While media coverage of the health reform debate is focused on the Senate Finance Committee's bill (which was largely drafted by current and former executives at Wellpoint, the nation's largest private health insurance company), several portentous congressional votes on single-payer Medicare-for-All loom on the horizon.
You can help determine the outcome of these votes, which are truly without historical precedent.
Quick Actions:
[Note that the text in the messages needs a bit of updating since it is now Oct. and we need to add a request for a CBO scoring of HR-676 in the one for the Weiner Amendment]
1. In the House - Ask your representative to support the Weiner and Kucinich amendments
Sometime in the next two or three weeks, Rep. Anthony Weiner's (D-N.Y.) amendment to substitute single-payer legislation (along the lines of Rep. Conyers' H.R. 676) for the House leadership's bill, H.R. 3200, will come up for an up-or-down vote on the House floor.
This is the first time single payer will have been put to a full floor vote in our nation's history, and it presents us with a unique opportunity to hold our representatives accountable on this issue. While the individual mandate approach to reform embodied in the Senate Finance bill would leave 25 million Americans uninsured, single payer would assure coverage for every American, as even President Obama has admitted. (You can find the number of people uninsured in your congressional district here.)
Additionally, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has secured a provision in H.R. 3200 that would allow individual states to adopt their own single-payer systems.
Contact your representative today and ask him or her to vote "YES" on the Weiner Amendment for single payer and insist that the Kucinich amendment remains in the final House bill..
The Congressional Switchboard number is (202) 224-3121.
2. In the Senate
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will introduce two single-payer amendments to the Senate bill, one to create a national single-payer plan (along the lines of S. 703), and the other to allows individual states to adopt single payer.
Urge your senators to vote "YES" on the Sanders' single payer amendments.
The Congressional Switchboard number is (202) 224-3121.
Political figures, commentators and editorial writers are now routinely citing the study's finding of 45,000 deaths annually in their discussions of our health care crisis. Even Sen. Max Baucus has cited it, erroneously asserting that "[my] bill would fix that." (Actually, his bill would leave some 25 million uninsured, which translates into about 25,000 deaths annually.)
PNHPer and "Mad as Hell Doctor" Dr. Paul Hochfeld was admitted at the last minute to Obama's press event with physicians Monday and appeared on Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" show on MSNBC. The Mad as Hell Doctors, led by Hochfeld and Dr. Mike Huntington, wound up their 26-city, nationwide tour with a rally in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 30. They received extensive regional press.
Register today for PNHP's Annual Meeting on Saturday, Oct. 24, in Cambridge, MA, at the Royal Sonesta Hotel. Guest speakers include Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine; Harvard health economist William Hsiao, Ph.D.; journalist T.R. Reid; Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Anthony Weiner and more. You won't want to miss this extraordinary gathering!
Here's another portion of Michael Moore's interview with Wolf Blitzer from Sept. 24, 2009. Michael is exactly right about one thing here. You're not seeing the passion on the left in support of the President because he started from a compromised position instead of starting with single payer and compromising from there if need be. He is also correct that if, not when, the President ever came out for single payer, you would see massive amounts of people coming out and supporting him. You're not going to see that passion on the left for a watered down giveaway to the insurance industry.
Moore is exactly right. Here is the transcript:
BLITZER: That's what President Obama said back in 2003. But now he's backed away from that as president of the United States and he seems to be backing away even from the so-called public option, which would allow the government -- a government-run health insurance company to compete with the private insurance companies. Is this what you wanted?
MOORE: Well, here's the -- here's the problem with President Obama on the health insurance proposal. He's a nice guy. You know, I mean, really, I believe he came into the White House with an olive branch to the people on the other side of the aisle. He believed in bipartisanship. I mean you've got to give the guy credit. He really -- he did not come in wanting to fight. He came in saying, you know, we're all Americans here and we need to fix this and we need to put aside this partisan stuff.
The other side didn't want to put it aside. The other side wanted to fight him tooth and nail. And -- and as part of his nice guy thing, he -- he backs a half measure, a public option.
BLITZER: But that might not even...
MOORE: And we (INAUDIBLE)...
BLITZER: That might not even make the final bill that he signs.
MOORE: And that may not. Well, of course not, because any time you don't fight for the thing you want, any time that you start off compromising, you're never going to get what you want. He started off with a compromise position -- let the private insurance companies still sit at the table, have a public option. He should have started with what he truly believes in, what he believed in, what he said in 2003, a single payer, national health care system, like all other Western countries have. We should have the same thing.
I know he believes in that, but he was trying to reach out and say, you know what, I'm not just going to come in here and ram this, so I'm willing to work with you and listen to your concerns. They don't want to listen to him.
BLITZER: It sounds like you think he's naive..
MOORE: I don't think -- no, I'm -- no. No, I -- no, I'm saying that he's operating with those same Christian values that I spoke of. I think that he -- I think that he is a generous person with a very open heart and was willing to work with people who had no intention of ever working with him.
So now that he's realized that, now that he's got to go back to the drawing board and come back with something, because you see, Wolf, the reason he -- you know, he's out there alone. I mean nobody really has his back on this because the base is not energized by a half measure.
BLITZER: Why is that because there seems...
MOORE: If he's going to come out . . .
BLITZER: ...to be so much rage on the right right now...
MOORE: Because -- because they believe in something.
BLITZER: ...and there doesn't seem to be the same kind of passion on the left. Why is that?
MOORE: No. Because -- because he hasn't proposed something that -- that liberals, Democrats, the left, whatever, progressive people, decent people who think when people get sick they should be able to see a doctor and not have to worry about paying for it -- you know, those kind of people. He just -- he just needs to -- when he comes forth with a single payer proposal, something that's going to provide true universal health care for all Americans, you are going to see millions of people -- millions of people -- backing him. It will look -- make those town hall meetings look like The Disney Channel.
BLITZER: But there doesn't seem to be any indication, Michael, he's about to do anything resembling that. As I said before, he seems to be backing away even from that compromise of a so-called public option.
MOORE: Right. OK, right, but he hasn't watched this show yet. So . . .
BLITZER: All right, so give me the message. If you could -- and he might be watching this interview right now. From your heart, tell the president of the United States what you want.
MOORE: Well, I would say, President Obama, first of all, thank you for taking on this job. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. So thank you for being willing to do that for us. We need you to really -- to really fight the fight for us -- us, the majority of the people who put you in there. We are the majority of this country.
Seventy-five percent of this country wants universal health care for all Americans. We're sick and tired of having the middle man -- the private insurance company -- get between us and our doctors, us and the hospital, us and the pharmaceuticals that people need. You've got to really come forth now with a program that guarantees this for all Americans. And if you do that, you're going to find tens of millions of us out there behind you, supporting you every step of the way.
It's a blockbuster admission that we already knew: The health care insurance industry was petrified that Americans would see Michael Moore's Sicko and realize that government-run health care was something that would be good for citizens and lead to better health outcomes.
CIGNA Public Relations Chief turned whistleblower Wendell Potter said the words to Bill Moyers that no insurance company wanted said out loud in this country:
BILL MOYERS: You were also involved in the campaign by the industry to discredit Michael Moore and his film "Sicko" in 2007. In that film Moore went to several countries around the world, and reported that their health care system was better than our health care system, in particular, Canada and England. [..]
So what did you think when you saw that film?
WENDELL POTTER: I thought that he hit the nail on the head with his movie. But the industry, from the moment that the industry learned that Michael Moore was taking on the health care industry, it was really concerned.
BILL MOYERS: What were they afraid of?
WENDELL POTTER: They were afraid that people would believe Michael Moore.
Of course, we knew this. We've been screaming it for years. Still, it's difficult to pierce through that Beltway bubble to those politicos that are still hemming and hawing as the insurance industry insiders fill their campaign coffers.
BILL MOYERS JOURNAL has covered the public option that appears to be on the table and the idea of a single-payer plan which is not. Find out more about those plans and all the iterations under consideration below.
>>Compare the current plans. The Public Option The public option, according to Robert Reich, is a government-run non-profit insurance pool, that, by virtue of its size and bargaining power, could control costs and offer people who are either uncovered by, or unhappy with, private insurers an affordable alternative path to health care. Medicare is an example of a public option, notes Reich, with one important caveat — the Medicare drug benefit bill passed during the Bush administration expressly forbids Medicare from using its size to negotiate for lower costs which would be an important strategy for keeping prices down.
Whence Single-Payer? Dr. David Himmelstein and Dr. Sidney Wolfe told Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL that President Obama isn't considering a popular plan — single-payer. In a recent town-hall meeting in New Mexico, President Obama said switching to single-payer would be too disruptive.
The term "single-payer" generally means a system in which rather than having private, for-profit insurance companies, the government runs one large non-profit insurance organization. That organization pays all the doctor, drug and hospital bills — it is the "single-payer" of all medical bills. In most single-payer plans, every American would be enrolled and would pay into the fund through taxes.
Advocates argue that a single-payer system would pay for itself, saving huge amounts of money in administrative costs. The U.S. currently pays a higher percentage of health dollars for administration than any other nation.
The U.S. also ranks highest in total cost of care, but according to a recent report by the Commonwealth Fund, ranks last among industrialized countries "in preventing deaths through use of timely and effective medical care." In a recent FRONTLINE report comparing the health care systems of five other capitalist democracies, "Sick Around the World," WASHINGTON POST reporter T.R. Reid notes that, "The World Health Organization says the U.S. health care system rates 37th in the world in terms of quality and fairness. All the other rich countries do better than we do, and yet they spend a heck of a lot less."
