Single Payer Is Getting a Second Life as Obamacare Frustration Peaks
As the rollout of Obamacare clunks forward, activists who opposed the law from the beginning say it is time to seize the moment, to tear down the current health-care edifice and start anew, especially now as frustration with the law’s implementation is reaching a peak.
These are not Tea Party activists but advocates for a single-payer health-care system who say some of the problems with the launch of the Affordable Care Act—in addition to built-in problems with the law itself—have made the American public more receptive than ever to a Medicare-for-all kind of coverage system.
On Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced the American Health Security Act, which would require each state to set up a single-payer health-care system and would undo the exchanges that have plagued Obamacare. Meanwhile, various state-led efforts are under way that advocates hope will sweep the country statehouse by statehouse, as soon as lawmakers see the advantage of a single-payer system. In Vermont, for example, lawmakers have set aside the financing and are already preparing to adopt a single-payer system when the federal government permits it, which according to provisions of the Affordable Care Act will be in 2015. In Massachusetts, Don Berwick, a former top Obama administration health official, is basing his campaign for governor on bringing a single-payer system to the commonwealth. And advocates in New York, Maryland, Oregon, and around the country say they see new energy around their cause.
“As the president fully understands, the rollout has been a disaster, the website has been a disaster,” said Sanders in an interview moments after his bill was introduced in the Senate. “But the truth is, even if all of those problems were corrected tomorrow and if the Affordable Care Act did all that it was supposed to do, it would be only a modest step forward to dealing with the dysfunction of the American health-care system. When you have a lot of complications, it is an opportunity for insurance companies and drug companies and medical equipment suppliers to make billions and billions of profits rather than to see our money go into health care and making people well.”
