[Peace-discuss] Single-payer health reform bill introduced
in Senate
LAURIE SOLOMON
LAURIE at ADVANCENET.NET
Sat Mar 28 10:27:46 CDT 2009
And your proposal for furnishing everyone equitable quality healthcare
without maintaining or reinforcing a new well-funded market for the existing
system of medical-pharmaceutical-industrial providers and suppliers is?
What single payer does do is take the insurance industry out of the mix as a
day-to-day policy maker and gatekeeper to the provision of quality
healthcare equitably to the entire population and to the healthcare system
itself for the most part and, at worst, remands that industry to the
secondary role of administrator and distributor of the health care
single-payer funds to the healthcare providers on behalf of the single-payer
premium collector without being a determiner of who can get what service by
whom and when.
You are right that it will not eliminate or control medical costs by
regulating the amounts of money going to universities to do medical research
or to private research facilities to do the same, the amounts of money being
spent on buying the latest and greatest medical devices and instruments
mostly for the purpose of making the service provider in the healthcare
system competitive with its competitors in the local community, or the
amounts of profits that medical equipment manufactures and sellers make from
the medical equipment that they sell to the healthcare delivery system.
However, aside from complete and total nationalization of not only the
healthcare delivery system but the associated research, pharmaceutical and
other supplies, and equipment vendor industries, I do not see any way that
any proposals in a capitalist or welfare capitalist world would be able to
regulate and control - much less eliminate - such markets for the existing
system of medical-pharmaceutical-industrial providers and suppliers.
-----Original Message-----
From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of E. Wayne
Johnson
Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 1:23 PM
To: C. G. Estabrook
Cc: Peace-discuss
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Single-payer health reform bill introduced in
Senate
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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