March 31, 2009 at 16:43:30

Single Payer Health Care is in Our Future

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By Gene Messick (about the author)

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For OpEdNews: Gene Messick - Writer

For the first time ever, large numbers of Americans of all political stripes and avocations are rallying around the idea of Single Payer Health Care for everyone who needs it and wants it. Bills are introduced in both Houses of Congress, and everyone's taking note -- especially doctors and health care professionals who actually favor, more and more, this revolutionary idea.

Or is it? No one asked to be born. Why shouldn't our government, elected to serve the people, not profit-making Corporations, do it's job protecting the health of our citizens, after our "experiment" with leaving health care up to Big Medicine and Big Pharma has failed so miserably?

Here's what Physicians for A National Health Program (PNHP) sent out in a Newsletter on March 26th, under this slogan: "Health care is a human right!" Contacts for this group are at the end, or Mark Almberg, (312) 782-6006, mark@pnhp.org

So many of us have waited for decades for this entirely rational human concept to come to America. Now's the time to get behind this bandwagon, and push as if your life depended upon it.

_________________________

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. (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.

Physicians for a National Health Program
29 E Madison Suite 602, Chicago, IL 60602
Phone (312) 782-6006 | Fax: (312) 782-6007
www.pnhp.org | info@pnhp.org
© PNHP 2009

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For 17 years Gene Messick studied and taught Design at NC State University and Cornell. Co-founding the Visual Design Program at NCSU, he established the Photography Program at Cornell, where he taught in the Architecture Department, most interested (more...)

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