It has become an annual Left Forum tradition for some D&S folks to meet up with D&S friends over dinner in the East Village, and this year one of the main topics of conversation was, of course, health care reform. No one at the table liked the bill, so the discussion was about whether it would be better or worse if the bill passed.
On the bus ride home, D&S collective member and frequent blogger Larry P. wondered out loud what Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein and other single-payer advocates think about the bill and the likelihood that it would pass. So I was happy to find out about this statement from Physicians for a National Health Plan, co-signed by Woolhandler and Himmelstein:
Pro-single-payer doctors: Health bill leaves 23 million uninsured
A false promise of reform
Two other tidbits on health care: First, the spin about the aftermath of the health care debate seems to be that the Republicans have overplayed their hands, what with all the hate-mongering and fear-mongering all along, with a definite crescendo at the final hour. Here's (some of) what Politico had to say:
GOP weighs costs of losing ugly
Read the whole post.
A recent CNN poll seems to bear out the idea that the Republicans, by siding with the vituperative Tea Baggers, are not on the side of the public. According to the poll, 39% favor the bill, while 59% oppose it; but the breakdown showing why people oppose it is instructive: 39% favor; 43% oppose because it's "too liberal"; 13% oppose because it's "not liberal enough". So that means that a majority of Americans polled by CNN are in favor of health care reform at least as "socialist" as Obamacare.
So what we have is a crappy bill that is coercive and a give-away to the insurance companies, and may entrench their power. But a majority of Americans still seem to want (real) universal health care, and if you want to put an optimistic spin on it, you can take heart in the fact that the success of this bill may put the Democrats on a better footing than they have seemed to be recently. Whether we like what they do with the momentum (real financial reform, with an independent financial consumer protection agency and effective regulation? real comprehensive immigration reform, vs. some guestworker nonsense?) remains to be seen. The best-case scenario might be if this legislative victory emboldens left challengers in the 2010 congressional elections, to push incumbents to move to the left (whereas a week ago it seemed likely that the Republicans' momentum would push them all to the right).