What Is Single-Payer?

Single-payer is health care paid for by the federal government. Insurance companies take 20% of every health care dollar for overhead (CEO salaries etc.). Most other western industrialized countries have universal healthcare (single-payer covering every citizen). We have a profit-driven system that is much more expensive and that does not cover everyone. Single-payer is Medicare without the 20% co-pay. The cost is covered usually by taxes that everyone pays. If I move to Canada and want to be covered by their healthcare system, I have to pay a 15% tax on income. In this country, medical expenses are the number one cause of personal bankruptcies. I would rather pay 15% than have a medical bill I could never pay off. (My last MRI had a price tag of $8000.) I would like to be able to go to the doctor and not get a bill. Even Cuba and France have universal healthcare. Medicaid (government paying for poor people's health care) is sometimes called single-payer but in actuality, the funding comes from both the individual states and the federal government.

Republican-led states that rejected Medicaid expansion (paid for by the federal government) have people who are uninsured because they make too little to qualify for the ACA (Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare) health insurance exchange (insurance with premium subsidies), but who make too much to qualify for that state's Medicaid program. The Medicaid expansion was supposed to cover every citizen who did not qualify for the ACA, but Republicans sued for the right of individual states to reject the expansion.

Single-payer would be a form of universal healthcare for U.S. citizens.

Why I Am a Progressive Democrat

A word about why I am a Progressive Democrat.

I got tired of all of the lies and confusion about Social Security and about health insurance so I did research. I have not received formal training in these subjects. But one day I realized that the Republicans in my state were telling one lie after another. The Democrats were better, but even they had problems with the truth (such as claiming that someone investing $1 in a business was a small business owner).

So I started looking things up and reading a lot, and I used original sources whenever possible (such as the Social Security Annual Trustee's Report). And I saw that the conservatives in Washington D.C. had become radical conservatives, interested only in ideology and money at the expense of practicality and common sense. I saw members of the GOP sign pledges for absolutely no tax increases, and I saw them claim that the government was going broke because of entitlements (such as Social Security, a self-funded program). I saw Bush and the GOP pass tax cuts for the rich while putting the expense of the Afghan and Iraqi wars directly onto the national debt without counting those costs in the yearly budgets (no deficits here, people!). I see politicians count Social Security surpluses in their budgets to make their deficits appear smaller. I see false claims about how the GOP is the party of fiscal conservatism, and Democrats are tax-and-spend.

I used to think I was a Republican. Turns out I am a Progressive Democrat. I don't put God and Greed above country and fellow citizens. I believe government and regulations have a place in our lives. I don't want corporations trashing our planet or dumping toxic wastes into our rivers and oceans or stealing our money or not paying their fair share.

I want to see roads, bridges, libraries, well-funded public schools, worker protections, fiscal protections. I want gender and racial equality, and I want our police trained to use non-lethal force. I don't want schizophrenics to have guns and I don't think people need machine guns. I want the Constitution followed without lies about our founding fathers' real intentions.

I think the government should be blind as far as religion goes. I want the government to stop making laws regarding religion; I want churches to be tax-exempt as non-profit charities rather than because they are religious organizations. I want patriotism to mean taking care of veterans and soldiers, the poor and the elderly, the children and the sick. Patriotism is not about waving guns and flags and wearing lapel pins, proclaiming that people who criticize our government don't love our country and should leave because they are not true Americans. Patriotism is about actions that show you really do love your country, not empty rhetoric.

I don't like the hate shown towards other people and other groups. I don't want people judged by the color of their skin, their country of origin, their age, their gender, their choice of partners, their religion, their political views or lack thereof, their professions, their health, the straightness or number or color of their teeth. I want people to be judged by how they treat others, how they treat their country, how they treat our planet.

I don't believe in American Exceptionalism; I believe that we can learn from other countries. I don't think that Climate Change is just a hoax. I believe in science, in its methods of verification and validation. Newton's Laws of Gravity are just a theory, the same as Climate Change. Ignore either at your peril.

Yeah, I used to be a Republican. I'm better, now.

The GOP Philosophy Explained

Universal Healthcare is part of social responsibility, a concept that the radical conservatives consider anathema. We are the richest country on Earth, and our healthcare is third-world.

The radical conservative ideology is the concept of individual responsibility. You are responsible for your welfare and the welfare of your family. Government, like a good father, should not be enabling dependency by giving anything to people, be it unemployment, healthcare, Social Security, heating assistance, Head Start for preschoolers, community block grants or Medicare. They believe that people are inherently lazy and that adverse financial situations are their own fault. They believe that medical maladies are the result of bad behavior, and people should suffer the consequences of their behavior. They claim that capitalism is the solution. They say that the free market is inherently moral and self-correcting. If companies do bad things, the market will punish them. No regulations needed. If businesses want to pay less than the minimum wage or hire children, they should be allowed to. If workers do not like those wages, they are free to work elsewhere. The free market is their God and Ayn Rand (Paul Ryan's favorite author) is their prophet.

As for morals, government as the good father should regulate people's behavior. No abortions, no same-sex marriages. In the name of religion and the free market, people should be free to discriminate against other people who are seen as less moral.

There is no social responsibility in today's conservative movement. Conservatives don't see why successful "good" people should subsidize less worthy and less responsible people. Nobody is a victim of circumstances, they are just victims of their own behavior.

Radical conservatives disparage Black Lives Matter by saying that All Lives Matter, ignoring the slaughter of innocents that the BLM movement is trying to bring attention to.

Patriotism and love of country in their view means supporting gun rights, flag-waving, admiring traditional values as expressed by some romanticized version of the Confederacy or of some period in the past where people were not coddled by a nanny state. Their view of patriotism ignores fighting for soldiers' and veterans' rights and working to take care of children, the elderly, the disabled, the disadvantaged and the working poor, working for better conditions for everyone, and working for clean air and water and soil and for a planet that will be livable for generations to come. They do not understand that true patriotism comes not just from saying you love America, but from actions that show you really do love your country.

Finally, American Exceptionalism. We are the innovators. We do not look to other countries for solutions. Radical conservatives disparage and tell lies about the health care in countries with Universal Healthcare. Our solution is market-based insurance, a capitalist's solution. No socialism here.