[Peace-discuss] Fw: The Health Summit and Single Payer

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Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 10:16 PM
Subject: The Health Summit and Single Payer


>1 Obama's Unhealthy Opposition
> 2 Media Blackout on Single-Payer Healthcare
> 3 National Call-In to Support HR 676
>
> Obama's Unhealthy Opposition
>
>     At yesterday's White House summit, the new
>     president got a taste of the bitter health-reform
>     battles that lie ahead
>
> Maggie Mahar
> guardian.co.uk,
> Friday 6 March 2009 20.00 GMT
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/mar/06/obama-health-summit>
>
> The White House Forum on Health Reform ended in a
> dialogue with President Obama that turned out to be the
> most revealing part of the afternoon. In that final
> hour, you began to hear the anger of the opposition -
> and you caught a glimpse of which principles the
> president himself considers most important.
>
> The day before the summit began, Ron Pollack - director
> of Families USA, and one of the 150 invited to attend
> the forum - told me that the goal was "to set the tone
> of the process - a tone that is intended to be
> bipartisan, a tone that is intended to be inclusive -
> and to make it clear that good ideas will be welcomed".
>
> To a large degree, the summit achieved that goal.
> Following the president's welcoming remarks, the
> attendees broke up into five small groups. Observing
> their conversations online, I was quite impressed by
> the participants' civility.
>
> At the same time, a few forthright speakers cut through
> some of the more gratuitous remarks. Senator Jay
> Rockefeller, for example, warned that anyone who
> believes healthcare reform won't cost us anything is
> delusional: reform will cost money. Recalling the time
> when the Clintons were striving for healthcare reform,
> Rockefeller observed: "Every single poll they took
> showed 72% of Americans said they would be willing to
> pay two dollars more for universal healthcare. They
> didn't mean it. . There are a lot of people who have an
> interest in keeping costs high, in making sure that
> medical companies make money."
>
> Rockefeller then went on to talk about the power of
> lobbyists, pointing out that their money and muscle
> remain formidable. This doesn't mean that healthcare
> reform is not doable, but it does suggest that
> meaningful reform will require both time and dollars.
>
> The summit discussions produced their fair share of
> good ideas. Take, for instance, this observation on
> mental health: "You can't ignore mental illness, or put
> it in a separate category", one participant noted. "A
> patient suffering from a chronic disease is expensive.
> A patient suffering from depression and a chronic
> disease is even more expensive", because he is less
> likely to participate in managing his illness. The
> depression needs to be treated, or the patient won't
> care enough to take his medication.
>
> This is something we need to keep in mind when covering
> the uninsured, many of whom are poor and suffering from
> the depression and anxiety that often accompany extreme
> poverty. Universal healthcare will have to address
> mental as well as physical suffering.
>
> Another keen observation came during the discussion of
> fraud. Former health and human services secretary Donna
> Shalala spoke up: "If we want credibility with the
> public, we need to put some people in jail."
>
> Indeed. Over the past 20 years, the FBI has raided a
> number of huge hospital chains. Indictments have been
> handed down, charging executives and physicians with
> defrauding Medicare and even performing unnecessary
> surgeries on innocent patients. Huge fines have been
> paid.
>
> But it is rare that anyone is incarcerated. In fact,
> executives like Richard Scott - former CEO of
> Columbia/HCA - often wind up back in the healthcare
> business. (These days, Scott is heading up
> Conservatives for Patients' Rights, a group determined
> to block healthcare reform. I discussed Scott's past
> adventures in the world of healthcare earlier this
> week.)
>
> Of course, the climax of the event was the final Q&A
> session with President Obama - when one finally began
> to grasp the size of the political divide his
> administration is trying to bridge.
>
> Let me be clear: the administration is wise to seek
> bipartisan collaboration. I think it will succeed in
> establishing some common ground, and I hope the
> bipartisan effort will generate at least a few
> constructive new ideas. But the process is going to
> test everything President Obama believes about
> reasonable people's ability to come to reasonable
> compromises. And there will be some bitter battles
> along the way.
>
> The climactic hour of yesterday's summit began warmly
> as Ted Kennedy walked into the room. As the president
> introduced him, the Massachusetts senator received a
> standing ovation. Kennedy, a long-time champion of
> healthcare who is often described as "the Lion of
> Winter", spoke decisively: "This time we will not
> fail."
>
> Then, in an even-handed gesture, the president called
> on Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
>
> The Kentucky senator shocked some with his remarks.
> Rather than talk about healthcare, Mitch decided to put
> the president on the spot - asking Obama point-blank
> whether he would "support a mechanism" that would begin
> to cut Social Security spending.
>
> To his credit, the president didn't miss a beat. Calmly
> but firmly he explained: "Mitch, as you know, we had a
> fiscal summit last week." There, some conservatives had
> hoped to lump Social Security with Medicare and
> Medicaid to make the retirement programme for the
> elderly part of the cost-cutting agenda. They failed,
> because while Medicare is running out of money, Social
> Security is not in financial trouble.
>
> As the president explained in his response to
> McConnell: "Medicare and Medicaid is the 800 pound
> gorilla . Our most important task is to drive down
> costs on the private side and on the public side of
> health care."
>
> By bringing up Social Security once again, McConnell
> merely looked like a sore loser.
>
> Later, Iowa senator Charles Grassley - the ranking
> Republican on the Senate finance committee - raised a
> question that, unlike Social Security, is central to
> the healthcare debate: should the reform plan include a
> public-sector insurance programme (some call it
> "Medicare for all") as an alternative to private
> insurance?
>
> "A lot of us feel that the public-sector option would
> create unfair competition" for private insurers,
> Grassley explained before telling Obama: "You don't
> have to answer this right now."
>
> But the president did answer the question, and he
> didn't give much ground: "The thinking on the public
> option has been that it gives consumers more choices
> and it helps keep the private sector honest, because
> there's some competition out there." Obama continued:
> "I recognize the fear that if a public option is run
> through Washington and there are incentives to try to
> tamp down costs", then "private insurance plans might
> end up feeling overwhelmed. We'll make sure it's
> addressed."
>
> Finally, the president indicated his openness to
> revising the healthcare plan he embraced during the
> campaign: "If there is a way of getting this done where
> we're driving down costs and people are getting health
> insurance at an affordable rate and have choice of
> doctor, have flexibility in terms of their plans, and
> we could do that entirely through the market, I'd be
> happy to do it that way," he said, referring to a plan
> that relies entirely on private-sector insurers.
>
> Alternatively, "If there was a way of doing it that
> involved more government regulation and involvement,
> I'm happy to do it that way as well," he added,
> referring obliquely to a single-payer plan.
>
> But these are extremes that this administration is not
> likely to embrace. In his opening speech yesterday, the
> president made clear that a single-payer plan is not on
> the table: "If you have insurance you like, you'll be
> able to keep that insurance." And in his reply to
> Grassley, the president signalled that he still
> considers public-sector insurance important to provide
> choices and "keep the private sector honest".
>
> ===
>
> Media Advisory
>
> Media Blackout on Single-Payer Healthcare
> Proponents of popular policy shut out of debate
> <http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3733>
> 3/6/09
>
> Major newspaper, broadcast and cable stories mentioning
> healthcare reform in the week leading up to President
> Barack Obama's March 5 healthcare summit rarely
> mentioned the idea of a single-payer national health
> insurance program, according to a new FAIR study. And
> advocates of such a system--two of whom participated in
> yesterday's summit--were almost entirely shut out, FAIR
> found.
>
> Single-payer--a model in which healthcare delivery
> would remain largely private, but would be paid for by
> a single federal health insurance fund (much like
> Medicare provides for seniors, and comparable to
> Canada's current system)--polls well with the public,
> who preferred it 59-to-32 over a privatized system in a
> recent survey (New York Times/CBS, 1/11-15/09). But a
> media consumer in the week leading up to the summit was
> more likely to read about single-payer from the hostile
> perspective of conservative columnist Charles
> Krauthammer than see an op-ed by a single-payer
> advocate in a major U.S. newspaper.
>
> Over the past week, hundreds of stories in major
> newspapers and on NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, Fox
> News, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and PBS's NewsHour With Jim
> Lehrer mentioned healthcare reform, according to a
> search of the Nexis database (2/25/09-3/4/09). Yet all
> but 18 of these stories made no mention of "single-
> payer" (or synonyms commonly used by its proponents,
> such as "Medicare for all," or the proposed single-
> payer bill, H.R. 676), and only five included the views
> of advocates of single-payer--none of which appeared on
> television.
>
> Of a total of 10 newspaper columns FAIR found that
> mentioned single-payer, Krauthammer's syndicated column
> critical of the concept, published in the Washington
> Post (2/27/09) and reprinted in four other daily
> newspapers, accounted for five instances. Only three
> columns in the study period advocated for a single-
> payer system (San Diego Union-Tribune, 2/26/09; Boston
> Globe, 3/1/09; St. Petersburg Times, 3/3/09).
>
> The FAIR study turned up only three mentions of single-
> payer on the TV outlets surveyed, and two of those
> references were by TV guests who expressed strong
> disapproval of it: conservative New York Times
> columnist David Brooks (NewsHour, 2/27/09) and
> Republican congressman Darrell Issa (MSNBC's Hardball,
> 2/26/09).
>
> In many newspapers, the only argument in favor of the
> policy has been made in letters to the editor
> (Oregonian, 2/28/09; USA Today, 2/26/09; Washington
> Post, 3/4/09; Philadelphia Inquirer, 2/27/09; Atlanta
> Journal Constitution, 2/26/09).
>
> In contrast, the terminology of choice for detractors
> of any greater public-sector role in healthcare--such
> as "socialized medicine" and "government-run"
> healthcare--turned up seven times on TV, including once
> on ABC News's This Week (3/1/09) and five times on CNN.
> CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has
> herself adopted this terminology in discussing
> healthcare reform, stating (CNN Newsroom, 2/26/09) that
> "if in time, Americans start to think what President
> Obama is proposing is some kind of government-run
> health system--a la Canada, a la England--he will get
> resistance in the same way that Hillary Clinton got
> resistance when she tried to do tried to do this in the
> '90s."
>
> Particularly in the absence of actual coverage of
> single-payer, such rhetoric confuses rather than
> informs, blurring the differences between the Canadian
> model of government-administered national health
> insurance coupled with private healthcare delivery that
> single-payer proponents advocate, and healthcare
> systems such as Britain's, in which healthcare (and not
> just healthcare insurance) is administered by the
> government.
>
> The views of CNN's senior medical correspondent
> notwithstanding, opinion polling (e.g., ABC
> News/Washington Post, 10/9-19/03) suggests that the
> public would actually favor single-payer.
>
> Though more than 60 lawmakers have co-sponsored H.R.
> 676, the single-payer bill in Congress, Obama has not
> expressed support for single-payer; both the idea and
> its advocates were marginalized in yesterday's
> healthcare forum. But given the high level of popular
> support the policy enjoys, that's all the more reason
> media should include it in the public debate about the
> future of healthcare.
>
> ===
>
> March 10: 4th National Call-In Day and Fax your Health Insurance Bills to 
> Congress!
>
> <http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/callalert/index.tt?alertid=12846641>
>
> As the new administration takes on the giant task of reforming health 
> care, the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care must continue 
> to keep up the heat in support of meaningful reform and the tremendous 
> momentum for the only plan proven to work: Expanded and Improved Medicare 
> for All.
>
> On March 10th, 2009, we will host a deluge of activity in support of HR 
> 676.
>
> We plan to flood phone and fax machines in Congress demanding support of 
> HR 676.  We ask that you join with thousands of others to call Congress 
> and also fax your health insurance bill or letter of denial to Congress.
>
> We also urge you to contact the new Secretary-designate, Kathleen 
> Sebelius. In addition to congratulating her on her nomination, let her 
> know you support HR 676 and single-payer national health care;
>
> Get out in the street! The American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) is 
> hosting a conference in Washington, D.C. AIHP is the trade group that 
> develops the policies which keep profit first in our health care system 
> while leaving over a third of the population uninsured or with completely 
> inadequate coverage. Join with HR 676 advocates for a demonstration 
> outside of the conference:
>
> "Health Insurance NO! Health Care YES!"
> 11 a.m. March 10th
> Ritz Carlton Hotel ( map )
> Washington, D.C.
>
> If you donâ?Tt live near Washington D.C., then walk your neighborhood and 
> talk to your neighbors about HR 676. Order your materials here (at our 
> cost).
>
> The injustice in our health care system must end, and Congress must act 
> now for real health care reform.  If our Congress is serious about health 
> reform, they will support HR 676.
>
>
> Health and Justice,
>
> Tim Carpenter
> National Director,
>
> Laura Bonham
> Deputy Director,
>
> Conor Boylan,
> Field Coordinator
>
> _____________________________________________
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