Should universal care advocates bite their tongues on single-payer?
And that’s exactly what CARA and dozens of other groups are currently doing in California, said Reid. “We’re trying to get the message out to our officials and also to the public,” Reid said. “Health reform was a very historic effort to get us started on this conversation, but our role is to continue the conversation where the national legislation left off, because it cannot end here if we want everybody to have health care they can afford. We would never have advanced this far if we had simply stopped at health care reform.”
Are we asking the right questions?
According to Don Bechler, the chair of Single Payer Now in California, Americans are currently asking the wrong questions about improving the health care system.
“I’m not for a single-payer system because it will reduce costs, although it would,” Bechler said. “I’m for it because we are not supplying quality health care to millions of people in this country.”
Bechler said that the focus on reducing costs has distracted Americans from the real goal, which, he said, should be increasing the level of care for everyone. “People say, we spend 15 cents on the dollar for health care in this country, and that’s too much. But if we spent 18 cents, and people would live five years longer, would you go for that?”
Remapping Debate asked AARP’s John Rother whether the debate over health care should first start by asking how we can achieve the highest-quality care possible for all, not with questions of cost.
“That’s exactly the right question,” Rother said, “and we’re a long way away from that.”
Because at least part of the single-payer bill in California will likely be put on the ballot in coming years for residents to vote on directly, Reid said that public education is also a huge part of the coalition’s work.
An incremental approach?
Rother, reciting AARP’s extensive experience in conducting educational campaigns, says these campaigns can often take several years to be effective. Nevertheless, AARP has not published any material relating to single-payer health insurance on its website, in its several hundred page policy book, or through its Public Policy Institute. He did say that he thought it was useful for other groups to do research and education on a single-payer model could function in the United States.
AARP representatives in California and Vermont explained that the organization’s strategy, which is largely determined by the national organization, was currently to wait and see how the debate over single-payer played out in those states.
“Reasonable people can disagree about the best system for universal health care,” said Mark Beach, communications director for AARP California. “As far as single-payer goes, it would be nice if there was a robust public discourse about that…but our focus at this point is to do our best to see the [Affordable Care Act] implemented.”
Beach explained that, when it came to policies that would radically alter the way that health care is delivered, “AARP takes a more incremental approach to that kind of thing.”
“It’s fine to take incremental steps,” CARA’s Reid countered, “but you need to have a vision of where you want to end up, and how you’re going to get there.”