kucinich didn’t work on which bill, 676 or 3200? in which committee? dropped what in? what exactly is it that’s unworkable and in what framework?

if you’re saying he should have been working on hr 3200 all this time, i’m not sure i agree.

If you can prove differently, happy to see it. But it doesn’t exist so I’m not holding my breath. Even his “single payer or die” allies feel let down, like they got suckered.

maybe i should have paid more attention to the months of no answer to my questions re “what public option?”

It was kabuki and people who care about single payer should be upset that people led this crusade without doing that.

i’ve been following the work of the single payer activists for years, and your characterization could not be more off the mark.

But for us to be split on this is dismaying.

Possibly to you. Single payer advocates, like abolitionists, are used to being marginalized, and so at this point we’re impervious. Here are two very simple and concrete things you could whip for that might even bring a little pressure from the left:

1. Make sure states (and Puerto Rico) can implement single payer on their own (or in regional compacts). A Kucinich amendment to this effect passed, but it should become part of the conventional wisdom.

2. Make sure that a full analytical study that includes all costs (not just CBO scoring) comparing single payer to the other programs on offer is performed. Surely it makes sense to compare all the alternatives before making a commitment of this scale?

You know, back in the day, when I was coming up, “kabuki” was the blogosphere’s term of art for Village performances by insiders for the benefit of the rubes. Since the “little single payer advocates” are excluded and censored, they’d hardly be insiders, wouldn’t you agree?

Now, if I were to apply the word kabuki, I might consider applying it to a case where HCAN’t shills are paid to blog in favor of a complex, unproven, and Rube Goldberg-esque “bait and switch” operation whose putative cost savings are entirely “speculative”, and which won’t kick in ’til 2013, despite the demands that it be passed NOW NOW NOW*. But that’s just me.

Appreciate the pushback, though!

NOTE * Translation: Passed before the midterms, implemented after the next presidential election. What’s not to like?

NOTE It’s also the classic sign of Versailles insiderism to use “populist” as a term of abuse. Plus ça “change,” plus c’est la même chose…

These are NOT appropriate models for providing health care, which should be provided as a public service and a matter of public health policy.

The issue is profit, and that’s where the fulcrum of the argument sits. Pollsters need to start asking the right question about the public’s attitude toward the administration of health care: should it, or should it not, be a profit-making enterprise?

The vast majority of us DO NOT TRUST THE HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY, and it doesn’t matter whether they organize as for-profit corporations or disguise themselves as tax-exempt co-ops.

The only way out of this rabbit hole is for millions of us to climb out, and head into the streets!!