single payer

This weekend I had the opportunity to join a few fellow bloggers and interview Elizabeth Edwards. I had written a post last week arguing that there was not a huge controversy between the advocacy of Michael Moore for single payer health care in SiCKO and the presidential contender plans that would by and large stay within the private health insurance industry. This was an opportunity to put that to the test. I opted to ask Elizabeth about the differences between single payer and John's plan and she immediately emphasized that they really were not that far apart.

They are not that different... And honestly single payer is not going to pass in this country. It is not going to happen. We may get to single payer, but we are not going to jump to single payer.

John is in favor of bold moves about a lot of things, but we have to be realistic and the point is to get people covered. So, John's program allows private insurers, if they bid and are willing to follow a pretty stringent set of rules to participate. But he also has a government option.

After a bit of back and forth, Elizabeth explicitly presented the Edwards plan as a transitional piece of legislation between the current system and single payer. She highlighted the support from Paul Krugman and another health policy expert at Princeton that John has the best plan.

It's got the specificity, got the capacity to pass and is actually is probably our most logical path for us to take, if we are ever going to get to single payer.

This is right in line with what I have been writing on these pages. The interview was the first time that I have seen a campaign argue along these lines. The country is not in a place to pass single payer right now. First people need to see that the government can provide affordable, more efficient health care, before there is support for a truly universal governmental program. It is fascinating to see this kind of progressive policy argument be made.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a sneak peek screening of Michael Moore's new film SiCKO. Several blogger reviews are already out, Brian Leubitz, nyceve, Randy Bayne and fnpople. Instead of another review, what I would like to talk about is the political message of SiCKO, as it relates to the California health care debate. Two years ago, Michael Moore set out to make a documentary on America's health care system. He could have focused on any number of topics, including big PhRMA, or the millions of uninsured, but settled on the failure of private health insurance.

In the end, the film is one big advertisement for single payer health care. Naturally, Moore teamed up with CNA here in California for a series of events. Moore is not shy about his goals. He wants to start massive grassroots movement to institute a national single payer system and use this film to do it. However, Moore went out of his way to support Fabian Nunez and his efforts to reform the current system, holding both a press conference and the screening for legislators and other guests like yours truly. Moore recognizes the current political atmosphere here in California. It is what he is trying to change by making this film, promoting it and framing the discussion of the film politically. If millions of Americans watch this movie, their political outlook on health care policy will change. SiCKO is that powerful.