Dr. Manning Marable is wrong in criticizing Senator Obama for refusing to support forced payments to insurance companies.  The individual mandates supported by Senator Clinton - the coercion by law of the population of Massachusetts (and all of us) – forces all citizens to purchase insurance mediated by a bureaucratic “Connector Board.” This is another innovation whose main purpose is to continue the privatization of healthcare, forcing people to purchase from insurance companies sometimes inferior products, but always providing more and more profits to the insurance companies who have served us so poorly and have killed so many of our family members by rejection and denial. The criminalization of those who cannot pay is no way to provide healthcare.

This wacky scheme was inspired by the Heritage Foundation, one of the most conservative institutions in the country, as a means of providing more support to corporations, their main concern. Along with Heritage, the biggest supporters have been Senator Clinton and Republican Governors Romney and Schwarzenegger.

Some people from Massachusetts (the cradle for this new plan) who are suffering under this new mandate have told me that, even though they now have to pay an increasing penalty for not being able to purchase the insurance company product, they are forced to pay the penalty - this year forfeiting their income tax rebates - next year and into the future, more and more penalties. Will they be put in jail for failing to provide a new boondoggle for the insurance companies - already choking on the huge profits they get from us - or will they just continue to pay penalties, while still having no healthcare coverage?

What we really need is a national single-payer system that eliminates the useless role of the insurance companies, thereby providing enough money to pay for quality guaranteed healthcare for every single resident of the United States. Unfortunately, Senator Obama is not quite at that position either. John Edwards was closer. We have to help Senator Obama if he is to move in our direction. In the meantime, it is inconceivable that anyone would promote such a plan that would cost billions more (when spread out across the country) and still leave us at the mercy of insurance company premiums, co-pays, deductibles and denials.

But the politicians are afraid of the insurance companies. That’s sad for our country, but possibly it will change with the new energy of the Obama supporters who will not be fooled by bureaucratic concessions to the insurance company perpetrators of diminished healthcare in the U.S.

Remember history. FDR did not run on a platform to create Social Security and other progressive legislation. but his rhetoric fueled the people's movement which in turn pushed his administration to pass the historic legislation.

We need the next president to pass a single-payer plan, such as John Conyers’ United States National Health Insurance Act. H.R. 676, already supported by 89 members of Congress. In other words, it is what we are doing, building the movement, that will bring about single-payer, national healthcare for all. Our job is to convince the president!  So yes: Don't mourn, organize!

BlackCommentator Columnist, Marilyn Clement, is the National Coordinator of Healthcare-NOW. Click here to contact Ms. Clement and Healthcare-NOW.

Click here to read any of the articles in this special BC series on Single-Payer Healthcare.

Your comments are always welcome.