John Lacny wrote:
>I am not sure what the hell you want.
-For a start, I'd like organized labor to sign onto single-payer and -throw serious resources into it.
Okay, so where are those tens of millions of dollars going to come from? Unions had to spend about $100 million on Arnie's initiatives out in California, so a nationwide set of single payer initiatives would probably costs on the order of $300-$500 million. Unions could do it but they would have to drop other work.
And why should they drop those other campaigns given the fact that the single payer initiatives that have gone to a vote have been defeated massively? You cite general polls on health care, but when the rubber has hit the road on actual state votes, the single payer initiatives have gone down to defeat. The reason unions have turned to fair share and other incremental measures is because of hard analysis of those other single payer campaigns.
As I've said (not that you seemed to notice), but fair share legislation is one strategy for getting eventually to single payer. Make health care a legal responsibility of employers and a lot of them will suddenly become far friendly to a single payer plan that would cut administrative expenses and be more efficient. But you only get those employer allies once they have that legal responsibility. Without it, they'll fight the taxes involved in single payer tooth-and-nail and just dump their health care responsibilities all together.
-Oh, and somehwere along the way, I'd like Nathan to come to his -senses. He's too talented to be arguing such nonsense.
I'm not even sure you understand what I'm arguing -- other than maybe a disagreement on the best use of half a billion dollars by unions in 2006 -- but I will make the reality check that I'll be promoting any real single payer campaign in the states as part of my work.
And by the way, in my rather crude issues website I created for my short-lived non-profit -- which will be mostly folded into the website at my new organization PLAN -- I had a page devoted to single payer as a progressive issue. See: http://www.agendaforjustice.org/universal_health_care/
And yes, I had highlighted the Kuehl bill in California along with a few other documents.
So Doug, you just seem to be taking a tactical disagreement to a high principle, which is disturbingly common on this list but kind of silly.
Nathan Newman