<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.23520">
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=davidjohnson1451@comcast.net
href="mailto:davidjohnson1451@comcast.net">David Johnson</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=davidjohnson1451@comcast.net
href="mailto:davidjohnson1451@comcast.net">David Johnson</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, September 28, 2013 10:46 PM</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>
<H1 class=txttitle>People Want Full Medicare for All</H1>
<P class=txtauthor><FONT size=4><STRONG>By Ralph Nader</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=txtauthor>"The Democrats did not support it!! Nancy Peelosi put it "off
the table" when polls showed 74% of Americans wanted it. In order to get any
change in our rotten government we must face the fact that the Democrats are
just as rotten and corrupt as the Republicans. Until we face that---more cuts,
more austerity, more wars, more money to the big bankers when they belong in
jail."</P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG><IMG border=0
src="http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-F.jpg">reshman
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who somehow got through Princeton and Harvard Law
School, is the best news the defaulting Democratic Party has had in
years.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>As the Texas bull in the Senate china shop,
he has been making a majority of his Republican colleagues cringe with his
bare-knuckle antics and language. His 21 hour talkathon on the Senate floor
demanding the defunding of Obamacare made his Republican colleagues cringe. His
Nazi appeasement analogies, and threats to shut down were especially
embarrassing..</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>After listening to his lengthy rant on the
Senate Floor on Tuesday and Wednesday, one comes away with two distinct
impressions. Ted Cruz cannot resist inserting himself here, there and
everywhere. And nothing is too trivial for Senator Talkathon. He likes White
Castle hamburgers, he loves pancakes; he talked about what he liked to read as a
little boy, where he's travelled, what clothes he wears and other
trivia.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>You'd think he would have used his time to
talk specifically about the suffering that uninsured people and their children
are going through, especially in the Lone Star State. Or about what could
replace Obamacare other than his repeated "free market" solution, which is to
say the "pay or die" profiteering, tax-subsidized corporate
system.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>It was puzzling why he never mentioned that
during his two days of talking, over two hundred Americans died, on average,
because they couldn't afford health insurance to get diagnoses and timely
treatment. (A peer reviewed </STRONG></FONT><A
href="http://www.pnhp.org/excessdeaths/health-insurance-and-mortality-in-US-adults.pdf"
target=_blank><FONT size=4><STRONG>study by Harvard Medical
School</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=4><STRONG> researchers estimated about
45,000 die annually for lack of affordable health insurance every
year.)</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>The other reaction to Senator Cruz was that
many of his more specific objections to Obamacare - its mind-numbing complexity,
opposition by formerly supportive labor unions, and employers reacting by
reducing worker hours below 30 hours a week to escape some of the law's
requirements - are well-taken and completely correctible by single-payer health
insurance, as provided in Canada. Single-payer, or full Medicare for all, with
free choice of physician and hospital has been the majority choice of Americans
for decades. Even a majority of </STRONG></FONT><A href="http://www.pnhp.org/"
target=_blank><FONT size=4><STRONG>doctors</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT
size=4><STRONG> and </STRONG></FONT><A
href="http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/affiliates/entry/california-nurses-association"
target=_blank><FONT size=4><STRONG>nurses</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT
size=4><STRONG> favor it.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>Single-payer's advantage is that everybody
is in, nobody is out. It is far more efficient, allows for better outcomes,
saves lives, prevents injuries and illnesses, relieves people of severe
anxieties and wasted time spent figuring out often fraud-ridden, inscrutable
computerized bills and allows for the collection of pattern-detecting data to
spot harmful trends.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>For example, in Canada, full Medicare
covers everyone at half the per capita cost that Americans pay even though 50
million Americans are still not covered. The U.S. per capita figure is almost
$9,000 a year and over 17% of our total GDP. In Canada, administrative costs are
much lower.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>Symbolically, the single-payer legislation
that passed in Canada over four decades ago was 13 pages long, compared to over
two thousand pages for Obamacare.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>Critics of Canada's system charge it with
delays for patients. For some elective procedures, provinces that were
under-investing have experienced some delays until Ottawa raised its
contributions. Canada spends just over 10% of its GDP on healthcare, by
comparison.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>But in the U.S. not being able to pay for
treatment is the biggest problem. And in the U.S., who hasn't heard of delays in
various areas of the country due to lack of primary care physicians or other
specialties? I have many friends and relatives in Canada who have not complained
of delays for routine, essential or emergency treatments.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>For those who prefer to believe hard-bitten
businesspeople, Matt Miller, writing yesterday in </STRONG></FONT><A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/matt-miller-canadians-dont-understand-ted-cruzs-health-care-battle/2013/09/25/ee2d6e6e-25d9-11e3-b75d-5b7f66349852_story.html"
target=_blank><FONT size=4><STRONG>The Washington Post</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT
size=4><STRONG>, interviewed big business executives - David Beatty who ran the
giant Weston Foods and Roger Martin long-time consultant to large U.S. companies
in Canada. They were highly approving of the Canadian system and are baffled at
the way the U.S. has twisted itself in such a wasteful, harmful and
discriminatory system.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>Mr. Beatty wondered why U.S. companies
"'want to be in the business of providing health care anyway' ('that's a
government function,' he says simply)."</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>Mr. Martin, an avowed capitalist, who has
experienced healthcare in the U.S. and Canada, according to Mr. Miller, called
Canadian Medicare "incredibly hassle-free," by comparison. (In Canada,
single-payer means government insurance and private delivery of healthcare under
cost controls). Now Dean of the business school at the University of Toronto,
Mr. Martin told reporter Miller: "I literally have a hard time thinking of what
would be better than a single-payer system."</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>So why the U.S. is the only Western country
without some version of a single-payer system?</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>Most concessionary Democrats, including
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, have said in the past that they prefer
single-payer, but that the corporate forces against it cannot be overcome. (They
use phrases like "single-payer is not practical.")</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>But with the Cruz crew in Congress going
berserk against Obamacare, now is the time to press again for the far superior
single-payer model. Or at least get single-payer into the public discussion.
Unfortunately, even some of the major citizen groups organized for single-payer,
behind H.R. 676, are keeping quiet, not wanting to undercut Obama and the
Congressional Democrats.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P class=indent><FONT size=4><STRONG>Go to </STRONG></FONT><A
href="http://www.singlepayeraction.org/" target=_blank><FONT
size=4><STRONG>Single Payer Action</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=4><STRONG> and
connect with the movement that does not play debilitating politics and seeks
your engagement.</STRONG></FONT></P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>