Single Payer Health Care … It’s in Your Hands

TRUMP WATCH--Last column, we affirmed our certainty that Donald Trump is going down.  Either Mueller will indict or he won't. And we believe he will. It's not our political problem.

But we are nearly as certain that, left to their own devices, the Democratic Party will fumble its chance to fully regain power in Congress and take back the White House.

This is where YOU come in.

It's been a long time coming, but Bernie now says he will be introducing his new single payer health care bill in the Senate in two weeks.

We encouraged you to speak out to Bernie himself, to demand it happen sooner than later. We have no doubt that is at least part of why this is happening now, rather than later.

Don't ever discount the power of your voice. Even those who are not naturally friendly to our cause WILL be moved if enough if you speak out. Use the social media to share Bernie it with everyone else you know.

We got one of their typical email solicitations from the DCCC, asking us to respond to their "survey" of what issues they should be fighting for. Conspicuously and deliberately ABSENT was any option for single payer Medicare for All. Instead the only choice was "Affordable Care Act." That's like pick a card, any card, but the deck is all jokers. The other cards were preemptively removed from the deck.

If clinging to the corporate corruption of the so-called Affordable Care Act is the banner for the Democratic Party in 2018 or 2020, we can expect minimal and temporary gains if any. But if we all rally around single payer, as the only "Economical and Efficient replacement, and offer all of our citizens what they really want (60% already), and what will really work, the sky is the limit.

Never forget that it was dissatisfaction with so-called Obamacare that cost us all that political power in the first place. Now that the Republicans have fumbled the ball trying to connive a way to disguise death panels (appropriate 10% of what is needed and call it a block grant) as some kind of reform, we have the mother of all political opportunities.

The people who wanted something better, and who thought they were voting for something better, and got conned by a vague promise that could never be honored, are still out there. Our job is to actually stand for something specific and better, and KEEP demanding that our representatives deliver on it after they are elected.

The reason the Republicans failed to pass any of their own dummy proposals was because they KNEW how bad they were, which they had conveniently kept a secret for the 7 years they had otherwise correctly condemned the Affordable Care Act, as had we from the beginning although for different reasons. The difference is we condemned it because we wanted the Democrats to win, while the Republicans wanted just the opposite, and were just out to take partisan political advantage.

It's now time to make our move on Single Payer Medicare for All, the people's move.

And let's finally get it "right" this time.

(Michael N. Cohen is a former board member of the Reseda Neighborhood Council, founding member of the LADWP Neighborhood Council Oversight Committee, founding member of LA Clean Sweep and a contributor to CityWatch.)

-cw