By Dave Lindorff

Some critics have written, in response to my article
calling for extension of the single-payer plan called Medicare to all
Americans, that actually Medicare is a badly flawed program that leaves
America's elderly without coverage for many important health services,
and which requires them to pay for supplemental insurance, or to go on
Medicaid, too.

These critics are correct. Medicare is great as far as it goes. It
is simple for people to use, allows them to go to the doctors of their
choice, covers 80 percent of their care, and is liked by nearly all who
use it. But it doesn't pay for needed tests, only lets seniors buy
mediocre medical devices like hearing aids, and most importantly, it
has been requiring more and more contributions by the elderly year
after year. Today, Americans over 65 and the permanently disabled pay a
greater percentage of their income for medical care than they did in
1964 before Medicare was established!

But having said that, I have to say that it has nothing to do with
whether or not it makes sense to expand Medicare to all Americans as a
way to solve our health care crisis--as Rep. John Conyers' bill, HR
676, would do.

The reason Medicare is inadequate is because the Republicans and the
conservative Democrats--the very "Blue Dog" vermin who, engorged on
health insurance, hospital and pharmacy bribes and campaign donations,
are undermining and destroying the already lousy health care "reform"
plan of President Barack Obama--have been underfunding it, and
performing a slow "privatization" of the program, chipping away at its
benefits, adding increased self-pay requirements, and raising the
Medicare tax on all workers.

They get away with this treachery because their actions only affect the minority of Americans served by Medicare.

If Medicare were expanded to include all Americans, suddenly this
kind of political backsliding would be opposed by everyone who was in
the program. It simply couldn't happen. Rather, the public would, as
one, demand better coverage, fewer self-pay requirements, and an end to
supplemental insurance.

The right knows this, and the health care industry knows this, and
that is why they are all bitterly opposing the expansion of
Medicare--and yet it is so obvious that Medicare is the answer to
America's health crisis--and it's staring us all in the face. It works,
it's cheap, and it could be implemented immediately.

We are being betrayed by President Obama and by the Democratic leadership in Congress, who will not talk about single-payer.

Not one of the committees working on the health reform bill in
Congress allowed any discussion of Rep. Conyers' HR 676. Under pressure
from the public, and groups like Physicians for a National Health
Program (PNHP.org) and Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has agreed to allow a floor vote next month on
Conyers' bill, but that is a sop. Floor votes are heavily manipulated
by the leadership and never go anywhere unless a committee has already
held hearings and voted to approve a bill, which was not allowed to
happen in the case of HR 676.

The so-called "reform" bill that is going to emerge from the current
process is going to be the legislative equivalent of road kill, barely
recognizeable either as health care or as a "reform." It will be a
Christmas present for the insurance industry, the hospital industry and
the phramaceutical industry, all three of which struck secret deals
behind closed doors with the White House.

It will set back health reform in America a generation, will require
everyone to buy inadequate and overpriced insurance, overpriced drugs
and to go to overpriced hospitals. And the cost of healthcare to
individuals, businesses, and the nation as a whole (already the highest
in the modern industrial world), will continue to soar.

This is not a case where the right thing to do is push for any bill,
and then try to move on. This is a case where Obama and the Democrats
have whored themselves out to the greedy industry that is causing all
the problems, and are pushing a plan that is worse than nothing.

We should all be working to kill this whole thing and start over, with HR 676.

If Congress won't do it, we need to start working for a new Congress in 2010 that will.

No Democrat running for House or Senate in 2010 who isn't solidly for expanding Medicare to all should get a single vote.
_____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. He is author of
“Marketplace Medicine” (Bantam Books, 1992) and more recently, “The
Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work is available
at www.thiscantbehappening.net