Yeah, one of the things that really bugs me is the imprecise slogan "health care for all," or similarly, "Medicare for All."  It can mean a number of things: single payer, fairly comprehensive but with co-pay, or something like Romney.  I think Jacob Hacker is pushing the third, but I could be wrong. (His book "The Divided Welfare State," which explains the entrenchment of this system of private/employer provision, is well worth reading, even if the obligatory "what is to be done?" section at the end is rather weak.) <div>On 7/4/06, Doug Henwood <<a href="mailto:dhenwood@panix.com">dhenwood@panix.com</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> On Jul 4, 2006, at 7:27 PM, Auguste Blanqui wrote: > The thinking of people like Stern is that such laws will make the > costs (rising as they always are) increasingly annoying for > employers like W-M, and that in what may be one of the strangest > cases of bedfellowism ever, they will lobby for national health > insurance out of economic self-interest. As the article says (and as Adolph Reed pointed out when I talked with him the other day), it's not likely to be a single-payer bill, but something like the Massachusetts plan, which is a fraud. Doug ___________________________________ <a href="http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk">http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk </a> </blockquote></div>