Of course. And "not all of which" is far too weak. It should be "almost all of which." But that is irrelevant to my point.
One problem is that people do not always know for sure what they want. In 1936 what millions wanted but did not clearly enough know they wanted was the Townsend Plan. As a result, they only got the dry bread of Scoial Security. At present what 10s of millions sort of want but don't quite focus on is single payer; what they really want but don't realize at all is a National Health Service.
The power relatiolns re single payer are complex and I don't know them clearly enough. (How powerful _within_ ruling circles is the Insurance Industry? Are interests interlinked or is it merely a matter of 'ruling class' solidarity as analyzed ecades ago by Sweezy & Baran -- others rally around insurance even though it is not in their interest.????) But I strongly suspect that only a mass campaigh demanding a Natioanl Health Service even has a chance of getting Single Payer. (Andre Gorz (in what follows "Council Flats" is a metonymy) noted long ago that workers would not go to the barricades for 5000 more Councnil Flats. I don't think they will go to the barricades for _either_ single payer or a NHS as long as these issues exist on their own. What generatees mass campaigns is an issue which can be expressed in one (or perhaps 4) words: NO, or No God Damn It. But if some such explosion should occur in the U.S. a demand for a NHS would almost certainly be generated _within_ that movement, and then who knows.
A word on "in the streets" - also metonymnic. A petition campaign, with actual pieces of paper with physcial signatures and addresses can be "in the streets." (And probably even more powerful if what is submitted are photocopies - which offer prrof tha someone somewhaere has a mailing list in his/her possession.) An internet petition campaign or individual letters are not. While our Founding Fathers were mostly pricks, they were on the nose in giving constitutional sanction to public petitions but didn't bother to mention private letters to Congress. A petition is hard evidence that people out there are not only talking to each other, but talking to each other in a focused and self-conscious manner.
See Lincoln Steffens on what happened when A Czarist officer shot down a student. (Hint: one of his men disapproved.)
Carrol