Obama, Axelrod should push single-payer plan

Regarding the article “Axelrod meets with lawmakers to discuss healthcare reform themes”:

I first became aware of David Axelrod’s talents when I was a young man in Chicago volunteering with the Harold Washington re-election campaign in 1987. Faced with the challenge of reframing white Chicago’s opinion of their brilliant black mayor, he began to craft the strategies that would lead to Barack Obama’s victory in the presidential race two decades later. The campaign he devised succeeded in overcoming this country’s racist legacy.

I only wish he would now use those reframing skills to devise a strategy for the implementation of a single-payer healthcare plan. Max Baucus has taken single payer off the table because, he suggests, the will isn't there. But isn't it up to the president to create that will? Surely at this time of crisis in the healthcare industry, great talents like Obama and Axelrod can hit the dance floor with a persuasive case for the only solution that serves all Americans while saving us money and eliminating bureaucracy. We elected that talent. Now let’s put it to use.

Steve Blank

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