Kucinich Predicts Retreat On Health Care Reform

Friday, August 14, 2009
Topics: Politics, Health
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Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich says he doubts the health care bill taking shape in Congress will succeed. He spoke with WVIZ's Dick Feagler. Ideastream's Bill Rice reports.

Much of the controversy surrounding health care reform has swirled around the so-called public option - a government insurance plan that would compete with private insurers.  Congressman Kucinich wants the public plan to be the ONLY option; in other words, a single payer government system for everyone.  Kucinich has for years been pushing such a plan.  He says the problem with the U.S. system is the layer of bureaucracy imposed by insurance companies.  Cut the private health insurers out of the mix, he says, and affordable, universal coverage is within easy reach. 

Kucinich:  “One out of every three dollar goes to the activities of the for-profit system.  They cream it right off the top for corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, the cost of paperwork.  If you took that 800 billion dollars a year, which is what that represents, and put it into care for people you’d have enough to cover everyone, doctor of choice, vision care, dental health, mental health care, long term care, prescription drugs - we’d all be covered.”

Kucinich says anything less amounts to just a subsidy to the insurance industry.  He’s a co-sponsor of House Resolution 676, introduced early this year by Michigan democrat John Conyers.  It’s a bill that would extend medicare, the single payer government insurance plan for seniors, to all Americans.  So far only 85 house members have signed onto the single payer bill, and for now it looks to have little chance of gaining much traction. 

But Kucinich thinks the outlook this year for ANY reform looks bleak. 

Kucinich:  “I don’t think there will be a bill brought to the president’s desk.  I think that it’s been mishandled and that we need to go back to the American people, and I’m certainly ready with John Conyers and 83 other members of Congress to push for our single payer proposal.  But we have to show people why it’s important.  We need to listen to them first about their tale of woe.”

Bill Rice, 90.3