Vermont Takes a look at Single-Payer Healthcare

Dave Weigel takes a look at the plans in Vermont, and gives a little Canadian background:

The people who want America to adopt a single-payer health care system like to tell a story. It's about how universal care had a demo in one of Canada's less populous provinces, where it proved so popular and successful that the rest of the country couldn't help but copy it. "Saskatchewan was the first province in Canada to get universal health care," said Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., outside Capitol Hill on Tuesday. "The most beloved Canadian is Tommy Douglas, who started it."

In the early 1960s, under Premier Tommy Douglas, the rural Canadian province introduced something like Medicare that covered everyone. Panic and protests ensued. The province had to import doctors temporarily to cover for the ones who'd gone on strike. But the plan worked. It was popular. By the end of the decade, all of Canada had the plan. And in 2004 Douglas was named the "greatest Canadian" in a poll, surging past Wayne Gretzky, Pierre Trudeau, and the bassist from The Tragically Hip. So that part's not hyperbole, either.

I can only imagine the conservative gloating if doctors went on strike in Vermont, even if the storm passed and the program spread.  If my healthcare treatment is going to be determined by either a for-profit corporation or a government, please give me the government.  It is time to have a real discussion about health care, the status quo is broken, but half of the United States does not want to admit it.