Center for American progress unveils universal healthcare plan

Read it here

The problem with this plan is it does nothing to solve the problem that we pay 2X as much per person for healthcare - most of which is in administrative costs - as any other country.

This well-intentioned approach is similar to that of Kerry and others - it covers everybody, but still tosses a huge bone to the insurance companies and other middlemen who want to keep their finger in the pie. A single-payer plan doesn't have that problem - it gives us the common-sense and less expensive system that all other developed nations have, by getting rid of these middlemen.

ALSO, this type of plan preserves the emerging 2-class system in which Medicaid is of much poorer quality than that provided by private insurance or Medicare because those on Medicaid don't have the political power to improve the coverage options. A single-payer plan doesn't have that problem.

On the other hand, I've heard the argument that if you provide the option of medicaid for all those who don't get employer-sponsored insurance, more and more employers will choose to pay the cheaper tax and not provide private insurance. So gradually more people get on Medicaid, which gives the Medicaid lobby more power and improves the quality of medicaid care. This snowballs until everyone's on Medicaid and everyone votes to make it a great system - thus providing a kind-of free-market evolution towards single-payer. My problem with this: if you want single-payer, advocate for it - any plan to "evolve" towards it may leave us with something even worse (again).

Hat tip to ThinkProgress