We’ve known it was in the fine print of Obamacare from day one. The back door incremental state by state path to Single Payer. States can implement their own innovative plans and HHS can give them a waiver to opt out of Obamacare.
Let’s just face reality. Blue states want Single Payer. Purple states are Single Payer curious. Red states are completely terrified of it. If the Obamacare debate taught us anything, it’s that it’s almost impossible to get moderates to take a leap of faith for Single Payer and that conservatives will outright fight tooth and nail against it.
So why in the world would we want to include those people in the process to begin with?
The back door allows blue states who are excited for Single Payer to implement it without any input from moderates or conservatives from purple and red states!
Let the blue states implement Single Payer and then, like marriage equality, as it proves to be everything good the blue states were claiming, the purple states will feel like it’s not only no longer a leap of faith, but the most obvious smart thing to do.
And fuck waiting around for the red states.
I’m sorry. Fuck em.
I live in Washington state right next door to conservative haven Idaho. If my state waited around until we got the permission of Idaho before we made progress, we wouldn’t have passed marriage equality and legalized pot until the god damn rapture.
Look, I feel bad for people stuck in red states who want to live in the 21st Century. I really do. But we can’t let the feet dragging of their states hold back progress in this country or we’ll never get any. Which, by the way, is the entire strategy of red states.
And I am sorry, but there’s no way in hell that any amount of marches or protests over in DC are going to do a god damn thing to pressure senators and congressmen from Idaho to back down and support national Single Payer. It’s never going to happen.
And it’s not going to happen with purple states either. And you don’t want to do it that way anyway. You don’t force progress on purple states or they get resentful and you get a giant back lash. You win them over with success in the blue states. Then the purple states have to compete with the blue states and then it’s a positive step forward for them.
I hear Bernie’s plan to pressure purple and red states into accepting progress and all I can think when I hear him say that is that he’s lived too long up in blue England and he doesn’t understand how it works in the rest of the country. I respect his passion and his determination and his downright bravery to push for this. I just don’t agree with his strategy to accomplish it.
I agree with Hillary’s plan. Continue the progress Obama made with the Democrats and Sanders. Be patient and determined and take those next steps and we will actually get where we’re going. We will get there.
And once we have both the blue and the purple states behind Single Payer, we’ll drag the red states into the god damn 21st century.