{"id":2968,"date":"2017-09-05T16:21:04","date_gmt":"2017-09-05T20:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2968"},"modified":"2017-09-05T18:48:04","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T22:48:04","slug":"jon-walker-and-dr-margaret-flowers-debate-the-road-to-single-payer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2968","title":{"rendered":"Jon Walker and Margaret Flowers Debate the Road to Single Payer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Even if you are agree that single payer is the goal, there will be disagreements as to how to get there.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/340022866&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;visual=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Let the debate begin.<\/p>\n<p>Tensions flared in the single payer community last week as details of Senator Bernie Sanders still not public single bill leaked out.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.singlepayeraction.org\/2017\/08\/31\/single-payer-doctors-out-sanders-for-watered-down-bill\/\">Single payer doctors said the Sanders\u2019 bill isn\u2019t single payer &#8212; because it allowed the private health insurance industry to stay in the game.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Physicians for a National Health Program, the leading single payer doctors group, said they couldn\u2019t support the Sanders bill if it included co-pays or other cost sharing measures.<\/p>\n<p>Jon Walker and Dr. Margaret Flowers have both been active in the movement to bring single payer to the United States.<\/p>\n<p>But they disagree on how to get there.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/singlepayeraction\">For an hour, Walker and Flowers debated the Road to Single Payer in the inaugural Single Payer Action podcast hosted by Russell Mokhiber. <\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/shadowproof.com\/2017\/07\/24\/heres-national-single-payer-health-care-plan-work\/\">Walker has put forth a detailed proposal called the Medical Insurance and Care for All Program (MICA). <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Under Walker\u2019s plan, if you are employed, then your employer is required to sign you up for MICA or a better plan.<\/p>\n<p>If you are not employed, then you are automatically signed onto MICA and you pay for it through taxes.<\/p>\n<p>The rich can opt out of MICA for private insurance. There are still multiple payers, but Walker believes that the public Medicare like payer &#8212; MICA &#8212; will dominate the field. People on the current Medicare can stay with it if they like, but Walker says most would go with MICA because it will be better.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/healthoverprofit.org\/\">Flowers supports HR 676<\/a>, the single payer bill in the House. It\u2019s one payer, based on the current Medicare, but better, with no co-pays and no deductibles.<\/p>\n<p>Flowers has recently been critical of Sander\u2019s watered down single payer bill.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSanders has it backwards,\u201d Flowers said. \u201cRather than starting from a position of strong legislation and building support for it, he is starting from a position of weak legislation that he considers to be more politically feasible. By doing so, he is losing the support of the movement that he needs to pass expanded and improved Medicare for all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Walker\u2019s plan is based on plans put forth by Jacob Hacker and former Congressman Pete Stark.<\/p>\n<p>Walker says he would support HR 676 if it can be passed. But he doesn\u2019t believe it can be passed. He says he crafted his proposal as a way to get to single payer without generating additional opposition.<\/p>\n<p>Walker says that if you are going to do something as big as single payer, there are going to be people who are automatically opposed to it &#8212; the insurers, the hospitals, the drugmakers. They are going to oppose any plan, he says.<\/p>\n<p>But there is another set of people who don\u2019t like change or who might lose out if you change the tax structure of how you\u2019re paying for different things, Walker says. \u201cThose people you can win over if you do it right or you can lose if you do it wrong,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy bill is aimed at those people,\u201d Walker said.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Flowers said that Walker\u2019s plan is similar to compromise plans put forth in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt has failed every time,\u201d Flowers said. \u201cMagically thinking that we are going to create a public plan that is better than the private insurers and they are going to just slink away into the night and then we will have single payer &#8212; it\u2019s not a reality. To believe that we can put that money into a public insurance and have it outperform private insurers is another huge lift. What we are seeing even with our non-profit insurers is that they have to behave like the private insurers in order to keep their doors open. That means shifting as much cost onto people as possible and restricting and denying payment for care.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe already have this growing movement for single payer,\u201d Flowers said. \u201cThis is the time to be pushing for single payer. If we are going to fight this fight, let\u2019s fight the fight for what people want.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.singlepayeraction.org\/2017\/09\/05\/jon-walker-and-dr-margaret-flowers-debate-the-road-to-single-payer\/\"><em>(via Single Payer Action Newswire.)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even if you are agree that single payer is the goal, there will be disagreements as to how to get there. Let the debate begin. Tensions flared in the single payer community last week as details of Senator Bernie Sanders &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2968\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2968"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2973,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2968\/revisions\/2973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}