Ed Schultz, "Single Payer Option" and my U.S. Senator

Portland, OR -- Infiltrating the historic Bagdad Theater for a Friday evening taping of Monday afternoon's Ed Schultz Show (courtesy of KPOJ-am 620), it was hot. It was Baghdad hot. But the record Oregon temperature didn't keep healthcare advocates away. Waving "Crooks in Congress Paid in Full" and "Single Payer NOW" signs, Portland progressives packed the standing-room-only theater to hear and see MSNBC/Air America's Ed Schultz turn up the heat for healthcare reform.

As Schultz fanned the just flames for a "single payer option" (curiously blurring the line between single payer and public option healthcare reform), he reminded Portland: "The mission, the mission, the mission is single payer" and U.S. Senators who stand in the way of, at the very least, public option will be sorely surprised.

So here's the playbook: Single payer is the mission. The way to get there, underscored Ed Schultz, is public option.

An unfortunate problem of the mission, however attractive of an ideal -- however noble of a national cause, is a misnomer: mission "single payer" is poorly titled. (Schultz, marrying "the option" with the single payer vernacular, got me thinking: Who's responsible for first coining the horribly unattractive moniker "single payer" for the single most important debate of our time?)

Advocates, we need a better descriptor for a plan that covers every American without question -- regardless of income (or lack thereof) and regardless of any pre-existing condition. We need a descriptor that sinks into the psyche of every caring American. We need a phrase that screams for the empathy, urgency and responsibility of a country that cares for its citizenry.

Well Care for All? National Coverage Plan? Medi-care for America? Universal something? National anything? (Please help!) Maybe it's just me, but -- no matter how ultimately attractive of a gold medal goal -- single payer is poorly marketed.

Like Ed Schultz, regardless of what we call it, I am not suffering delusions of single payer grandeur and will happily fight -- for the moment -- for the public option silver. That's the mission, right?

"Single payer is not going to happen . . . not now," announced Schultz to moans and groans of advocates. "It may down the road. But you've only got four (U.S. Senators) on the H.E.L.P. committee. How do we get the rest?"

Thankfully, Oregon's junior Senator Jeff Merkley, who visited Schultz's program, seems to get it. Serving on the aptly titled H.E.L.P. (Health, Education, Labor, Pensions) committee, Senator Merkley -- one of four U.S. Senators supportive of a single payer system whom Ed Schultz alluded to -- announced that the finance committee plan will not have a public option and the H.E.L.P. committee plan will. Further, Senator Merkley called upon advocates to, "Carry the message . . . everyone who serves in Congress needs to hear so much noise in the next few weeks."

And as anyone who listens to Schultz knows, noise is no problem. Ed pledged -- at the request of famed Portland pediatrician, Dr. Herman M. Frankel -- to reach out to a member of Congress per day until we see real healthcare reform (with, at the very least, a public option, and calling for single payer conversation to be heard).

Remember the mission.

Following Friday's event, I caught up with Tom Leedham, a Portland labor leader who, through Jobs with Justice, helped organize many of Friday's Q-n-A speakers; Dr. Rick Staggenborg, a staff psychiatrist with the VA in Coos County, Oregon; and the powerfully well-spoken Natasha "National Healthcare Refugee" Albury who passionately spoke about an injury she suffered overseas and the compassion/well-care she received in Japan versus America's $ driven system. The consensus was clear: When you have 72% of the American people calling for health care reform in the form of single-payer or public option, as Ed Schultz mentioned, we must call out U.S. Senators who fail to fall in-line behind, at the very least, a strong public option plan (like the one that stemmed from the Senate H.E.L.P. committee).

So what to do? We do the same thing we did for Barack . . . we get to work.

As Ed said, They may need some remindin'. Call your U.S. Senator today: 888-460-0813.

-Matt Keating, One in 48 million Americans without health insurance. WE NEED H.E.L.P.!