November 14, 2002
THE FINAL NAIL IN THE COFFIN:
Gore Supports Single-Payer (Mark Halperin, Elizabeth Wilner, and Marc Ambinder, November 14, 2002, ABC News: The Note)Al Gore now supports a single-payer national health care system.On a stage in a synagogue on New York's Upper West Side Wednesday night, Gore made this stunning announcement to several hundred people in response to a question from the event's host.
Gore suggested he was hesitant to reveal his position at this forum — but then declared that he had come "reluctantly" to the conclusion that single-payer is the best solution to the nation's health insurance crisis.
He offered no details for what kind of system he would favor, or how he would propose transitioning to such a massive change.
Afterward, a Gore spokesman said that the former Vice President would offer more specifics in the future for what kind of plan he envisions.
Long supported by the left, single-payer plans involve all money spent on health care being collected by some public agency or trust fund, which then pays for comprehensive coverage, delivered privately and publicly, for all citizens.
Issues of taxation, quality of care, availability of care, and medical innovation are all implicated in such a system, with Canada's plan often used as the basis for understanding and analysis.
For Gore, this represents a shocking switch. Although many of the people who worked with Hillary Clinton and Ira Magaziner on the Clinton health care plan at the start of the Clinton/Gore Administration were intellectually and morally sympathetic to single-payer, it was rejected as being simply too radical and too big a political target.
I may volunteer to work on his campaign here in NH just because he'd lead the Democrats to a worse defeat than in 1994. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 14, 2002 9:03 PM
And Oliver Willis is promoting Gore as someone who will lead the Democrats back to the center!
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at November 14, 2002 8:19 PMYes, because last Tuesday was all about the need to move left.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 14, 2002 8:33 PMIf you are on the Left Canadian/British style health care is the Center.
Posted by: oj at November 14, 2002 10:38 PMThis issue is hardly a dead issue though. In a flat inflation time, health care costs are what keeps inflation flat when basic commodities are deflating. Even federal workers are getting nicked with 10-20% increases in health care payments.
Posted by: Tom Roberts at November 15, 2002 7:35 AMDon't kid yourselves. The Democrat party knows what it's doing lurching to the left.
Lots of people agree that we need the government to pay for all health care and a lot more their little perks.
Of course, those are the same people who pay little or no taxes.
Now we can look forward to a media blitz on the poor people who can't get 'quality' health care. Our local liberal rag here in East Central Florida has a front page article about how difficult it is to get specialists to accept Medicaid payments.
So. We already have government paid health care for the downtrodden. We also pay for taxi rides to the healthcare givers, free drugs, etc. but it still isn't good enough.
Taypayers unite.
they don't vote though.
Posted by: oj at November 15, 2002 7:42 AMThere is, of course, a logic to the Dem's move left. Their best chance for 2004 is for the country to suffer either an economic or military disaster, and they may need both. If this happens (and G-d between us and evil, ptuh, ptuh, ptuh), a left-wing Dem will have the best chance in the primaries and almost any Dem will win the general.
The problem is to realize that your best chance is national disaster, but not to seem to be hoping for or welcoming that disaster. That's extremely hard, but if they don't do it right and we avoid disaster, they're toast for the rest of the decade and maybe (pace
Orrin) till mid-century.
Now, did it seem to anyone else, as it seemed to me, that Senator Daschle was a little too eager to claim that the reemergence of OBL was (a) proven and (b) an omen of impending disaster?
Note that I am not accusing the Dems of either hoping for or working towards disaster, but rather just noting that they are in the unfortunate position of being assisted by disaster while their opponents are assisted by success.
Remember last year, every time Daschle criticized the progress of the war we had a big win and yesterday there were reports our Intelligence has OBL pinpointed in a mountainous region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It's almost like Daschle is a double agant for the GOP.
Posted by: oj at November 15, 2002 12:01 PM