As many of you know, I have been a national advocate for decades for single-payer health care for all. In that capacity, I have been working side-by-side with groups like Progressive Democrats of America, the National Nurses United (NNU), and many other committed activists on behalf of single-payer health care. So, on the eve of what could be an important U.S. Supreme Court decision -Thursday- on health care, I have happily agreed to become a member of PDA's National Advisory Board.
I have been particularly impressed over the past few years with PDA's emphasis on an "inside/outside" strategy. Along those lines, I just concluded a strategy meeting with members of the PDA national team in Chicago, discussing a focused plan to build support for Medicare for All among candidates and elected officials.
We need to support those elected officials who have been brave enough to stand up for Medicare for All in the Congress, and we need to back those candidates with the courage to stand up for single-payer health care in their campaigns.
I will be organizing among my friends in the medical community who support single-payer health care, to help raise $50,000 to build support for the "inside" candidates we need to support to push Medicare for All:
Candidates like Rep. John Conyers, who has led the fight for single-payer health care in the Congress for years, but who is facing a stiff challenge this year, after GOP state legislators gerrymandered his district;
Candidates like Dr. David Gill, currently leading in the race for an open seat in downstate Illinois, and a true advocate for single-payer health care for all.
We are also committed to raising these funds to build the "outside" support base for Medicare for All on an ongoing basis, so that we can push forward a single-payer health care plan in the Congress and in the states, while taking advantage of any openings created by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision.
I am committed, as I have always been, to working within my community to build support for single-payer health care for everyone--and I am proud to join with PDA in that fight.
Everybody in, nobody out. Healthcare, not warfare.
Thank you,
Dr. Quentin Young
PDA Advisory Board
Obamacare Down, Single-Payer Up
If Obamacare is struck down, the short-term implications are uncertain. Conservatives may be buoyed by an election-year victory; progressives may be energized by a ruling that looks more political than substantive. The long-term consequences, however, are obvious: Sooner or later, a much more far-reaching overhaul of the health-care system will be inevitable.
The only choice is to try to hold the costs down. President Obama tried to make a start with a modest approach that works through the current system. If this doesn’t pass constitutional muster, the obvious alternative is to emulate other industrialized nations that deliver equal or better health-care outcomes for half the cost.
If the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare, a single-payer system will go from being politically impossible to being, in the long run, fiscally inevitable.
Americans will might know in the next decade why the Obama administration ignored the single-payer system -already on the books with Medicare, Medicaid and Tricare - and that could have saved the Obamacare in the first place.
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