Pandering to progressives and Democrats telling them what they want to hear, to head off a revolt against the party.
I believe that Obamacare is a disaster of epic proportion, and one that will leave its turds, being grave consequences of numerous iatrogenic kinds (taxes, laws, privacy, bureaucracy and more) even IF it ultimately is repealed.
I think we may be making a mistake to not recognize what I believe Reid is doing, to mistake a possible outcome that could ultimately occur from this disaster, and to not recognize that in fact, from Hillary’s cronyism in the early 90s to Obamacare today, that this abomination was NOT intended as any step toward anything but more of a “come what may who cares” mutual backroom dealing with lobbyists and campaign contributors, all in the pretense of reform.
Reid is a liar of epic proportion. Democrats lie not just to “us” but also to their targeted constituency. He — and they — didn’t just come clean by proclaiming that Obamacare is a “step”.
And if we buy into that, we can only reassure the forces against us coming up to the next elections, and push them right back into favoring those great Obamacarists and hating those nasty conservatives who want people to be denied medical care, and so forth.
The only way the Obama administration and Democrats can force through the types of changes they envision for the health care system is through deception and tyranny.
The only way the Obama administration and Democrats operate is through deception and tyranny.
Surprised? No. Disgusted? Yes.
The quickest way to Single Payer is to Crash the current system. That will result in a ‘crisis’ that the government industrial complex will ‘solve’ with a single payer system.
Health care so great that they have to lie about it to get something passed.
What doctor, hospital or patient will want the gov’t monopolizing & price fixing health coverage? Defining extent of care?
I don’t think that is what is intended by the physicians pushing for single payer. http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-resources
It is by the physicians who created that website.
When I click the ‘State Chapters’ link on the main page and choose New York State I see this crap and more:
Conversion To A Non-Profit Healthcare System
Private health insurers shall be prohibited under this act from selling coverage that duplicates the benefits of the USNHI program. Exceptions to this rule include coverage for cosmetic surgery, and other medically unnecessary treatments.
Cost Containment Provisions/Reimbursement
The National USNHI program will set reimbursement rates annually for physicians, allow for global budgets (annual lump sums for operating expenses) for healthcare providers; and negotiate prescription drug prices. A “Medicare For All Trust Fund” will be established to ensure a dedicated stream of funding, as well as an annual appropriation to ensure optimal levels of funding for the program.
http://www.singlepayernewyork.org/legislation/
I’ll lay you odds that those docs are all academics with no connection to the real world of medicine.
Re: Senator Reid’s statement. Ahem:
DUH.
That is all. Go about your business.
Reid’s spiking the football: “You pubbies been pwned.”
It’s up to the Tea Party to frame a “Health Freedom Initiative” to refocus the discontented. Freedom must be the battle cry: economic, health, and the 2nd and 4th Amendments. Not reactionary, but Revolutionary.
There’s still another system. Or two.
You travel to another country. Or you pay cash.
For example, in Israel you can’t get a liver transplant if you’re older than 65. Meir Dagan, who had been head of the Mossad, was 67 when he needed one. So he traveled to Belarus.
As to insurance companies, you wouldn’t be coming to an acceptance of “a single payer” if people were happy with the plans they can buy these days. But they are not! Why? Because doctors have to join “lists.” And, sometimes the physician you want to see is not on your “list.”
The force behind the acceptance isn’t Obama, but the marketplace, itself.
What the government wants to access is a “stream of jobs.” And, this, too, is something a lot of workers today would like to see opening up for them. Every single state, in every single area, will need a flood of Federal workers who make access to health care possible. This is bigger than any police department you can think of. Bigger than the military. Bigger than the TSA. And, the party that will control these jobs … will control the country. Including the “certification” … or training … or schooling … or whatever else you want to call it.
And, to go along with this system, john roberts set up FISA! As if there’s not enough blame to go around.
Come on guys. No single payer proposal is on any table. Don’t be played by Reid into this tangent.
Obamacare has enough to criticize. Please don’t reinforce Reid’s message to every disgusted and appalled Democrat to just hang in there and not break ranks in the next election. (“Don’t worry, it looks bad, but there’s a method to this apparent insanity”.)
This is what caught my eye.
“…but we’re far from having something that’s going to work FOREVER…”
How Progressive…chasing after impossibilities.
How happy do you think people are, today, with their current insurance plan?
How come there are lists? So you pick an affordable plan at work. And, it tells you the physicians you can see. By category. But it’s still a list. With the physician you want OFF this list. Do you have to wait a year before you can change plans?
How come when you’re brought to an emergency room the first thing that happens is paperwork is generated? (Insurance paperwork.)
Aren’t accidents at home similar? A kid breaks his arm falling out of a tree. Do you call his (or her’s) pediatrician? Do you run to a hospital? Do you wait for an ambulance?
Back in the 1970’s, if you didn’t have insurance, you paid about $15 for an office visit.
Back in the 1930’s my mom told me my grandpa had a heart attack. And, they couldn’t get him into the hospital because they didn’t have $300 on hand. (Did you know people kept hundreds of dollars on hand for emergencies?) Did you know ambulances are “new.” And, back in the 1960’s, often-times funeral parlors ran “ambulance services.”
You take things for granted, but the environment keeps changing.
Healthcare once was all over the place. A doctor could start a practice in a neighborhood, by buying a home, and putting out his shingle.
Today? Did you know there’s a real drop off in interest to become a physician?
What gets in the way?
I doubt the opposition is smart enough to have designed the flaws into ObamaCare, but they surely figured any defects that arose in the plan would only move us toward a single-payer solution.
With all the horror stories of single-payer government systems around the world, they would be immeasurably worse without the free market system of the USA. In 1970, nearly half the new pharmaceutical patents were owned by European companies, half by US companies, the remaining fraction by the rest of the world.
After nearly four decades of government single-payer plans throughout Europe, 90% of new patents are awarded to US companies, with the bulk of the rest going to Asian companies, Europe’s health bureaucracy has reduced their drug production to generic manufacturing.
The same holds true of other medical innovations. When government mandated pricing kills the profits for drug and device innovation in this country, too, the world will be the loser.
But by gum, the derelict on the street who has lived his life through crime against his fellow man shall have free medical care on demand, including “erectile dysfunction” drugs. Surely that is worth the hundreds of millions of lives this will cost worldwide.
As ObamaCare fails thoroughly and continuously, I cannot image how anyone would be able to sell the idea “since ObamaCare failed, the natural solution would be a single payer, government controlled system”. No intelligent person would give complete control to the guys who have already failed.
I think Reid is actually trying to get Republican support for ObamaCare lest the alternative be single payer. But, no one trusts Reid anyway.
There are roughly 100,000,000 registered Democrats. If they want socialized medicine they certainly have a wide enough base to band together and do it voluntarily without us. The legal hurtles would be minimal and I’m sure the GOP would accommodate any legislation necessary to allow them to create a voluntary socialized medical system. If they create a great system and work out all the kinks I’ll even join ’em. Of course, if the whole thing melts down like I think it will, I’ll just keep going to my greedy capitalist doctors.
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