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History in a Number: Senate Amendment 2837
The idea of a Medicare for All type, single-payer healthcare system will be heard on the Senate floor. Late last evening, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont filed Senate Amendment No. 2837, and there are two additional original co-sponsors of this amendment, Senator Roland Burris of Illinois and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
The idea that healthcare is a basic human right that could and should be delivered to each and every person in this nation is not a new one. Our President knows that; our Congress knows that. But this struggle to reform the broken, profit-driven system has carried us a very long way from the spot that would allow us to finally extend that basic human right to all.
We've drifted off to talking about excise taxes and insurance exchanges and bending the cost curves. Amendment 2837 brings us back to the basics.
What's in a number? 45,000 people die every year in this nation without access to healthcare.
Medicare has its flaws, but overall it has provided seniors and the disabled with the best access to care that this nation could offer since the 1960s. But the rest of us have not been so lucky with our access to healthcare. Among those not covered by Medicare or the VA, the numbers of unnecessary deaths have soared; personal bankruptcies due to medical crisis have soared.
What is a number? Poverty among seniors has dropped more than 60 percent since the adoption of Medicare.
The healthcare reform effort has largely ignored the single-payer solution. Public financing and private delivery of healthcare through a Medicare for All type system would be an elegant, cost effective and proven way to fix much of what is broken while retaining that sense of personal choice over healthcare decisions that Americans value so highly. Yet, the discussion has been muted by the powerful profit-based insurance and health industry interests that stand to gain so very much by expanding and entrenching their hold over the U.S. healthcare system through this reform process.
What's in a number? Millions of Americans file for personal bankruptcy -- one every 12 seconds -- because medical crisis hit them too hard. And of those bankrupt folks, two-thirds had health insurance.
We will not get to the point of granting healthcare to all during this legislative cycle. We just won't. Our elected officials were less powerful than the profit-takers this time around. And we did not make our demands loud enough and clear enough. But we will find out in the Senate who stands for all of us and who stands for those who would profit from our continued suffering. And we will find that out by watching and listening as Senate Amendment 2837 is considered and debated -- and voted upon.
The time draws short to weigh in clearly with your Senators. We know they will not get to the point of passing a single-payer system this time around. But we also know they can begin setting the benchmarks for what we should do going forward. And with a yes vote on this amendment, Senators send us the message that they heard us, that they will keep fighting with us until the day when this nation no longer leaves the weak, the sick and the poor behind in the delivery of its most basic human rights.
Call your Senators. Tell them you want them to vote for Senators Sanders, Burris and Brown's amendment number 2837. Call today. Call now. Insist on a vote for moral and fiscal sanity.
What's in a number? Everything. Senate Amendment No. 2837. Everyone in, nobody out.
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16 Comments so far
Show All"We know they will not get to the point of passing a single-payer system this time around. But we also know they can begin setting the benchmarks for what we should do going forward."
Are you kidding? If the merged bills that the House and Senate are debating pass as is, there will be no debate for probably at least decade (or likely longer because Democrats will likely lose members of Congress) because it doesn't kick in until 2014 and then, it will be years before Americans can evaluate how bad the bill is. Sanders and progressive Democrats should have withheld his support the bill prior to this stage, just as the conservative Democrats did to get the bill to where it is today because Amendment time is too late if it requires 60 votes to pass.
It is a pipedream to think that if this bill passes, Congressional Democrats are going to do anything in the foreseeable future to improve healthcare, even as the number of uninsured continues to climb until 2014.
Respectfully disagree. It will not take years to know that deaths are still occuring and folks are still going broke.
The pressures will mount more quickly than that. The pressures are mounting as I type this.
I will not give up or wait for a decade nor will others.
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
Let's hope he doesn't chicken out like Rep. Anthony Weiner did.
I am sorry but this article does not explain what Amendment No. 2837 is about ( yes I do understand that it has something to do with the single payer system but what exactly is it meant for ) .
I tried to google it and could not find anything useful.
I cannot call my senator before I understand what am I calling about.
Please explain what Amendment No. 2837 is about?
It is a "substitute amendment" which would put in place a state administered single-payer system for all. It is mirrored on S 703 (which you can check out more fully on thomas.gov.
It would replace the access and financing provisions of the Senate bill with single-payer financing based on progressive payroll and income taxes. No additional co-pays, premiums, deductibles and everyone covered.
Hope that helps.
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
This is really uplifting news. Thanks for your tireless efforts to give voice to those shut out of this debate.
Win or lose, we're not going away. And with folks like you helping us, our voice will grow louder and stronger.
I'm calling my senators....one of them is Baucus.
Think he'll listen?
If you listen to their arguments alone, you'd think they were in our camp. Baucus sounded great yesterday. But then they slot in the insurance companies and blow up any potential progress. They know what is right. It's just so hard to get them to act on that knowledge.
I think Baucus listens. But how he acts is a problem.
Thank you for caring enough to be involved.
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
Donna,
I am convinced that you are sincere. For that rare trait, I thank you.
I hope Bernie Sanders is on the level and this is not a symbolic gesture. It will be telling if Leahy doesn't side with Sanders. Leahy never met a war funding bill he didn't vote for. We'll see.
I recommend you read Paul Craig Rpberts on the subject of public programs versus war funding. He makes it very clear in his recent Counterpunch article that war funding is an entitlement welfare program and the public programs such as social security and medicare are really what funded these war programs. In fact, all the taxes people have had to endure for social security and medicare have returned pennies on the dollar for this investment. This is the dirty secret that no bombastic Baucus politician or moronic republican will admit. The constant repetion of the lie that entitlement programs are bankrupting the USA when, in reality, the only "entitlement" program that is bankrupting us is war funding must be exposed in order for our society to progress. Too many people believe this lie.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Treasury Secretary during the Reagan administration. He KNOWS what is being funded and what is not being funded.
Thank you for the comment. I will read the book -- I hate war on so many levels and know it drains our resources for almost every other program or possibility. But more knowledge for me is always a good thing.
We can do better, but only when we acknowledge the truth about how we are setting our priorities and ignoring human rights for our own people. I think many operate under the illusion that we are always so humane, and that's just not reality.
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
Donna,
You are very welcome.
Here is the link to the latest Paul Craig Roberts article:
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts12022009.html
gnken
It won't happen. Our Law makers in Washington don't give one "IOTA". Being Elected to Washington is All about MONEY!! That is the Bottom Line. The reality is we will not be served by our elected officials on this one. Your better off to concentrate your energies to move to a country that has health care for all such as Canada. I have relatives in Norway and I can retire in a year from my job and Norway looks better all the time.
"gnken"
Will it hurt you to tell your Senators to support this?
You sound lucky - to be able to move to Norway, if you want. Most of us do not have an option like that.
Just remember, as Roseanna Roseannadanna used to say, "It's ALWAYS SOMETHIN!"
Thank you, Donna Smith, for bringing this to my attention. After doing some looking into the amendment, I immediately e-mailed my Senators and told them that this amendment is the best way to reduce costs and provide access to health care.
I know there will be trouble ahead, but thank you for this positive development.
I'm telling friends.
I will call or email my senator tommorrow. Thank you Donna Smith for pushing on this issue. We need to support all true progressive Democrats as they are up against a mountain of opposition. Depending on them alone to do the heavy lifting won't get us anywhere. Getting active is the only way change occurs.
While I agree that everyone should contact their sham-representatives in D.C. in order to express themselves, I have no illusions that it will make any difference.
I have written to my own sham-representative and I will continue to do so, but I know that there will be no "change" until after the so-called "economy" collapses.
Once World Depression II is in full swing people will understand that they have been ripped off and that the "American Dream" is just that: a dream.
Hope is cheap.
Our 'elected' officials will rob Medicare to appease the Healthscare Scammers.