A single payer perspective on what happened this year and where we need to go from here

I'll be speaking as a longtime single-payer and women's health activist and a socialist. Briefly, single payer national health insurance is actually a modest reform, not the "end point," as many in the health-care reform movement portray it. Whether or not single payer national health insurance was "winnable" in this round, certainly compromising with that position in favor of a "public option" was a tactical mistake. PPACA, the current health-care law, will not solve our health-care mess.

Many of us in the campaign for national health insurance, especially those of us who identify as socialists, recognize that national health insurance is only a small step in the direction of health-care justice, levelling the playing field so that working-class Americans, Americans of color, immigrants, women, members of the LGBT community and all who struggle to find competent, compassionate medical care can begin to do so. What this campaign doesn't even begin to address is the content, quality and hierarchical nature of the medical system, nor the far broader issue of the social determinants of health, of which just health care is but a small part.

The Socialist Caucus will have a session on this issue directly following this one, and we invite you to continue the discussion there!