[lbo-talk] response to Fitch on single-payer

[Gar Lipow]

On 2/7/06, Nathan Newman <nathanne at nathannewman.org> wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
>
>
> [Fairness dictates that I forward this weak response to Fitch's NYT
> op-ed. It has to concede that US unions have lagged badly on pushing
> for single-payer. Note that SEIU is missing from the list of good
> guys; as Fitch points out in his book, when Sweeney was running the
> union, it voted against campaigning for single-payer.]
>
> As I detailed, SEIU janitors locals walked out of the 1994 California single
> payer campaign because the "good guys" in the single payer camp decided to
> screw over immigrant workers.
>
> Honest single payer advocates to this day admit that this is a big drawback
> to single payer.  See the California HealthCare Foundation site here:
> http://www.chcf.org/topics/healthinsurance/coverageexpansion/index.cfm?itemID=105322&model=single_payer
>
> "By generally accepted standards of fairness, the single-payer approach
> rates high in terms of providing access to coverage. This approach achieves
> universal coverage without requiring anyone to pay premiums, with the
> important exception that it does not cover undocumented immigrants. "
>
> Frankly, until the single payer folks make real universal coverage explicit
> in their plans, meaning covering the undocumented, put me in the opposition
> camp.
>
> Nathan

The plan in  Oregon, for  all it's policy errors (putting a ceiling on
percentage of incomd tax) and political mistakes (mounting a campaign
with inadequate resources) did cover everybody. It used the word
"resident" without any modifiers such as "legal" or "permanent". Our 
lawyers assured us this covered all Oregonians citizen or non-citizen,
documented or not.