Fwd: qotd: Ed Kilgore: The Restive Single Payer Tribe

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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: qotd: Ed Kilgore: The Restive Single Payer Tribe
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 13:26:17 -0700
From: Don McCanne <don@mccanne.org>
To: Quote-of-the-Day <quote-of-the-day@mccanne.org>



Washington Monthly
Political Animal
October 21, 2013
The Restive Single Payer Tribe
By Ed Kilgore

But if I were in the White House, I'd keep an eye on one issue they
might not have thought much about in quite some time: the revival of
progressive hostility to Obamacare on grounds that the law reflected a
"sell-out" of the obvious single-payer solution to the problems of the
health care system.

I'm not going to relitigate the whole
single-payer-versus-managed-competition debate that's been going on for
decades, or even the argument that a managed competition model requires
a "public option" to function properly. But whatever else it is, a
single-payer system is a whole lot simpler and more predictable than
anything that not only accepts but insists upon a publicly regulated and
subsidized private health insurance marketplace.

Single-payer fans (or those strongly favoring a public option in a
hybrid system) are never going to have much in common with conservatives
who don't believe in universal access to affordable health care and want
to disable or repeal the public programs we already have. But if the one
thing they do have in common — disdain for the messy hydraulics of any
hybrid system — becomes the center of attention and stays there, watch out!

(Ed Kilgore is a contributing writer to the Washington Monthly. He is
managing editor for The Democratic Strategist and a senior fellow at the
Progressive Policy Institute.)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_10/the_restive_single_payer_tribe047438.php


Comment: It is fair to say that Ed Kilgore represents the views of
neoliberals who have taken control of the Democratic Party and moved it
to the right: that is, he represents centrist views. What is striking
about his message is that the intensive political attacks on Obamacare
by the conservatives are assisting single payer advocates who are busy
exposing its profound policy deficiencies. With their noise, and our
reasoned policy prescriptions, middle America may be ready to move to
single payer much sooner than expected.