Bet you never saw that one coming.
It’s time for America to consider seriously a single-payer, government-run health system, says Max Baucus, Montana’s longest serving U.S. senator, former ambassador to China and one of the chief architects of Obamacare.
“My personal view is we’ve got to start looking at single-payer,” Baucus said Thursday night at Montana State University. “I think we should have hearings…. We’re getting there. It’s going to happen.”
It was a startling turnaround for Baucus, who eight years ago was chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee and a key Democratic leader in the political battles that ultimately passed the Affordable Care Act.
Back then, Baucus said, he felt adamantly that Congress wouldn’t pass a government-run system like Canada’s. So it was the one alternative he refused to put “on the table” for consideration.
But you can see the difference, Baucus said, when you visit hospitals on either side of the border. In Montana, half a rural hospital will be dedicated to processing medical insurance claims. In Canada, he said, just one small room is needed to verify that patients are residents.[…]
Baucus decried several changes in Congress over the last 40 years. No longer do senators get together for bourbon, or lunch in a private dining hall. Instead every lunch is dedicated to party strategizing about how to defeat the terrible people down the hall, he said. No longer can you win an election with less than $1 million, he said. Now it can cost $24 million.
Baucus also lamented the end of earmarks, which the press criticized as political “pork” for the folks back home and as “bridges to nowhere.” He spoke proudly of getting farm bills, rural hospital money, conserving open space and landing highway money for Montana that built Bozeman’s North 19th Avenue freeway interchange and interchanges in Belgrade and Billings. Ninety percent of earmarks were good, he said, and they were “the glue” that held politics together. “We got bamboozled by the press,” he said.
Keep reading…
It’s time for America to consider seriously a single-payer, government-run health system, says Max Baucus, Montana’s longest serving U.S. senator, former ambassador to China and one of the chief architects of Obamacare.
“My personal view is we’ve got to start looking at single-payer,” Baucus said Thursday night at Montana State University. “I think we should have hearings…. We’re getting there. It’s going to happen.”
It was a startling turnaround for Baucus, who eight years ago was chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee and a key Democratic leader in the political battles that ultimately passed the Affordable Care Act.
Back then, Baucus said, he felt adamantly that Congress wouldn’t pass a government-run system like Canada’s. So it was the one alternative he refused to put “on the table” for consideration.
But you can see the difference, Baucus said, when you visit hospitals on either side of the border. In Montana, half a rural hospital will be dedicated to processing medical insurance claims. In Canada, he said, just one small room is needed to verify that patients are residents.[…]
Baucus decried several changes in Congress over the last 40 years. No longer do senators get together for bourbon, or lunch in a private dining hall. Instead every lunch is dedicated to party strategizing about how to defeat the terrible people down the hall, he said. No longer can you win an election with less than $1 million, he said. Now it can cost $24 million.
Baucus also lamented the end of earmarks, which the press criticized as political “pork” for the folks back home and as “bridges to nowhere.” He spoke proudly of getting farm bills, rural hospital money, conserving open space and landing highway money for Montana that built Bozeman’s North 19th Avenue freeway interchange and interchanges in Belgrade and Billings. Ninety percent of earmarks were good, he said, and they were “the glue” that held politics together. “We got bamboozled by the press,” he said.
Keep reading…