Why settle for a national electronic health database?

I'm not sure what other ways the case for universal single-payer health care in the US needs to be made. My personal favorites are the historical/economic perspective Malcolm Gladwell provides in his 2006 piece for the New Yorker that remains one of my favorite non-fiction works of this decade (you know, the only one in which I've been able to drive so far and stuff), and Michael Moore's documentary SiCKO (which I feel OK plugging on Facebook because taking pot shots at the Flint haruspex has reached the level where he, like Manny Ramirez, has become unfairly undervalued as a contributor to our society). The human rights aspect of the discussion is self-evident. And yet, the best that Obama and his highly touted if not entirely novel National Coordinator of Health Information Technology have given us is promises of establishing a national electronic records system.

Even my beloved Progress Report never mentions the promised land of universal single-payer in its on-going coverage of the struggle to get a national electronic records system. Instead, they are focusing on the duplicity of right-wingers like Elizabeth McCaughey. Come on, that's so 2003 even Al Franken and I have moved on! Where are the prophetic voices continually calling out for this much-needed change? They are not on the fringe, yet they are not in the MSM. They are lost in the realm of ideas that are acknowledged to be valuable but "unrealistic", like evolving past the electoral college, legalizing marijuana, and getting rid of the designated hitter.

I leave you with another set of prophetic words, from the great Walter Sobchek: "Hey dude, don't go away man. Come on, this affects all of us man. Our basic freedoms! I'm staying. I'm finishing my coffee. Enjoying my coffee."