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Single Payer Activists to Congress: Defeat Democratic Health Bill
The Democratic health care bill is a massive bailout of the private health insurance industry.
It is convoluted and complicated.
And it should be defeated.
That's the take of a number of leading single payer activists.
They will hold a press conference the day before Thanksgiving.
And call on Congress to defeat the more than 2,000 page bill.
Start from scratch.
And pass single payer, Medicare for all, national health insurance.
The press conference will be held in the Murrow Room at the National P ress Club in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 at 10 a.m.
The press conference is being organized by Single Payer Action.
Speakers include:
- Russell Mokhiber, Single Payer Action.
- Dr. Margaret Flowers, Physicians for a National Health Program.
- Kevin Zeese, Prosperity Agenda.
- Dr. Carol Paris, Physicians for a National Health Program.
Mokhiber, Flowers, Zeese and Paris are four of the Baucus 8 - the eight protesters who were ordered arrested and charged with "disruption of Congress" by Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) in early May 2009 after they rose to ask Baucus why single payer was taken off the table by the Democrats.
Baucus had scheduled 41 health care experts to testify over three days of hearings of the Senate Finance Committee.
Not one of the 41 experts was an advocate for a single payer system.
This despite national polls showing a majority of Americans and a majority of doctors support a Canadian-style, Medicare-for-all single payer system.
On Wednesday, the Baucus Four will call on single payer supporters in the Congress - like Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) - and the 88 members of the House who are sponsors of HR 676 - the single payer bill - to stand with Congressmen Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Eric Massa (D-New York) - and vote against the pending legislation.
HR 676 is about 30 pages in length.
It's simple.
It covers everyone.
And it saves money.
Kucinich and Massa were the only single payer supporters in the House who voted last week against Obama and the Democratic leadership.
Kucinich called the Democratic bill "a bailout under a Blue Cross."
Massa said the bill would "enshrine in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry."
"The Obama health care legislation is a 2,000-page turkey," said Mokhiber. "It should be defeated and served up to the American people as an example of what happens when corporate lobbyists hijack Congress."
Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, earlier this month called on Congress to do nothing instead of passing the Democratic bill.
"Is the House bill better than nothing?" Angell asked. "I don't think so. It simply throws more money into a dysfunctional and unsustainable system, with only a few improvements at the edges, and it augments the central role of the investor-owned insurance industry. The danger is that as costs continue to rise and coverage becomes less comprehensive, people will conclude that we've tried health reform and it didn't work. But the real problem will be that we didn't really try it. I would rather see us do nothing now, and have a better chance of trying again later and then doing it right."
Healthcare-Now! - a coalition of labor unions and other single payer activists - adopted a resolution earlier this month at its national strategy conference in St. Louis - calling on Congress to defeat the legislation.
The Healthcare-Now! board is co-chaired by Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers Union, Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association, Dr. Quintin Young of Physicians for a National Health Program, and Jim Winkler of the United Methodist Church.
71 Comments so far
Show Allwell, it is about time!
Finally a common sense fighting attitude.
There is no hope in hell of getting single payer passed anytime soon. Is that not obvious given the uproar over just a weak public option?? Where on earth do you think the votes are in congress for single payer?!
Meanwhile thousands of Americans are dying every month with no insurance. The current bill isn't perfect but it helps many of these everyday Americans. Who cares if it gives the insurance companies new customers? The point is - people will have insurance and won't be denied coverage.
I respect your passion for single payer but it's not realistic at this point in time and your answer to that is, "fine, let's keep the status quo" which I think is outrageous!
Thanks for your short-sighted narrow-mindedness. Not that there's any dearth of that around.
And thanks for your insight. Comments like yours are the reason I now feel that many of my fellow left-wingers are as angry and rude as their counterparts on the right. I'm interested in constructive dialogue here.
And here's the question I have for you Ephraim: Do you think if this bill is defeated there will be another chance in our lifetime for serious health care reform? Seriously. And if I may be allowed a follow-up, what do you think of the concept of passing this bill that improves on the health care system...and then organizing to elect progressives in 2010 and beyond who will push to change/modify this bill in the coming years? Is that a potentially better option than defeating this bill so we get the health care status quo?
Tramaker,
Evidently, we want the same thing; universal health care. You are willing to wait and think this is a baby step in the right direction. I don't. It is a move that will crunch more families finances, while the medical travesties mount. It is a corporate bonanza, while leaving people's health in the hands of greedy fools, their futures in limbo. It would be a major step backwards.
Supposedly, the democratic party believes in social welfare. That is why the people elected a majority of them in both houses and the resident of the big white one. If not now, then when? The dem party has the bodies and it is time to deliver.
Whether or not this bill passes, the fundamental problems of our healthcare system under serving tens of millions of Americans will not change. This bill will not effectively address the issues of cost or quality improvements. A public option that is estimated to provide only draconian coverage to a handful of those who are the sickest among us and can't afford insurance already is really no option at all. Perhaps most offensive, is the individual mandate threatening punitive measures against those who do not purchase the defective products of insurance companies.
Before proceeding any further, we must first agree that health care is a human right in this country, not a commodity to be bought, sold and insured for profit.
It is one thing to believe that in supporting this legislation we should not allow "the perfect to be the enemy of the good". It is quite another to fool ourselves into thinking it is raining when someone is merely pissing on our leg.
Seriously, Tramaker?
With its mandates, penalties, give-aways, delays, anti-choice and anti-immigration shackles and costs, this is a monstrously bad bill. It will be worse than the "status quo". If it passes it will set back health care reform for the rest of my lifetime. That is why I want this bill to fail.
I have one serious -- neither angry nor rude -- question for you. Just how bad would this bill have to get before you would finally oppose it?
Z-man: Do you really think that the Democratic party would risk alienating a major, major base of voters for at least a generation by passing a bill that does what you say it does? Let's stop the hysteria and analyze the bill for what it is. Yes, it's far from perfect...but please spare me "the sky is falling" rants.
A further poster below this recognizes the bill for what it is - baby steps toward eventual single-payer or at least a strong public option. I get that change isn't coming as fast as progressives would like but to say that the bill is worse than the status quo is ridiculous.
If your thesis above is right, why haven't publicly traded health stocks exploded in value? They've actually gone down since the Dems passed the house bill?
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/10/why-insurance-industry-is-fighting-mad.html
If your thesis above is correct, why did America's Health Insurers release a report that argues against the health care reform bills? http://www.slate.com/id/2232310/pagenum/all/
This bill is not baby steps, it is a trojan horse intended to prevent any true establishment of health care as a right for generations.
I believe pharmecutical stocks did shoot up after passage of the bill. As far as the other sectors, it is obviously standard best business practice to fight for even a better deal, without limit, to the very end. If you were haggling for a used car, and you were in such a bargaining position that you had the owner down to giving the car away, wouldn't you then bargain for the owner to pay you to take the car? This is how capitalism works. So, of course that are issuing negative reports.
In a previous post, I included a link from fivethirtyeight.com that shows that health care stocks have gone down since the House bill was passed.
So, now the argument on this forum is the insurance companies are arguing over a deal that's already a "give-away" to them? Love the contradictions!
Please re-read my used-car analogy. You don't seem to have understood it.
The rise or fall in stock values in healthcare, like any other industry, are influneced by a vast number of other things than potential laws.
Ahhh ... so you are not serious.
And because you (a) refused to answer my question and (b) made me waste my time searching for this mythical "further poster" and (c) apparently believe that the Health Insurers' "fighting" this bill is not just another tactic to further gut it and finally, (d) actually wrote something like "Do you think that the Democratic Party would risk alienating a major,major base of voters ..." and didn't put a smiley face after it ...
I gotta say good-bye to this hysterical (-ly funny) conversation.
I didn't realize I had refused to answer your question. You mean the one about how bad could the bill get before I wouldn't support it? Well, I don't accept your premise that it's an entirely bad bill so how am I supposed to answer it?
The further poster said something about baby steps, though not to misrepresent him, he didn't feel the bill was baby steps whereas I do. But at least he seemed to acknowledge it was a possibility.
If the insurers want to gut it, then how can it be a gift to them? You contradict yourself.
I'm not talking about alienating progressives, I'm talking about alienating the bulk of voters which according to you, is what this bill would do.
Imagine anyone being angry over the way this travesty has proceeded over the past year! Try telling the 112,000 families of Americans per year with family members who die because of no access to health care that they shouldn't be ANGRY! Comments like yours are the reason I know that you're just another Democratic party apologist who will defend every worthless thing Dems do by saying it's the best we can hope to get under practical considerations, or whatever.
As for "the concept of passing this bill that improves on the health care system," this bill does no such thing, as candrew, Buck and Z-man clearly argue. They've answered your question already. See, you're only touting the Pelosi/Reid/Baucus/Obama propaganda that this bill in any way helps anyone. If this idiot's bill passes as currently construed, or in any permitted modified form (excluding even a hint of single-payer potential anytime down the line), then that will be the end of health care "reform" for decades, if not scores of years.
Dem defenders like you are always reciting the "and then organizing to elect progressives in 2010 and beyond who will push to change/modify this bill in the coming years" mantra to argue that the only course of action is doing exactly what the useless Democrats decide to do, which is invariably NOTHING. "Health care status quo" is what you're arguing FOR, in your deluded efforts to say those of us demanding something substantive from these "practical" idiots are expecting the impossible. Well, it is impossible to expect meaningful change from Dems, "progressive" or not. We know this, you don't.
So the argument is - a bill with a watered down public option will (hopefully) barely pass but if it were to be killed, a single payer bill would easily pass? Is there an alternative congress I'm not aware of where these fantasies of yours play out for real?
32 million more Americans will be insured with this plan and no one will be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions. It's a start. Yet, you want to kill it. Tell that to the families you profess to care so much about.
Rather than bash the Democratic party, my philosophy is to try to move potential voters with persuasive arguments instead of the circle jerk that passes for constructive discussion on this forum.
No, the argument is, both Republicans and Democrats are utterly opposed to real health care reform because they are OWNED by Big Insurance and Pharma. Why anyone has to explain this to you, at this late date, is a mystery except that you reject the claim. The insurance companies have nearly abandoned the Republicans, since they're nominally out of power, and throw nearly all their zillions of dollars in lobbying Dems, who do what they're told. And the big insurers are fully behind this bill, whether or not their stocks have decreased. They've had ads on TV for weeks supporting this bill. They know that if this bill passes, their stocks will skyrocket. They own Obama, Pelosi, Baucus and the rest of the miscreants who've created this monster you think is so marvelous.
If anyone's involved in a circle jerk around here, it's you with the core of the Democratic Party.
It's the flip-side of "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence".
One's own Circle Jerk is always more satisfying than the Circle Jerk on the other side of the fence.
A bird in the hand...
· Yr Obd't Servant
As for "Do you think if this bill is defeated there will be another chance in our lifetime for serious health care reform?"
First, to reiterate, this bill is in NO WAY "serious health care reform". All it is, is insurance reform, which means permitting the big insurers to rake in even more profits than they already do for useless services as middle men who do absolutley NOTHING to provide health care to anyone. Will there be another chance? There would have to be, since this bill has nothing to do with health care anyway! So yes, scrap this steaming pile of crap and start over. HR676 is 30 pages long, concise and perfectly clear, while the bill of perpetual confusion and subterfuge that you defend is over 2,000 pages. Don't think you can pass off your argument as favoring the "good over the perfect" or any such claptrap, when all you're doing is stumping for Democrats.
This is just another corporate bailout, a way to transfer money to the power elite who never gave a sh*t about you, whether you are willing to take baby steps to get where you need to be.
You think you are getting closer with the public option, but in fact you are getting further away. It will further entrench the health care leeches who make money off denying health care.
I hope the bill will get defeated because it will do the exact opposite of what you think it is going to do.
We already are spending the money on health care for all, just not providing it. And you know who is pocketing the money.
single payer or single term.
public option is not an option
How many times will you compromise your values before you realize that you're being betrayed?
Considering the uproar from the Republicans over the existing plan, it coundn't get any louder if they offered single payer. However, enormous support would emerge FOR a genuine expansion of medicare-for-all-bill if it was offered.
It is the "status quo" - and worse, which the existing bills are designed to preserve.
Many of them think that this travesty of a bill *is* single payer. Who gives a shit what such idiots think?
'Massa said the bill would "enshrine in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry."'
This is the key sentence and what needs to be avoided. Anything enshrined in law is difficult to repeal, unless there is a corporate lobby (e.g. Glass–Steagall Act).
Best of luck to the four of you, but will corporate media pay the slightest attention? Will the Baucus caucus pay any but 15 minutes token attention? When's the last time ANYTHING Kucinich favored or fought for got anywhere in this miserable, spineless Congress? I can see 98% of them rallying against HR676 merely because Kucinich is for it. Their consensual loathing of any legislation smacking of "socialism" is loathsomely petty, but it always reveals their true allegiances--not to any vague and misty "constituency" but to their corporate masters.
"...national polls showing a majority of Americans and a majority of doctors support a Canadian-style, Medicare-for-all single payer system."
If that's what Americans want that's what they should get.
Ask your representatives. Ask the media to cover this fact and this news conference.
There will be no real health care reform until and unless major organizations which will benefit from major reform get on board. Many local and state agencies, companies, and unions are facing major financial crises because of health care obligations, while hospitals are closing because of unsustainable emergency care they are required to provide yet do not get paid for.
Medicare for All (Single Payer) insurance would completely relieve them of those burdens freeing public bodies to address other public needs while making companies that had been providing the most generous insurance for present and retired employees more competitive with far more stingy companies. The potential combined clout of these entities could, and should, play a pivotal role in combating the misleading propaganda of insurance companies and other forces opposing the public good.
It is critical for the public to become aware that not only would Medicare For All provide better health care for all and at lower cost, but there is a way it can be done with no new taxes! At present all 'unearned income' (income from rents, profits, interest, etc.) is 100% exempt from both Social Security and Medicare taxation. Closing this one loophole would, combined with existing Medicare revenue, provide sufficient income to not only fully fund a Single Payer national health care system for all Americans, but probably dental and optical care as well! And as a fringe benefit the purported Social Security shortfall would be eliminated as well - especially if the $105,800 cap on taxable Social Security income was eliminated at the same time!
Although how much sense Single Payer makes is obvious to the open-minded, until and unless these two factors are included in the discussion there is little likelihood of more than reluctant, token progress - especially given the degree to which Obama has reversed his earlier pro Single Payer position!
Very true, but why say "Single Payer"? That sounds like "only you alone are to pay for your medical bills".
"Medicare for All" alone would be better because Medicare is popular even with the majority of voting Republicans.
Whoever came up with this "Single Payer" title should be fired. It is confusing and misunderstood by both sides.
Words Do Matter... maybe we'll have better luck next time.
No insurance company left behind.
Single prayer is about all that is left.
A 2000+ page tome is all about plunder, not about healthcare.
Remember that the US Constitution is only a few pages long.
The Medicare for All bill can fit on a postcard.
I'll gladly chip in for a stamp.
"The Medicare for All bill can fit on a postcard."
Not quite. The consolidated Canada Health Act extends to almost 14 pages. But then it includes definitions and is written in two languages.
ok, two stamps
YES----Defeat this FUGKTKIN Thing!!!!
Russell might have written: "The Democratic health care bill is a massive bailout of the private health insurance industry," and sends a clear message that the Democrat Party isn't at all concerned about the health and wellbeing of its non-corporate constituents."
Open rebellion seems the only choice after congress passes this corporate "stimulus" bill. But I will first point my guns at the Corporadoes.
I couldn't agree with you more Russell. The Senate and House bills need to be torched, and a genuine open debate in Congress ensue on Single Payer. I believe Single Payer will come eventually even if these awful bills get to be one awfuller bill and passed. It just means we will have to suffer more until Americans get mad enough to force Congress to do the right thing.
"Force Congress to do the right thing"????? What do you plan to do, set up a quad 50 calibre machine gun nest in the gallery????? No offense intended, truly, but I do not believe you grasp the dynamic here. Congress knows well that this "health care FIX" is a turkey, and they understand the outcome for all of us, but they are bought ----- owned ---- Crooked ---- a wholly owned subsidiary of USA INC. Don't you get it???? This bullshit bill is smoke and mirrors ---- written by big med and big pharma, and big money. Not all of congress is stupid ---- They pretty well follow the bell curve of the general population in intelligence. We are being destroyed, (or have already been) by the elite few percent who own the "lawmakers" ---- the "Solons of our time"
Ask yourself, When was the last time congress acted on the behalf of the general populace? It has been a very long time. dh
Thank God for Dennis Kucinich - the living legacy of Paul Wellstone - a Truth Teller in the den of hell. I agree that the bill needs to opposed and scrapped. Unless this deformed pig is buried the American people will not even see discussion of the single payer solution for a long time.
We have two right wing parties one of which has a small progressive rump group willing to compromise almost anything to get any bill passed and so here we are with this lousy bill. Should the bill be defeated the health costs will continue to skyrocket until it becomes clear that the only alternative is to join the rest of the civilized world and adopt a single payer system.
Somewhere a few months back it was 1,200 pages, then it grew to 1,900 pages and as of the Senate debaucle it now now stands at 2,047 pages. This thing needs to be tanked and all that paper needs to get a second life in the manner that old Sears catalogs used to be recycled. This was my one of my favorite moments when I checked out this room on a tour of Calvin Coolidge's home on a summer vacation as a child. I never looked at a Sears catalog the same ever again. I'm sure you all can guess what room I'm referring to.
A better use of that paper would be to kindle the fire beneath the stakes to which most congresscritters and executive branch members ought to be tied.
I just want to say at the moment that Common Dreams, among the well known, older progressive sites that have comments, seems to be just about the only one that is overwhelmingly against this very bad law. Congrats to everyone who comes here and doesn't bother with the highest traffic progressive sites, such as Huffington Post and Daily Kos, etc. where (I would assume, because to be honest I seldom go to them, laugh out loud) there is a complete and confusing split of opinion, which is what you expect when the principles of non-right wing politics and economics are either not fully understood or not fully accepted.
Common Dreams has NOT been left confused and split, and this is outstanding and notable.
Go to one of those sites and you will end up very and needlessly confused as to whether the law is a good one or a bad one. Laws are either good or bad, based mostly on the total amount of good and bad they do. Yet Huff Post, Daily Kos, BuzzFlash, etc. are going to be hopelessly confused and split as to whether this proposed law is good or bad. They don't fully understand economics and politics, and they like to ignore what the other countries are doing, at least when it's "crunch time", what else can I say?
So in short, screw those other sites. I hate to be blunt, but it is a fact that you are not a true progressive if you support this legislation.
I for one will not only never vote either Republican nor Democrat, but I will never be participating in the other "progressive" sites, which when all was said and done, mostly sold out, to one extent or another, to the right wing Democrats and their need to pass something, anything, so as to (in their view) avoid losing election the next time they are up.
Common Dreamers know that no law is perfect, but we also damn well know a law that is worse than nothing when we see one. And we can detect a law that is a complete sell out when we see one. Moreover, we know that things would be better off, not worse off, if nothing at all were passed instead of the turkey.
Further, we know that you technically don't even need national laws for there to be beneficial actions, such as for example the free, temporary health care clinics that used to be only in 3rd world countries but have popped up in the US lately. Or how about progressive physicians who accept cash payments on a sliding scale? The point is, if the government is incompetent or too right wing, there are many, many other ways to get the jobs that need doing done.
Great post. I couldn't agree more, tremaine.
HuffPost and Dkos are "progressive"?
I have been suspicious of Arianna ever since she "renounced" republicanism and set up her "progressive" news site. Lets not forget that she used to be a VERY outspoken Reaganite.
The confusion among the liberal base is just another fringe benefit of Obama. Those new to politics in this last election could reduce their confusion by always asking the question, "Who benefits?"
When Obama ran a campaign splintering solidarity among the Democratic base - particularly between the old Left and the young, who benefitted?
When Obama set back campaign finance reform a hundred years, who benefitted?
When Obama brought back the brain trust that unleashed finance to hurt our country so badly, who benefitted?
When Obama expanded the war budget and sought to start more wars and expand bases, who benefitted?
When Obama brought this corporate porker of an health insurance bailout instead of real reform, who benefitted?
And so on. If people ask themselves who has benefitted in Obama's first nine months in office, it is clear what he is and who he serves. Maybe he'll run as a Republican in 2012.
the Pen (activist.pen) has a fax message that they'd like us to fax each week to our Senators urging Medicare for all. I copied and pasted into an email message via Congress dot org. I suspect the stinker will be passed. if so , we will have to keep up the pressure for Single Payer...however, I am not optimistic; i mean, we don't really have the power ($$) or time that the 35,000 lobbyists have that have corrupted the federal system. Perhaps the best we can hope for is that if enough States develop single payer systems, then the Feds would have to do the same. The other really crappy thing is that this pending legislation won't be in effect for five years, that may permit time to kill it and start over, or not...
So you thought Obama might speak up one more time on behalf of this bill, right? Not that I think this bill should pass in any way, but really, check this out. It looks like the ever-present Obama is voting present again:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/23/obama-not-upping-his-invo_n_368005.html
genicon
Being for this bill is just more of the delusion that The Lesser Of Two Evils is the way to go, whether its electing a president or supporting the Democrats, hoping they will eventually, some day, way in the distant future do the right thing.
Hear hear!
Let's kill this monstrosity and start over.
The Dems have to produce either a real bill or a phoney, and this one is most certainly a phoney.
Republicrats are trying to create the illusion that they are gunning for Health Care Reform by legislating the way health care is paid for. But, what they are really doing is making sure that insurance companies are taken care of by making coverage mandatory. Thereby, increasing the number of people having to pay for policies.
The revolution gets closer every day.