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The Progressive

NewsWire

A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Contact:

Nathan White
(202)225-5871

Kucinich, Conyers, Sanders Renew Call for National Single Payer on Medicare's Birthday

Medicare for All is the most Cost-Effective Health Care Option for America

WASHINGTON

Congressmen
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and Senator Bernie
Sanders (I-VT) are today reaffirming their efforts to provide all
Americans with health care that would allow access to the doctor of
choice without premiums, co-pays or deductibles. Kucinich and Conyers,
Jr., are the co-authors of H.R. 676, Medicare for All, which provides a
blueprint for an effective, national single-payer system. Sanders is
the author of S. 703, the American Health Security Act which also
provides for a single-payer system.

The
three Congressional leaders on Medicare for All health care sent an
open letter calling on Americans to build on the momentum created by
debate and passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to
make Medicare for All a reality. They also renewed the call for states
to take the lead on passing Medicare for All legislation.
"I
celebrate Medicare's birthday by pledging to continue the fight to
implement Medicare for All nationally and at the state level, where
there is so much promise" said Kucinich.
"As
we honor Medicare's 45th birthday today, I am proud to say that the
movement for Medicare for All remains strong and vibrant. I look
forward to working with my colleagues, activists, and my other friends
in the single payer community to improve H.R. 676 over the next few
months, before reintroducing it in the 112th Congress.
While
we must continue to work for the passage of a true universal health
care bill, we must also be vigilant in our efforts to protect the health
care benefits many Americans count on today. Over 47 million older
adults and people with disabilities look to Medicare as a source of
health and financial security. During this period of increased concern
over the size of the federal deficit, Medicare and other social
insurance programs are increasingly at risk of being targeted for
benefit cuts. I pledge to work with my colleagues in the Congress to
defeat any proposal that threatens any of these critically important
programs," said Conyers.
"In
my view, the single-payer approach is the only way we will ever have a
cost-effective, comprehensive health care system in this country," said
Sanders. "One of the reasons our current health care system is so
expensive, so wasteful, so bureaucratic, so inefficient is that it is
heavily dominated by private health insurance companies whose only goal
in life is to make as much money as they can."
Read the letter here.

Dennis Kucinich is an American politician. A U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1997 to 2013, he was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2004 and 2008.