All Entries Tagged With: "single payer"

Single payer fight moves to states

Swanson: Obama pushes out Kucinich single payer amendment that enables states single payer health care.

First-of-Its Kind Study: Medicare for All (Single-Payer) Would Be A Major Stimulus for Economy

First-of-Its Kind Study: Medicare for All (Single-Payer) Reform Would Be Major Stimulus for Economy with 2.6 Million New Jobs, $317 Billion in Business Revenue, $100 Billion in Wages

Establishing a national single-payer style healthcare reform system would provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs, and infusing $317 billion in new business and public revenues, with another $100 billion in wages into the U.S. economy, according to the findings of a groundbreaking study released today. It may be viewed at www.CalNurses.org.

The number of jobs created by a single-payer system, expanding and upgrading Medicare to cover everyone, parallels almost exactly the total job loss in 2008.

“These dramatic new findings document for the first time that a single-payer system could not only solve our healthcare crisis, but also substantially contribute to putting America back to work and assisting the economic recovery,” said Geri Jenkins, RN, co-president of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association, which sponsored the study.

Full Story: First-of-Its Kind Study: Medicare for All (Single-Payer) Reform Would Be Major Stimulus for Economy with 2.6 Million New Jobs, $317 Billion in Business Revenue, $100 Billion in Wages.

119 Million Americans Want a Public Health Option — Why Aren’t Politicians Listening?

Rarely has an issue more dramatically highlighted the question of whether our government represents the people’s interests or an industry’s.

119 Million Americans Must Be Wrong

By Robert Parry

As the health insurance industry and its defenders in Congress lay out their case against permitting a public option in a reform bill, perhaps their most curious argument is that some 119 million Americans are ready to dump their private plans and jump to something more like Medicare – and that’s why the choice can’t be permitted.

In other words, the industry and its backers are acknowledging that more than one-third of the American people are so dissatisfied with their private health insurance that they trust the U.S. government to give them a fairer shake on health care. The industry says its allies in Congress must prevent that.

The peculiar argument that 119 million Americans must be denied the public option that they prefer has been made most notably by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which is one of two panels that has jurisdiction over the health insurance bill.

“As many as 119 million Americans would shift from private coverage to the government plan,” Grassley wrote in a column for Politico.com. That migration, Grassley said, would “put America on the path toward a completely government-run health care system. … Eventually, the government plan would overtake the entire market.”

via Consortiumnews.com.

A Seat at the Table for Single-Payer

A Seat at the Table for Single-Payer

This week, Senator Bernie Sanders has been firing on all cylinders as he continues his advocacy for real healthcare reform that controls costs while extending quality care to every American. Monday he held a town meeting in Burlington to discuss what we can learn from other countries that have developed cost effective universal health care systems. On Tuesday he met with President Obama along with other members of the Finance and Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committees responsible for drafting the Senate’s healthcare legislation. Yesterday he arranged a meeting between single-payer advocates and Finance Chair Max Baucus–Baucus had previously not only denied them a seat at the table for his hearings but even had some arrested.

I had the opportunity to speak with Senator Sanders this evening as he took a brief break from ongoing discussions within the HELP Committee, and prior to his making the case for single-payer on The Ed Show (a case Schultz has featured on his five-night-a-week MSNBC program and in town halls across the country). This is what the Senator had to say:

Q: Tell me about the purpose of the meeting with Senator Baucus today?

Senator Sanders: The truth of the matter is–and I say this not ideologically but just from an objective analysis of the health care situation–the only way you’re gonna provide comprehensive, universal, and cost-effective healthcare to every man, woman, and child in this country is through a single-payer system. That’s just a simple reality. And the reason for that is that to pay for universal comprehensive healthcare you have to deal with the enormous amount of waste that is currently within the private health insurance industry. The estimate is about $400 billion a year in administrative costs, in billing, in profits, in CEO compensation, in advertising–all of those things which have nothing to do with the provision of healthcare…

via A Seat at the Table for Single-Payer.

Single-payer health care supporters rally Friday

Single-payer health care supporters rally Friday

Supporters of a system of national health insurance for all citizens are holding rallies in six Montana cities Friday, to urge Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., to consider it as a possible reform.

“Only a single-payer system will meet the stated goals of President (Barack) Obama, by both providing heath care for all and bringing costs down significantly,” says Rick Meis, an organizer of the Bozeman rally.

National health insurance, known as a “single-payer” system of financing health care, would provide the same, taxpayer-funded health insurance for all citizens.

The government would become the “single payer” of basic medical bills, negotiating payment to private physicians, hospitals and other providers. This public insurance would largely replace private health insurance and cover all citizens equally.

Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and a key player in health-reform legislation this year, won’t support a single-payer system and says it won’t be considered in the reform discussions.

Single-payer advocates packed many of the Baucus-sponsored public “listening sessions” held across the state last week, and have scheduled public rallies this Friday in Billings, Missoula, Helena, Butte, Bozeman and Great Falls.

via helenair.com.

Max Baucus Should Not Be Deciding Health Care for America

Max Baucus Should Not Be Deciding Health Care for America

The “Senator for K Street” is Putting Campaign Donor Profits Ahead of the Basic Needs of the People

Senator Max Baucus and the Senate Finance Committee are too corrupted by corporate health industry profiteers donations to give America the health care policy it needs.

Health care is 15% of the U.S. gross domestic product. U.S. health care expenditures, which have been rising rapidly for several years, surpassed $2.4 trillion in 2007, more than three times the $714 billion spent in 1990. The cost of health care is projected to reach $4.4 trillion by 2018. There is a lot of room for corporate profiteering in the increasing cost of health care. The millions the health care industry has invested in Baucus and the Senate Finance Committee could therefore turn out to be very profitable.

It is evident that any bill that comes out of the Senate Finance Committee will be a pro-industry bill that will ensure trillions in profits for the health insurance industry, HMOs and the pharmaceutical industry.

Baucus has held two hearings so far and has refused to allow advocates for the most popular reform—a single payer national health policy—to even testify. Single payer “improved Medicare for all” is favored by more than 60% of Americans as well as majorities of doctors, nurses and economists. It is the most cost-effective and efficient way to provide health care to all Americans from cradle to grave.

Why aren’t single payer advocates allowed to testify before Baucus’ committee? Follow the money. Campaign donations explain why, and demonstrate that the Senate Finance Committee should not be in charge of health care. Senator Reid should remove the health care reform bill from Baucus and start all over before the Health Committee in the Senate.

Here’s why Baucus is not doing the people’s business:

via Max Baucus Should Not Be Deciding Health Care for America.

Petition: I demand congress and the President enact single payer universal health care.

OPS:  Sign the Single-Payer petition on Obama’s website.  Health Insurance Corporations are Parasitic Dinosaurs. They must go extinct if we are to move forward, if we are to survive.  People Over Corporations

~~~~~~~~~

I demand congress and the President enact single payer universal health care.

Dear Sir,

Congress and the President must enact S 703 single payer universal health care and set up a newprescription drug benefit in Medicare Part B covering 80% of the cost of all drugs with no extra monthly premiums, no extra yearly deductible, no means tests, no coverage gaps, and remove the means test for Medicare Part B and untilthat happens, I refuse to buy ANYTHING from Republican contributor Rite Aid Pharmacies.

[Your name here]

via Change.org – I demand congress and the President enact single payer universal health care..

Single-Payer Actions Planned in Over Fifty Cities

Single-Payer Actions Planned in Over Fifty Cities  | CommonDreams.org

Activists of every stripe take to the streets to support single-payer

NATIONWIDE – May 28 – As the Obama administration calls for health reform to be done this year, people in support of improved Medicare for all, a single-payer national health system, take to the streets in over 50 cities around May 30th. Single-payer advocates support the removal of for-profit insurers from providing basic health care, which would create enough savings, an estimated $400 billion a year, to guarantee health care to all. The Obama administration has repeatedly stated that single-payer is not being considered as an option for reform.

Town hall meetings, protests at insurance companies, rallies in state capitols, and vigils in memory of the 22,000 people who die each year because they lack health insurance will be taking place across the country. Members of Healthcare-NOW!, Progressive Democrats of America, the California Nurses Association, Physicians for a National Health Program, and the Green Party have largely mobilized around the day of action under the umbrella of the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care, a coalition of national organizations supporting national single-payer legislation.

A 2008 study shows 59 percent of U.S. physicians now favor government legislation to establish national health insurance. This alongside a recent CBS Poll showing 59 percent of Americans in favor of government-provided national health insurance reflects the growing support for single-payer. Supporters are angered as leading advocates supporting this solution are left out of the national debate on health reform.

Earlier this month, a total of 13 people, physicians, nurses and activists, were arrested for standing up in the Senate Finance Committee roundtable on health and demanding single-payer be considered. There have been 41 witnesses in the Senate Finance Committee discussions on health reform, without one single-payer advocate.

“A growing majority of physicians support a national health program because they cannot practice quality medicine until private insurers are removed from interfering in medical decisions and denying needed care. Health care providers are now willing to engage in acts of civil disobedience in order to show that health care reform is about improving patients’ health, not bailing out insurers. Health care is the civil rights issue of this decade,” states Dr. Margaret Flowers, one of the physicians arrested in the Senate Finance Committee.

“Advocates for single-payer represent the marginalized majority. The people deserve a fair hearing on health care reform. The nationwide day of actions shows that single-payer advocates refuse to be silent.” states Katie Robbins, Assistant Coordinator, Healthcare-NOW!

As of yet, a single-payer system is the only plan that would be truly universal and guaranteed to contain sky rocketing health care costs. Many of the best health care systems in the world are single-payer systems. In addition to saving lives, it would end bankruptcies caused by medical debt and remove financial barriers to care.

“The single-payer solution meets President Obama’s three core principles,” said Tim Carpenter the national director of Progressive Democrats of America. “It would reduce costs, guarantee choice, and ensure all Americans have quality, affordable health care; it provides far more in savings than any other option being considered.”

via Single-Payer Actions Planned in Over Fifty Cities | CommonDreams.org.

Single Payer: Not Cash Cows, but Good Neighbors

Single Payer: Not Cash Cows, but Good Neighbors-  by Caroline Arnold

I’ve never been good at believing conspiracy theories. Most of them presume conspirators who are supernaturally smart, know things they couldn’t possibly know, and are inhumanly successful in organizing and carrying out devious plots and grand schemes.

Yet in the current rococo debate about overhauling our health care system I find myself drawn to the argument that the health-insurers are trying to maintain a system that extracts profits from the misfortunes of sick people and poor people. I invoke the notion of moral hazard: a policy that tempts entities to do morally questionable things.

Example: In 2003, when I had chest pains, I was whisked through tens of thousands of dollars worth of tests and a hundred thousand dollars in triple-bypass surgery. It probably prolonged my life, though less expensive treatments might have done just as well. Who knows?

via Single Payer: Not Cash Cows, but Good Neighbors | CommonDreams.org.

Health Care Activists Lament Single-Payer Snub

Health Care Activists Lament Single-Payer Snu

Frustrated by the exclusion of government-financed medical care from the debate to revamp the nation’s troubled health system, advocates of a “single-payer” plan are increasingly turning to demonstrations and civil disobedience as a way to get their message across.

During Senate Finance Committee hearings May 5 and 12 on health reform, 13 doctors, nurses, lawyers and activists stood up to complain that no single-payer proponent had been invited to take part and were arrested for disrupting the proceedings.

On Friday in San Francisco, about 200 single-payer proponents held a rally in front of the Federal Building and headed in small groups to Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office to urge the speaker of the House, who was in China, to back single-payer legislation and give its supporters a seat at the table of the health reform debate. The public appeals were part of a series of demonstrations being held in more than 50 U.S. cities over the next few days to encourage lawmakers to enact a single-payer plan.

Some advocates of a nationalized health plan are calling for activists to become even more militant.

via Health Care Activists Lament Single-Payer Snub | CommonDreams.org.

Single-payer idea gets attention

Single-payer idea gets attention – BillingsGazette.com ::

Baucus health plan not enough, say some at meetings

By MIKE DENNISON Gazette State Bureau

ANACONDA – In a packed meeting room Wednesday at Anaconda’s hospital, state worker and Butte resident Anna Dockter asked U.S. Sen. Max Baucus’ chief of staff the question on everyone’s mind: Why is national, public health insurance for all not being considered as a reform option?

“We’re all recounting our experiences with private health insurance,” she said. “We have pretty good insurance, and we’re still paying thousands of dollars” for medical care.

John Selib, Baucus’ chief of staff in Washington, D.C., gave the same answer he gave four hours earlier at a similar meeting in Dillon: A national “single-payer” health plan won’t pass Congress.

“There is a single-payer bill introduced in the Senate,” Selib said. “It does not have a single co-sponsor. There’s some pretty simple arithmetic you need to do. … It takes 60 votes to pass something in the Senate.”

via BillingsGazette.com :: Single-payer idea gets attention.

Saying Private Competition Isn’t Cutting It, Leahy Defends Public Health Option

Saying Private Competition Isn’t Cutting It, Leahy Defends Public Health Option  – On The Hill:

Competition among private insurers alone isn’t containing skyrocketing health costs, which is why a senior Democratic senator says he supports offering a public health option in reform of U.S. healthcare. That a coalition of health organizations recently came together to control costs should not preclude a public option, says the lawmaker, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

“Competition among private insurers has not driven down costs to consumers and the current private insurance market has a clear incentive to offer coverage only to the healthiest Americans,” says Leahy, one of the most progressive members of the Senate. “Comprehensive health care reform can change this calculus and that is why I support the creation of a federally backed, public health insurance option. For those who are satisfied with their current insurance there is no need to change.

“A public option would only give consumers more choices to purchase an affordable and quality health insurance plan and will help drive down overall health care costs by introducing real competition into the health care market,” Leahy adds. “I was proud to join Senator [Sherrod] Brown [D-Ohio] and over 20 other Senators to introduce a resolution stating our support of a public option as part of comprehensive health care reform legislation.”

via On The Hill: Saying Private Competition Isn’t Cutting It, Leahy Defends Public Health Option.

Bill Moyers Journal – Donna Smith & Single Payer

OPS:  A MUST SEE!

Video, Transcript IPOD download

Bill Moyers speaks with advocate Donna Smith about how our broken system is hurting ordinary Americans.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the JOURNAL. Health care reform. It’s the talk of the town – if the town is Washington, D.C. But some possible reforms aren’t being talked about at all. Not officially, that is.

The White House and Congress have kept the lid on one of the most controversial but popular options, known as single-payer. It’s a story the mainstream press has largely ignored and that’s why we are covering it in this broadcast.

You don’t expect to see these people demonstrating in our nation’s capitol. You’ll most likely encounter them in the examining room, the operating theater, the clinic or the laboratory.

They’re doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals, unaccustomed to making themselves heard in the streets.

Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen | PBS.

Bill Moyers: Rx and the Single Payer

Rx and the Single Payer  | CommonDreams.org

by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

In 2003, a young Illinois state senator named Barack Obama told an AFL-CIO meeting, “I am a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program.”

Single payer. Universal. That’s health coverage, like Medicare, but for everyone who wants it. Single payer eliminates insurance companies as pricey middlemen. The government pays care providers directly. It’s a system that polls consistently have shown the American people favoring by as much as two-to-one.

There was only one thing standing in the way, Obama said six years ago: “All of you know we might not get there immediately because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate and we have to take back the House.”

Fast forward six years. President Obama has everything he said was needed — Democrats in control of the executive branch and both chambers of Congress. So what’s happened to single payer?

A woman at his town hall meeting in New Mexico last week asked him exactly that. “If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think that the idea of moving towards a single-payer system could very well make sense,” the President replied. “That’s the kind of system that you have in most industrialized countries around the world.

via Rx and the Single Payer | CommonDreams.org.

Baucus Flees From Single Payer Advocates

Baucus Flees From Single Payer Advocates

Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) drove up to the Kaiser Family Foundation in downtown Washington, D.C. this morning.

His initial idea – park on G Street in front of the office building – and walk in the front door to meet reporters gathered inside.

But activists from Single Payer Action were out front, waiting to question Baucus about why, over the past two weeks, he ordered thirteen of them arrested, handcuffed, and charged with “disruption of Congress.”

Upon seeing the activists gathered at the front door, Baucus drove down a back alley to a rear service entrance.

The activists followed him down the back alley.

Baucus pulled up to Kaiser’s service entrance.

A large metal door opened.

“I asked Baucus to roll down his window so I could ask him a question,” said Russell Mokhiber of Single Payer Action and the first of person arrested at the Senate Finance Committee on May 5. “But he shook his head no.”

Baucus drove into the service entrance and the security guards rolled down the metal door. (See video here.)

via Baucus Flees From Single Payer Advocates « Single Payer Action.

Why We Risked Arrest for Single-Payer Health Care

Why We Risked Arrest for Single-Payer Health Care

by Margaret Flowers, M.D.

On May 5, eight health care advocates, including myself and two other physicians, stood up to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and the Senate Finance Committee during a “public roundtable discussion” with a simple question: Will you allow an advocate for a single-payer national health plan to have a seat at the table?

The answer was a loud, “Get more police!” And we were arrested and hauled off to jail.

The fact that a national health insurance program is supported by the majority of the public, doctors and nurses apparently means nothing to Sen. Baucus. The fact that thousands of people in America are dying every year because they can’t get health care means nothing. The fact that over 1 million Americans go into bankruptcy every year due to medical debt – even though most of them had insurance when they got sick – means nothing.

And so, as the May 5 meeting approached, we prepared for another one of the highly scripted, well-protected events that are supposed to make up the “health care debate” using standard tools of advocacy. We organized call-in days and faxes to the members of the committee requesting the presence of one single-payer advocate at the table of 15. Despite thousands of calls and faxes, the only reply – received on the day before the event – was, “Sorry, but no more invitations will be issued.”

We knew that this couldn’t be correct. We had heard Sen. Baucus say on that very same day that “all options were on the table.” And so, the next day, we donned our suits and traveled to Washington. We had many knowledgeable single-payer advocates in our group. And as the meeting started, one of us, Mr. Russell Mokhiber, stood up to say that we were here and we were ready to take a seat. And he was promptly removed from the room.

In that moment, it all became so clear. We could write letters, phone staffers, and fax until the machines fell apart, but we would never get our seat at the table.

via Why We Risked Arrest for Single-Payer Health Care | CommonDreams.org.

Stop the Single Payer Shut-out!

Stop the Single Payer Shut-out!

by Ralph Nader

Among the giant taboos afflicting Congress these days is the proposal to create a single payer health insurance system (often called full Medicare for everyone).

How can this be? Don’t the elected politicians represent the people? Don’t they always have their finger to the wind?

Well, single payer is only supported by a majority of the American people, physicians and nurses. They like the idea of public funding and private delivery. They like the free choice of doctors and hospitals that many are now denied by the HMOs.

There are also great administrative efficiencies when single player displaces the health insurance industry with its claims-denying, benefit-restricting, bureaucratically-heavy profiteering. According to leading researchers in this area, Dr. David Himmelstein and Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler, single payer will save $350 billion annually.

Yet, on Capitol Hill and at the White House there are no meetings, briefings, hearings, and consultations about kinds of health care reforms that reform the basic price inflation, indifference to prevention, and discrimination of health insurers.

There is no place at the table for single payer advocates in the view of the Congressional leaders who set the agenda and muzzle dissenters.

Last month at a breakfast meeting with reporters, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) responded to a question about health care with these revealing and exasperating words: “Over and over again, we hear single payer, single payer, single payer. Well, it’s not going to be a single payer.”

via Stop the Single Payer Shut-out! | CommonDreams.org.

Ed Schultz Talks to Dr. Margaret Flowers About Single-Payer and “The Table”

YouTube – Ed Schultz Talks to Dr. Margaret Flowers About Single-Payer and “The Table”.

Doctors, Single Payer Activists Arrested, Make History at Senate Finance Roundtable …by Donna Smith

Doctors, Single Payer Activists Arrested, Make History at Senate Finance Roundtable …by Donna Smith

It has finally happened right here in the United States. Citizens who believe healthcare is a human right have been arrested and are being processed like criminals through the Southeast District of Columbia police station. Their crime? Asking for single payer healthcare reform – publicly funded, privately delivered healthcare – to be discussed during the Congressional hearings on reform.

Doctors and other single payer activists were handcuffed and went to jail today speaking up for single payer to be at the table in the Senate finance Committee’s roundtable discussion on healthcare access and coverage. In stark contrast, Karen Ignagni, head of the industry lobby group American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) was escorted into the room like royalty by staff members of the Senate committee. Clearly, the position of the United States Senate is not with the majority of Americans who support a national, public insurance system.

It made me physically ill to see Maryland pediatrician Margaret Flowers cuffed like a criminal and pushed out the door as the Senators waited to begin their staged roundtable discussion. It made me want to scream. It made me proud of them for being bold but ashamed that not one Senator spoke up for their own citizen-protestors and asked that they at least be allowed to speak. But the insistence that the citizens rising in protest be arrested continued from the chair with each incident.

via MichaelMoore.com : Doctors, Single Payer Activists Arrested, Make History at Senate Finance Roundtable …by Donna Smith.

Bernie Sanders on Ed Show: “Dems Have Super-Majority To Demand Single-Payer Universal Health Care”

OPS: Nice thought!  But Bernie is assuming that Frankendems like LIEberman, Specter, Blue Dogs and DLC are going to support it

YouTube – Bernie Sanders on Ed Show: “Dems Have Super-Majority To Demand Single-Payer Universal Health Care”.

The Health Care Industry and their Capitol Hill Protectors Are Sabotaging Our Chance for True Reform

The Health Care Industry and their Capitol Hill Protectors Are Sabotaging Our Chance for True Reform

By Marie Cocco, Washington Post Writers Group.

So far we have “reformed” the health insurance system by reinforcing precisely what’s wrong with it.

Every so often, I remember Ronald Reagan fondly — not for his policies but for his skill at the art of persuasion. Right now, for example, I’d like to call the Gipper back to cock his head, give us that quizzical look and say “There you go again.”

Yes, there they go again. They are the defenders of the health care status quo — that is, the insurance industry and its protectors in both parties on Capitol Hill. And they have been frantically arguing these past few weeks that any coming reform of the health insurance system cannot, should not — and will not, if they have their way — include a public insurance plan that uninsured individuals can turn to if they find themselves without affordable insurance, or any coverage at all.

Maintaining what amounts to a monopoly on insurance for the working-age population has become a central goal of the insurance industry, which rightly fears that the government will provide more comprehensive coverage at a lower cost. This is, of course, the whole point of overhauling the insurance system. But never mind.

via The Health Care Industry and their Capitol Hill Protectors Are Sabotaging Our Chance for True Reform | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.

Burn Your Health Insurance Bill Day: New Group Advocates Direct Action to Demand Single-Payer System

Video – Audio – Transcript – MP3 Download

Burn Your Health Insurance Bill Day: New Group Advocates Direct Action to Demand Single-Payer System

Democracy Now! |

Russell Mokhiber, editor of Corporate Crime Reporter, has just formed a new group called “Single Payer Action” that is advocating direct action to demand a single-payer health insurance system in the United States. Today, he is burning his health insurance bill outside the national meeting of the American Health Insurance Plans in Washington, D.C

AMY GOODMAN: Russell Mokhiber, I want to bring into the conversation, longtime editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter. Russell, you’re starting a new group now, Single Payer Action. Why?

RUSSELL MOKHIBER: On the web at singlepayeraction.org. Good morning, Amy.

Well, our model, by the way, is “no compromise with the health insurance industry.” And here’s the situation in Washington. According to recent polling, 60 percent of Americans support Single Payer/Medicare for All. The majority of the doctors support it. The majority of the nurses support it. The majority of health economists support it.

So why isn’t it happening? It’s not happening because the legislation, single-payer legislation, would put the health insurance industry out of business. So, to be a player in Washington now, you have to kowtow to the powerful health insurance industry, and you have to say the following six words: “Single payer is off the table.”

Now, who’s saying single payer is off the table? The health insurance industry, the Obama White House, the Democratic-controlled Congress, and most disgracefully, even some so-called public-interest groups like Health Care for America Now!, which was at this demonstration yesterday and hijacked the demonstration. And it should have been a single-payer demonstration, and it wasn’t.

via Democracy Now! | Burn Your Health Insurance Bill Day: New Group Advocates Direct Action to Demand Single-Payer System.

Snake Oil In Obama’s Medical Plan

Snake Oil In Obama’s Medical Plan

By Edward W. Miller, MD

“Let us Prohibit in effective fashion all corporations from making contributions for any political purpose, directly or indirectly.” -Theodore Roosevelt

Back in August 2007, Michael Moore’s documentary, “SICKO” playing at local theatres, proved to be an excellent sales pitch for a “single-Payer “health system. “SICKO” was aimed at encouraging Americans to become more politically active in revamping our failing health-care apparatus.

Those who saw the film will remember such scenes as Richard Nixon’s White House tapes revealed that he authorized HMO’s, saying: “The less care they give them, the more money they make.” Or may recall an American woman going underground in Canada in search of cheaper medicines, or a middle-class couple moving in with their daughter after their insurance ran out, or recall that a doctor, employed by an insurance company, testified before Congress that she let a patient die to save the insurance company money.

Today, many still remain confused by the debate over our government’s role in medical care, a confusion fostered by an insurance industry determined to hold onto its expensive share of the medical dollar. The industry, by massive lobbying, both in Washington and in state capitals, has managed to keep its hand in the till, extracting at least a third of the medical dollar while providing misinformation, reduced treatment options and added expense to an unwary public.

The insurance conglomerates, with millions of lobbying dollars, have also purchased our representatives to assist in stealing from the taxpayer. That array of HMOS and other market-driven health organizations already functioning, with a financial aggregate of over $2.5trillion, represent the intrusion of big business between the taxpayer who needs and must pay for his health care, and the suppliers of that care. Americans had hoped, with the arrival of Obama on the Washington scene, that an affordable, universal health-care system was just around the corner. However, in the first100 days of our new President’s term, this anticipation is being replaced with a fear that we’re going to be stuck with the same old system dressed in drag by Obama.

As recently reported (Socialist worker.org:) “When BARACK OBAMA was campaigning for the presidency, he promised to put fixing America’s broken health care system at the top of his agenda as president. But supporters of the one solution that could actually work were at the bottom of his White House invitation list. As Obama’s White House health care summit approached, advocates of a so-called “single-payer” system–under which the government would cover everyone, eliminating the role of private insurers–were stunned to learn they weren’t even invited.”

via Coastal Post Online Article April, 2009.

Single-payer health reform bill introduced in Senate

OPS: Never Give UP!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Physicians for A National Health Program

Contacts:

Quentin Young, M.D., (312) 782-6006

Mark Almberg, (312) 782-6006

March 26, 2009,

Single-payer health reform bill introduced in Senate

Would save $400 billion on bureaucracy, enough to cover all 46 million uninsured Americans

Challenging head-on the powerful private insurance and pharmaceutical industries, Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a single-payer health reform bill, the American Health Security Act of 2009, in the U.S. Senate Wednesday. The bill is the first to directly take on the powerful lobbies blocking universal health reform in the Senate since Sen. Paul Wellstone’s tragic death.

The single-payer approach embodied in Sanders’ new bill stands in sharp contrast to the reform models being offered by the White House and by key lawmakers like Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). Their plans would preserve a central role for the private insurance industry, sacrificing both universal coverage and cost containment during the worst economic crisis since the Depression.

In contrast, Sanders’ new legislation would cover all of the 46 million Americans who currently lack coverage and improve benefits for all Americans by eliminating co-pays and deductibles and restoring free choice of physician. The most fiscally conservative option for reform, single payer slashes private insurance overhead and bureaucracy in medical settings, saving over $400 billion annually that can be redirected into clinical care.

“This is excellent news for the nation’s health,” said Dr. Quentin Young, national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program and a past president of the American Public Health Association. “There is now an affordable cure for our dysfunctional health care system. In the face of our present economic calamity, this is an urgent necessity.”

Highlights of the bill include the following:

Patients go to any doctor or hospital of their choice.

The program is paid for by combining current sources of government health spending into a single fund with modest new taxes amounting to less than what people now pay for insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.

Comprehensive benefits, including coverage for dental, mental health, and prescription drugs.

While federally funded, the program is to be administered by the states.

By eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private, investor-owned insurance industry, along with the burdensome paperwork imposed on physicians, hospitals and other providers, the plan saves at least $400 billion annually – enough money to provide comprehensive, quality care to all.

Community health centers are fully funded, giving the 60 million Americans now living in rural and underserved areas access to care.

To address the critical shortage of primary care physicians and dentists, the bill provides resources for the National Health Service Corps to train an additional 24,000 health professionals.

“We are confident that Sen. Sanders’ bill will accelerate the national drive for the only reform that we know will work,” Young said. “A majority of physicians endorse such an approach. Fifty-nine percent of U.S. physicians support national health insurance. Two-thirds of the public also supports such a remedy. We remember well that President Obama once acknowledged that single-payer national health insurance was the best way to go. It still is.”

Sanders, who serves on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, is a longtime advocate of fundamental health care reform. His new bill draws heavily upon the single-payer legislation introduced by the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) in 1993, S. 491, and closely parallels similar legislation pending before the House, H.R. 1200, introduced by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.).

A single-payer bill introduced by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), H.R. 676, obtained 93 co-sponsors in the House during the last session. It has been reintroduced in the new Congress as the U.S. National Health Care Act with the same bill number.

A copy of the bill is available here. (PDF)

——————————————————————————–

Physicians for a National Health Program, a membership organization of over 16,000 physicians, supports a single-payer national health insurance program. To contact a physician-spokesperson in your area, call (312) 782-6006 or visit www.pnhp.org/stateactions.

via PNHP:

Spending demands make single-payer more feasible

Crisis=Opportunity for Single Payer

Spending demands make single-payer more feasible

by Roger Bybee

President Obama seems ready to proceed full-throttle toward a health care reform plan, but one that will keep private insurers at the center of the system. The plan, termed “guaranteed affordable choice,” would allow workers to “keep the insurance they like,” find a rival private insurer, or opt into a Medicare-style public plan.

To date, Obama has sensibly insisted that quick action on health care is imperative. “It’s not something that we can put off because of the [financial] emergency,” Obama declared in December. “This is part of the emergency.” Questioned about the wisdom of launching a $100 billion health care program at a time of mounting government deficits, “I ask a different question,” Obama countered. “How can we afford not to?”

He’s right: economic meltdown is making health care reform more urgent by the day. Hospitals are hurting; while “the number of paying patients and profitable elective procedures is down . . . ,” the LA Times reported recently, “the number of uninsured patients whom hospitals treat is rising.” At the same time, escalating health care costs are squeezing private employers and governments alike. “The new Congressional Budget Office report shows that rising health care costs are the largest driver of the nation’s long-term budget problems,” budget watchdog Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities told Congress last fall.

via Z Space – Roger Bybee.

Single Payer Action

Resource:

Sitting in front of your computer won’t do it.

Watching C-Span won’t do it.

E-mailing your member of Congress won’t do it.

We’re going to have to get off the couch.

And directly confront the three branches of our government.

Obama’s White House.

Single Payer Action.

Invited to Summit, Single-Payer Group Cancels Protest

Invited to Summit, Single-Payer Group Cancels Protest

Barack Obama isn’t likely enact a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health plan. The White House Web site promises that, under the president’s proposed health plan, “if you like your current health insurance, nothing changes…”

Still, a gesture can go a long way.

Physicians for a National Health Program, a group of docs that claims 15,000 members and supports a single-payer system, had planned to demonstrate outside the White House today over what they said was the exclusion of single-payer advocates from the White House’s health-reform summit.

But yesterday, PNHP canceled the protest — after the group’s president was invited to today’s meeting. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), who backs a Medicare-for-All bill in Congress, was also invited.

A PNHP spokesman told the Health Blog the invitations are a “small but important victory.”

Of course, those are only two people out of the more than 100 on hand for the meeting. As this list of participants shows, the White House halls should be thick with members of Congress

via Invited to Summit, Single-Payer Group Cancels Protest | CommonDreams.org.

Obama’s leaving out single-payer in March 5 meeting

Obama’s leaving out single-payer in March 5 meeting

March 4, 2009, 11:54AM

At the Congressional Black Caucus last week, Cong. John Conyers approached Pres. Barack Obama to ask for an invitation to the March 5 meeting Obama is having on healthcare for the nation. It seems Obama denied the request.

So no one who is an advocate of single-payer healthcare–including the man responsible for HR 676, a viable method of providing Medicare for everyone in the country while boosting the economy–will be at the meeting during which Obama may well decide the future of American healthcare.

Why? Beats me. The last I heard, Obama was open to hearing every option, and he’d only dismiss something if it didn’t have support (as well as not being any good).

via The Facilitatrix’s Blog | Talking Points Memo | Obama’s leaving out single-payer in March 5 meeting.

Advocates of Single-Payer Health System Say White House Left Them Out

Advocates of Single-Payer Health System Say White House Left Them Out

By Alex Wayne

Congressional Quarterly

March 4, 2009

Groups that support a government-run, single-payer health care plan similar to those in Canada and Europe say they have been shut out of Thursday’s White House summit on overhauling the nation’s health system.

The groups argue that President Obama is trying to appease the health insurance industry and political conservatives, who are certain to fight any health care overhaul that does not keep insurance companies in business. Obama has said that he does not support establishing a single-payer system.

It’s not clear exactly who has been invited to the summit, but the list includes lawmakers, representatives from the health industry and advocates for all manner of overhaul plans. Advocates for a single-payer system — which effectively would obviate the need for health insurers — say they were left out to limit the scope of the discussion.

via Advocates of Single-Payer Health System Say White House Left Them Out.

Health Summit: Conyers gets a seat at the table,

OPS:  NOW is the time to turn up the heat!  Call your senators and member of Congress today.  If you want Single Payer Health Care – you  have  to fight for it. Sure as HELL the parasitic dinosaurs that are the Health Insurance Companies and Big Pharam will be fighting  to prevent it.

Conyers gets a seat at the table, he’ll be at White House Health Summit tomorrow

I just got off the telephone with Cynthia Martin the phenomenal chief of staff for Congressman John Conyers. She told me that Chairman Conyers was issued an invitation by the White House to the Health Care Summit at around 8PM last night.

Cynthia asked me to relay the following. First, she wants to thank every one who spoke out and delivered a message to President Obama.

Second, she also wants you to know, and I would say this is worth keeping in mind as we move forward, that the White House is listening. At long last, we have friends, real friends in the White House. There are people on President Obama’s staff hard at work behind the scenes insuring that publically financed and privately delivered healthcare (single payer), will have a voice at the summit and a seat at the table.

via Daily Kos: State of the Nation.

Mass. Doctors Push for Single-Payer

Mass. Doctors Push for Single-Payer

by Dollars and Sense

We found a link to this on, of all places, Marginal Revolution—hardly a lefty site!—in a list of “Assorted Links” under the title “How is the Massachusetts health care plan working out?” The headline of the original link is a little misleading, since it suggests that (a majority of?) doctors in Massachusetts favor single-payer, but the report is really about Mass. docs who are members of Physicians for a National Health Program. But polls have shown that a majority of doctors in the United States favor single-payer, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a majority in Mass. did too (especially given some of the snags of the new Mass. “universal” system).

via Dollars & Sense blog | Dollars & Sense.