[Peace-discuss] Single-payer health reform bill introduced in Senate

[C. G. Estabrook]

It seems that it's the system we have now that, in comparison with systems in
other industrialized countries, "delivers medical services at maximum profit 
with minimum liability."

Medical costs are higher here, and medical services are less available. And 
profitable financial corporations -- insurance companies -- are at the heart of 
the "medical-pharmaceutical-industrial complex."  They're what Obama is pledged 
to defend, when he says we can't throw the people who work for Blue Cross out of 
work...

Medicine is like education -- development for the mind is like development of 
the body -- it should be available to all. Paideia for the soma as well as the 
psyche is a social responsibility.  --CGE


E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
> My concern is that the American "Health Care" system is designed to deliver
> medical services at maximum profit with minimum liability.
> 
> Most of the proposals don't dare to attack the 
> medical-pharmaceutical-industrial complex at its roots.
> 
> Americans are afraid that if they challenge the morality and effectiveness of
> the medical supply system, then their doctors will simply let them die. Don't
> mess with us or we won't fix your problem, or worse. Waterboarding at a
> refined level.
> 
> The problem with so-called "single-payer" is that it doesn't actually fix the
> system in any way, it simply opens up a new well-funded market for the
> existing system.
> 
> 
> C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 26, 2009 Contacts: Quentin Young, M.D., (312)
>> 782-6006 Mark Almberg, (312) 782-6006, cell: (312) 622-0996, mark at pnhp.org
>> 
>> *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: 
>> www.pnhp.org/PDF_files/American-Health-Security-Act-single-payer.pdf (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.
>> 
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>> 
> 
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