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Sandy,
This article is filled with so much inaccurate information, your valid point that single payer is the best solution is lost.

According the the Kaiser Family Foundation, by May 2007 100,000 uninsured people had gotten insurance in MA. My understanding is that the enrollment for MassHealth (Medicaid) increase by tens of thousands. That's all good news, huge news that you brush off as a benefit for "some".

You say that the only new source of revenue is the $295 assessment on employers - Massachusetts just passed a $1 a pack cigarette tax increase which is estimated to raise $174 million to pay for health care reform.

You say that the connector board approved cut rate private policies, but MA now has a definition of insurance that far exceeds the rest of the country. Companies that used to offer "insurance" can no longer do so in MA, because a base line standard was set and it was set much higher.

Then you talk about how services are cut and how health care reform hasn't improved quality. How would a single payer system have reduced infection in a way that the individual mandate didn't? It wouldn't have, it would have expanded access more than the current health reform.

What do nurse staffing ratios have to do with the success of this program? If there was single payer in MA would there be more nurses? It's as likely that single payer would have reduced the number of nurses given that paying for it and keeping the feds matching billions would mean cutting costs somewhere...

What you're looking for is right. Single payer would be better, but any discussion on health care has to deal with the problem of the perfect being the enemy of the good. If you want to expand the number of people who are willing to fight for single payer, we need thoughtful, fact based, compelling articles (and if written by nurses, all the better) that deal with reality.