In this year’s health reform debate, Congressional Democrats quickly took proposals for a single-payer system off the table, claiming it was "unrealistic."
But more than 9 million people in the U.S. have already signed on to a single-payer system that’s proved both workable and popular: TRICARE, the Department of Defense’s program for active-duty military and retirees.
Even more interesting: According to a Facing South analysis, nearly half of TRICARE beneficiaries live in the South — states where Congressional leadership has been most vocal in opposing public involvement in health care.
Last week, a top-rated diary at DailyKos by a person claiming to be "an active duty obstetrician/gynecologist in a major medical facility on the East Coast" noted that:
9.2 Million active duty and retired uniformed service member and their
families receive their healthcare from the federal government. My
family and I receive free healthcare from the federal government … I am struck however that nobody has brought up the simple fact that
the government already provides free healthcare in a single payer model
to over 9 million of its population.
I decided to look into where TRICARE beneficiaries were located. According to my analysis of TRICARE data, 47% — nearly half — of the 9.2 million using TRICARE are based in 13 Southern states.
Overall, six of the 10 states with highest number of TRICARE beneficiaries are in the South. This makes sense given the high number of military bases in Southern states, as well as the concentration of active-duty and retired military in states like Virginia.
The high Southern enrollment in government-run TRICARE, where the military pays private doctors in a single-payer system, seems at odds with the vocal opposition of Southern lawmakers to anything smacking of public involvement in health care.
Take South Carolina: The Palmetto State has the 8th-highest TRICARE enrollment in the nation, nearly a quarter-million people. But South Carolina’s overall population ranks only 24th nationally — meaning that the share of South Carolinians using TRICARE’s single-payer, government option is one of the largest in the country.
Contrast TRICARE’s popularity in South Carolina with these words from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) last week, who has led the Republican party’s attempts to torpedo health proposals that involve the government:
"[Democrats] think we’re stupid," said DeMint. "They think that you don’t know
that government does not work well, that the same people who cleaned up
after Hurricane Katrina are the ones who can really run our health care
system with that personal touch that we all want … They’re talking about a government plan that can do things that no government plan has ever done."
The 233,725 people who chose to use TRICARE in DeMint’s home state likely disagree.
20 Comments
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About The Seminal
Advanced search
Excellent diary. Thanks for bringing this to Oxdown.
Thanks for this! I remember that very diary and it is excellent.
This is why more and more Americans want single-payer: They know it works.
Unrealistic. Hmmm, isn’t that what Bristol Palin called abstention?
Hey PW … is that Coleman-Franken thing over yet ? *g* We’ll miss your updates …
Chris, thanks for this diary !
The same people who cleaned up after Katrina should be shockingly familiar to Senator Deminted since they are all in his fucking party. It is a wonder these bastards don’t just spontaneously combust.
I guess I’m missing something, but Medicare is single payer, and it doesn’t have the problems that single payer opponents are claiming. On top of that, what in the world does the AZ legislature have in mind with the no-government-insurance guarantee that they just passed? The woman that started it was interviewed on the ED Show, and she made no sense whatsoever. This law is supposed to give the people of AZ more options because they won’t have government insurance as an option; they will be able to buy whatever they want. She doesn’t address the problem of them not being able to buy it now.
I saw that as well, kept waiting for Ed to ask about those folks who can’t afford to “buy” healthcare now. What kind of choice do they have?
As far as the woman not making sense, what republic idiot ever made sense?
Tricare recipient here. The way the law is written if you have any other insurance it must be used before tricare except for indian health care.
How Tricare works
Tricare has a network of civilian providers, and could be described in that aspect as a “public option”, government-run health insurane plan.
But it is less enlightened than that in one respect, in that, for reasons not explicable on the basis of efficiency, it hires a private plan to maintain that network of civilian providers. In that, it is similar to Medicare Advantage or Medicare Part D. In all three, the government hires a private industry middleman which adds nothing but another layer of bureaucracy, for no apparent reason other than to provide a gravy train for the industry.
Tricare is more enlightened, downright socialist, though, in that some of the medical services are supplied by government-employed providers. The three services all have their uniformed doctors, nurses and technicians, plus GS and contract civilian hires. If this model were made universal it would go beyond “single payer”, which would be a National Health Insurance, straight into a National Health Service, such as in Great Britain. But if single payer is off the table as just too darn un-American, I guess an explicitly socialist National Health Service is flat-out unthinkable in this country — well, except for our military, who must be Communists or something, not to have complained all these years that they have been subjected to the Red Star medicine provided by their medical commissars.
But the American people want it. It’s off the table for many senators and congresscritters. So, I figure it is very All-American and those senators and congresscritters opposed to it are subversives.
Answer me this boys and girls…. Why can’t we put together new version of the “Louise and Harry” ads that destroyed the Clinton efforts on heath care to say……”I can’t believe that we said those things. We believed what they told us and they lied to us. How can we get people to understand what is really going on now. We need some truth in this discussion and I guess we’re the only ones qualified to tell everyone the truth. Our insurance now costs us thousands and they don’t even pay for asprin.” Will some of you good media people try and put this together? Let’s beat them with their own tools.
We treat lots of Tricare insured in our office. Ask almost any one of them what they think about “single payer” or any other term you might prefer and you’ll hear about how it’s creeping socialism. This is the fracking South. Don’t ask it to make sense…
At the Virginia Town Hall today Pres. Obama did a little bit of the red pill blue pill comparison and I think the audience liked it. Of course, they’re always going to be a bit in awe of the pres. because of his position…and the really nice suit. But, they applauded some and smiled a lot when he made the comparisons.
Not sure whether Harry & Louise is good, but maybe Bill & Hillary?
How about “Are You With Us Or Against Us?” “Us” is the American people and around 70% of us want the public option. The ones who are against us are funding too many of our senators and congresscritters to oppose us. Again, they are trying to subvert the will and interests and health of the American people. They are subversives.
Your health is not a commodity.
Your health is not a profit center.
Single payer now.
Thanks for an excellent diary. As someone noted not so long ago John McCain has been covered by socialist healthcare plans all his life. Our active duty military, Tricare covered military retirees, and Medicare are all “socialist” healthcare plans that work. All Americans should be given the choice of a “socialist” healthcare plan or a patriotic one run by the insurance industry. I don’t see how Congress members could object to such a choice without impugning the honor of all Americans.
About 1 in 19 South Carolina residents use Tricare (233k tricare users, 4.4M people in South Carolina).
How many uninsured I wonder?
At the very least, HR 676 should be pitched not as Medicare for all, but as TriCare for all.
Chris Kromm is the Executive Director of the Institute for Southern Studies and the publisher of the site Southern Exposure. It’s a great resource for anyone interested in “understanding” the modern south.
Many Dems and Repubs are addicted to the money from insurance companies. Less profits; less money for campaign contributions. It’s all about the money.