Health Care For America Now

I just commented on the Kirsch article in the Huffington Post using the screen name hr676fan. Since Mr. Kirsch’s article appears here, I am taking the liberty of copying my comment here as well. I’ve also posted on other pro-single payer blogs, so if I’m getting into the repeats, I apologize.

HCAN has stirred up a hornet’s nest—and I am afraid several members of the coalition have been stung. When they signed on as as advocates of “universal health care,” I cannot imagine that labor organizations and faith groups realized the HCAN coalition was going to protect the profits of the insurers. There is no way health care coverage can be made affordable with the insurers on board. Period!

Desperate for health care reform, many organizations (and maybe some of your staffers) obviously jumped on to the HCAN bandwagon without thinking. Your message replicates AARP’s “Divided we fail.” And we all know about AARP’s links to United Health care. You can fool some of the people . . .

Anyway, here’s my Huffington Post comment:

Mr. Kirsch and his Hacker/Herndon/HCAN coalition claim to offer us a “choice” of health plans, but they leave an important option off the table. On HCAN’s web site, a poll asks respondents if they would prefer an all-private plan, or a public-private combo. How about an all public, single payer plan? Oops—sorry folk! You can’t check that box.

Single Payer, as detailed in HR 676, has been designed and analyzed by clinicians, health care experts and economists. It has been tested and proven to work in other free-market democracies. It would be as simple to implement and run as traditional Medicare (before the incursion of Plan D and those private dis-Advantage plans).

. . . It would be difficult to implement single payer in the smaller states. We’d need to dismantle the mixed federal-state funding for Medicaid and SCHIP. (The for-profit HMOs have their tentacles in those programs too.) I think it would take the combined clout of all states to deal with those issues.

The Lewin Group reports that a taxpayer-funded plan would save trillions and control future costs. Mr Kirsch seems to overlook those findings. I suggest he get off the “focus group, framing, feasibility” bandwagon and do some real research. Let’s hope the facts will lead him back to his single-payer roots.

Call your Congressperson and ask him/her to sign on as co-sponsor of HR 676.

by Harriette Seiler - 07/20/08

I am not sure why many people assume that because we are not endorsing any specific plans that would prevent others from advocating for their preferred solutions. In fact, we have taken a strong stance against the insurance industry. We believe they put profits before people, and they should be carefully regulated.

We are holding a large event in Columbus Ohio to counter the message of AHIP which is the insurance industry. We hope you will join us to fight against the real problem here which is the insurance industry’s bad practices.

by Levana - 07/21/08

There are 87 U.S. Representatives supporting HR676, including John Conyers.

91—as logged by the Library of Congress, which has never been given any directives by the U.S. Congress that the lists are to be updated with changes and deletions
  + 1—John Conyers
-  1—resignation in July 2007
-  2—deaths in Dec 07 and Feb 08
-  2—U.S. Delegates who do not vote
  87 - total - as provided and maintained at the following web page
http://www.ninenineohnine.org/pages/U.S._Representatives

There’s much more information here at the Single-Payer Support Monitor:
http://www.ninenineohnine.org/pages/Monitor_Political_Support

Bob Haiducek, Bob the Health and Health Care Advocate
http://www.99oh9.org

by Bob Haiducek - 07/21/08

Levana,

Because that is the simple reality of the situation. The growing demand for single payer has frightened many people in high places.  With a strong movement already underway within trade unions, professional organizations of doctors, and grassroots groups like Healthcare Now,  it is not unsurprising that people feel slighted by you drowning out their message with sound bites about reform and no substance. 

To the contrary you have taken a strong stand against just single payer reform (see the title of this blog article to start). This is the absolute last thing anyone interested in real healthcare reform should be doing.  Which side are you on?

by bill zoda - 07/21/08

I would like to add my strong support for single-payer as the solution that will actually achieve universal health care for Americans. Many of us just don’t trust insurance companies to ever change their ways. It is illogical to assume that we the people “like what we have.” I have health insurance, but I know I can lose it in an instant. I have in the past had to buy my own health insuarance and I resented giving money to these crooks, knowing they would probably raise my rates beyond what I could afford and then all the money I gave them is down a rat hole.

With a government-funded system, the care is always there, the money always goes through the same entity, and that entity has as its purpose providing health care (not making profits). I would like to retire, but leaving my job means losing my health insurance. I have two years to go until I’m eligible for Medicare. What a relief that will be!

by theresa - 07/21/08

Healthcare-NOW Position Paper regarding Health Care for America Now

On July 8, 2008, a coalition of organizations called Health Care for America Now (HCAN) announced a campaign for healthcare reform. A spokesperson for the group stated that they plan to run a multi-million dollar ad campaign and will promote health care reform that offers a mix of public funding and private insurance.

We share the group’s condemnation of our current failing health care system and their noble goal of reaching a solution that brings care to all. We recognize among the HCAN coalition many who also work with us to promote single payer non-profit health care as embodied in HR 676, national legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers. 

Healthcare-Now welcomes all to the debate and applauds all activities that expose the role of the profit making health insurance and drug companies as the cause of our current health system’s failures.   

Partly because the name of the new group is so similar to our own, it is important that we point out what distinguishes the HCAN position from ours.  Even more essential, the distinction is important because the policy issue is the crucial foundation of successful health care reform.  We have to get it right this time around. 

First, we have to start from a proposal that works. It must make economic and policy sense.  We have seen bad policy fail repeatedly as state after state has hoped to reform their health care yet been unable to achieve their goals.  The initial surrender to include the private insurance industry in these state bills has sadly undermined all of these well intentioned efforts, and all states are now struggling with the costs of care in these times of economic hardship.

The central role of private insurance companies in the HCAN plan will leave us with the same bad actors that are currently running amok in our health care. We cannot place the fox in the hen house and then hope to regulate his diet. It is in the nature of private health insurance corporations to seek to enhance their profit. (1)  The private health insurance system we have leaves 48 million Americans uninsured, causes 18,000 deaths/year, and accounts for half of the bankruptcies each year.

Secondly, we must start from proposed legislation bold and beautiful enough to inspire a nation to rise up in unprecedented action to insist upon its enactment.  No good reform can be passed without a grass roots movement that dramatically changes what is possible inside the beltway. HR 676 will bring all medically necessary care to everyone with no co-pays, no deductibles, and no premiums. (2) It will make healthcare a human right and HR 676 a struggle for social justice.

Third, we encourage our friends working on health reform to take heart.  It doesn’t make the nightly news, but support for HR 676 has grown so rapidly that it takes your breath away.

HR 676 has 90 co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives. It has been endorsed by the Kentucky and New Hampshire Houses of Representatives, the New York State Assembly, and by dozens of cities and counties from Baltimore to San Francisco and from Warren County, Tennessee, to majority Republican Renssalaer County in New York. 
The recent General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA proclaimed single payer, universal national health insurance “the program that best responds to the moral imperative of the gospel.”

The General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalists recently endorsed HR 676.  The U. S. Conference of Mayors, representing over 1,000 cities with populations over 30,000, unanimously adopted a resolution in support of HR 676.

Union support for HR 676 grows daily and includes 34 state AFL-CIO federations, 110 central labor councils, over 445 union organizations and an expanding number of international unions.

In a rising revolt against insurance companies that deny care and interfere with practice decisions, a recent poll of physicians showed that 59% now support single payer.  Nationwide, 65% of people believe that:  “The United States should adopt a universal health insurance program in which everyone is covered under a program like Medicare that is run by the government and financed by taxpayers.” (3)

Just as the organized labor and other social justice movements ignited the fire that shaped the FDR era, so we must galvanize a health care movement that will mold the outcome of the era to come. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called us to this mission: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”  We must stay the course, building support for the national, single-payer health insurance program embodied in HR 676. We cannot join forces with a coalition that will leave the same failed system in place.

The popular support for single payer is there if we but hold onto our courage and build the movement to win it.

NOTES
See Navarro, Vincent. “Yes We Can! Can We? The Next Failure of Health Care Reform,” Unch Special report, 3/6/08). See also Rodberg and McCanne, “The Case for Eliminating Private Health Insurance,” CommonDreams.org, 7/13/07. The insurance industry’s ongoing efforts to privatize Medicare have increased costs and decreased effectiveness. See http://www.fairmedicare.org.

Section 102 (a) of HR 676 is very explicit about this. “The health insurance benefits under this act cover all medically necessary services, including at least the following: (1) primary care and prevention; (2) inpatient care; (3) outpatient care; (4) emergency care; (5) prescription drugs; (6) durable medical equipment; (7) long term care; (8) mental health services; (9) the full scope of dental services (other than cosmetic dentistry); (10) substance abuse treatment services; (11) chiropractic services; (12) basic vision care and vision correction (other than laser vision correction for cosmetic purposes); (13) hearing services, including coverage of hearing aids.”  Section 102 (c) states “No cost sharing – No deductibles, copayments, coinsurance or other cost-sharing shall be imposed with regard to covered benefits.”

AP-Yahoo poll, Dec. 2007

For those who want to read more commentary that attempts to clarify this issue, we suggest the following.

California Nurses, takes on HCAN:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rose-ann-demoro/why-is-health-care-for-am_b_111747.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/7/10/75316/4802

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/july/statement_of_dr_que.php

http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2008/07/09/a-policy-response-to-health-care-for-america-now/

http://www.pnhp.org/blog/

Radio debate between Richard Kirsch (National Campaign Manager, HCAN) and Dr. David Himmelstein (PNHP):
http://uprisingradio.org/home/?p=2874

by HC-N - 07/22/08

This is great that we are able to get the credit loans and that opens new opportunities.

by business loans - 08/20/11