Reply #11: Here's some info on single-payer health care [View All]

Honestly, though, and I think Dems should be clearer about this... single-payer is a fancy way of saying "nationalized health care." Now, the concept of nationalized health care is very misunderstood, and is often portrayed by Republicans as a bad thing. It's not.

As I understand it, single-payer essentially means that the government administrates and finances health care, but delivery of health care remains private. That's a fundamental difference between "nationalized health care" and the dreaded "socialized medicine" that Republicans get all freaked out about. It is far cheaper for the government to administrate health care than the private insurance companies, which is our current system. Single-payer is the system used in Canada, which is similar to the health care system proposed by Clinton in the '90s. Here's some good information on how it works:

http://bcn.boulder.co.us/health/healthwatch/canada.html

If you saw the "West Wing" live debate a few weeks ago on television, the character played by Jimmy Smits endorsed such a plan; he essentially called it "Medicare For All." I sincerely feel that Democrats could make more leeway on this issue and idea if we referred to it that way... it's something Americans can understand clearly, since many already know how Medicare works.

For the record, Herstal, I'm supporting Hackett too. While Paul has yet to form a detailed issue paper about health care, he has often advocated expanding access to all Americans. I'm confident Paul will flesh out this idea very soon, as the primary battle begins to heat up.

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