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There are two main arguments for single payer health care, also called "Medicare for All", now proposed as Congressional bill HR 676 by John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich with 91 co-sponsors.

The Moral Ethical Argument

The first is the ethical moral argument.  Health insurance companies make their profit by denying health care to sick people.  That is immoral and unethical.

The Economic Argument

The second and perhaps more compelling argument is economic.  Our current system of health insurance has created an unbearable economic burden on the nation.   Simply put, it is too expensive for us to bear.  There are over 100 separate health insurance companies operating under different sets of rules creating a huge 30 % administrative overhead.  For comparison, administrative overhead for Medicare is only 2%.

By converting to a single payer system, we immediately save 300 billion dollars in administrative overhead. 

As a nation, we are now paying twice what other countries pay for health care, yet we have 45 million uninsured and 18,000 deaths annually caused by lack of access to health care. Almost half the bankruptcies currently filed in the United States are because of medical bills.  We are paying a huge national Health Care bill, twice what other countries spend on universal health care, yet we do not have universal health coverage here in the US.

Medicare is a 40 year example of a successful single payer system which has an administrative overhead of 2%, not 30%.

Only One Explanation Why We Don't Have Single Payer Now

These two arguments in favor of a single payer heath insurance system (moral and economic) are so compelling, that one must conclude the only reason we don't have single payer now is because of lack of representative government.  The obvious conclusion is that our government does not serve the people who elected them.  Rather, our elected government officials serve the special interests of the health insurance industry and other corporations who make massive campaign contributions.

It’s Time to Eliminate the Health Insurance Industry

Medical Review of Claims

How does the Health Insurance Company make money?  They make profits by denial of healthcare with a contrived procedure called  “medical review of claims and benefits”.  Much of the 30 per cent administrative overhead pays for employees doing this sham “medical review of claim” and denial.  Employee pay is actually linked to the number of denials generated, and special computer software called "Denial Engine Software may be used."  The variables on the software can be adjusted up or down depending on how much profit the company wants to keep that year.
 
Process of Denial of Medical Claim is a Pretense and Masquerade Based on Guidelines

Rather than provide needed medical care for sick people, the “review of care” is intended to deny payment for medical care.  Under this "review of care" procedure, the insurance company claims that the medical claim fails "the guidelines", and this failure is the reason for the denial.  How are these "Guidelines" derived? Guidelines are created by health professionals employed for the benefit of the insurance company, and have no connection with the realities of medical practice.

Manufactured Excuse for Denial of Claim

The guidelines provide a manufactured excuse for denial of care based on one of the following:  The guidelines have determined that the health care is medically unnecessary, experimental, dangerous to the patient’s well-being, or outside the standards of care provided by a professional association or governmental agency.  The healthcare may be denied because it uses an off-label indication (for a medicine or device).  However, the real reason for denial of the claim is obvious;  the claim is denied because it reduces corporate profit.

Prior Authorization

The Insurance Company had decided that certain tests and treatments require “prior authorization”.  Seeking prior approval consumes inordinate amounts of the doctor’s time, which is not compensated.  Because of this uncompensated time, the doctor may avoid seeking “prior authorizations”, thereby avoiding the best treatment or best medication, device or procedure.  In fact, the doctor would rather walk on a bed of hot coals rather than hang on the phone with clerks seeking “prior authorization”.   To secure approvals, the doctor may be forced to exaggerate the urgency of the medical condition or use creative medical coding.

Fee Pressures from the Insurance Company

The health insurance company does not pay ordinary and customary doctor’s fees.   Instead, the health insurance company creates their own fee schedule, paying a fraction of the usual fees.  The physician has the choice of either accepting this paltry fee schedule, or opt out of the insurance system.  If the doctors accept the insurance fee schedule, they are faced with financial ruin, as the resulting income is insufficient to support a medical office.

Cut the Fees, and Increase the Volume

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The result has been a lower quality of medical care, increasing malpractice litigation, a loss of confidence in the medical profession,  a loss of physician self-esteem,  and an unbearable economic burden on our nation.

Corporate Corruption of the Government

The exorbitant profits gleaned from denial of care to sick patients are put to good use by the health insurance industry.  The money is used to purchase the loyalty of the United States Congress, which then creates new legislation and new regulations favorable to the health insurance industry. 

Prohibit Collective Bargaining by Physicians

For example, the health insurance lobby has secured federal legislation that prohibits physicians from forming  unions to negotiate their fees with the insurance industry.  This collective bargaining would have given the doctors the ability to negotiate from strength.  Instead,  doctors find themselves isolated, divided  and powerless against large insurance companies on an unequal playing field.

Part D Medicare

Another example of this corruption is the Part D medication benefit under Medicare.  This legislation prohibits Medicare from negotiating prices with the drug industry, making sure the drug industry rakes in windfall profits on medications sold through Medicare. 

Massive  Political Contributions

Virtually every health insurance company hires lobbyists in Congress.  The health insurance industry is the largest political contributor, making frequent and massive political contributions to members of Congress.  Although this practice corrupts our democratic process, it is currently legal.  This is one reason we have not had a truly representative government in decades. Political payoffs from corporate special interests represent high corruption of government, and trades money for political influence and favorable legislation.  We need reform in government which means public financing of elections and a ban on special interest money.

Professional Lobbyists

Many professional lobbyists have actually served in Congress and are experienced in writing and passing legislation.  These people actually compose the legislation designed to favor and enrich the health insurance industry.  This legislation is then sponsored by congressional members who are recipients of health insurance political contributions.

Congressional Members have Universal Health Care

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Two American Heroes of Bill HR 676

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John Conyers              Dennis Kucinich

A key reason is that the private health insurance industry imposes massive administrative costs on the healthcare system. Administrative costs in U.S. healthcare are about 31 percent of total health spending. In nations with single payer national health insurance, the overhead costs are about 16.5 percent of spending. The possible administrative savings in going from a multipayer system to a single payer system are about $350 billion annually. That means that by going from the current multipayer, private insurance-dominated system to a nonprofit single-payer system, you have a built-in cost savings of about $350 billion.

If single payer faces the serious political obstacles that come from calling for wiping out the private health insurance system, are there incremental things that can be done to take us in that direction?

The only incremental thing that one can do that makes any sense at all would be placing all hospital care into a single payer system as a first step, and then later placing other types of care into a single payer system. That’s what happened in Saskatchewan. They initially enacted a single payer system that covered all the hospitals and then a few years later enacted a single payer system that covered everything.

Every industrialized country except the United States has some version of a single-payer healthcare system. Private insurance that covers services covered by the national program would be forbidden, although private insurance would be available to insure patients for services not covered under the national program.

The leading legislative proposal for a U.S. single-payer system is H.R. 676, introduced in 2007 by Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, and co-sponsored by 91 Members of Congress....

Over 5,000 U.S. physicians have signed an open letter calling on the candidates for president and Congress “to stand up for the health of the American people and implement a nonprofit, single-payer national health insurance system.” endquote.

To read more about this topic see:
Making Your Health Insurance Company Pay Up by Jeffrey Dach MD

Author: Jeffrey Dach MD

Link to this article:
http://jeffreydach.com/2008/10/27/why-we-need-single-payer-health-care-by-jeffrey-dach-md.aspx

(c) 2008-9 Jeffrey Dach MD All Rights Reserved
This article may be reproduced on the internet without permission,
provided there is a link to this page and proper credit is given.

References and Links:

http://www.drs.org.au/new_doctor/84/Sirota.pdf
David Sirota | How Corporate America Perpetuates the Health Care Crisis   

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2628/
By David Sirota      In These Times     Monday 01 May 2006

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/opinion/01krugman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Op-Ed Columnist   Death By Insurance  By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: May 1, 2006

For lower-income working Americans, lack of health insurance is quickly becoming the new normal. That's the implication of survey results just released by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonpartisan organization that studies health care. The survey found that 41 percent of nonelderly American adults with incomes between $20,000 and $40,000 a year were without health insurance for all or part of 2005. That's up from 28 percent as recently as 2001.

http://healthcare.kucinich.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=2
Universal Health Care    
 
"Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity and there is an obligation for society to ensure that every person be able to realize this right."

Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Chicago Archdiocese

Our health care system is broken, and HR 676, the Conyers-Kucinich bill, is the only comprehensive solution to the problem. It is also the system endorsed by more than 14,000 physicians from Physicians for a National Health Program. Nearly 46 million Americans have no health care and over 40 million more have only minimal coverage. In 2005 some 41% of moderate and middle income Americans went without health care for part of the year. Even more shocking is that 53% of those earning less than $20,000 went without insurance for all of 2005. In fact, the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine estimates that 18,000 Americans die each year because they have no health insurance.

The American health system is quite sick. Pulitzer Prize journalists Donald Barlett and James Steele, in their stunning analysis of the health care industry, Critical Condition (2006 Broadway Books), insist that "... U.S. health care is second-rate at the start of the twenty-first century and destined to get a lot worse and much more expensive." Considering the following facts from Tom Daschle's article for the Center for American Progress: "Paying More but Getting Less: Myths and the Global Case for U.S. Health Reform":

1. Americans are The Healthiest People in the World.
FACT: Citizens of 34 nations live longer than Americans.

2. The U.S. is the Best Place to Get Sick.
FACT: The World Health Organization ranked the U.S. 37th in the world for health system performance. Countries like Australia and the United Kingdom rank above the U.S. Americans have lower odds of surviving colorectal cancer and childhood leukemia than Canadians who do have national health care. Americans also experience greater problems in coordination of care than the previously mentioned countries and New Zealand.

3. Covering All Americans Will Lead to Rationing.
FACT: Same-day access to primary-care physicians in the U.S. (33%) is far less available than in the United Kingdom (41%), Australia (54%) and New Zealand (60%). Per capita spending for health care averaged $2,696 in countries without waiting lists and $5,267 in the U.S.

4. Global Competitiveness is Hampered in Comprehensive System.
FACT: "Health care costs are not just a burden and barrier to care for individuals; they are taking a heavy toll on American businesses." The strain on employers in 2005 was staggering. "The average total premiums for an employer-based family plan was $9,979 in 2005 ..." Most of our competitors in the world markets finance their systems outside corporate taxes and employer mandates. Without Medicare for Everyone, the U.S. will continue to hemorrhage jobs.

5. We Cannot Afford to Cover All Americans.

FACT: We already spend enough to have universal health care. "The truth is, we cannot afford to not reform the health system." We spend about 50% more than the next most expensive nation and nearly twice per person what the Canadians do. On May 1, 2006 Paul Krugman explained in Death by Insurance how incredibly wasteful the current system is. The doctor he referenced has two full-time staff members for billing, and two secretaries spend half their time collecting insurance information on the 301 different private plans they deal with. This type of waste is easily 20%. Also consider that 98% of Medicare funds are spent on medical care.

IMPORTANT: The hackneyed -- and inaccurate -- mantra of Republicans when universal health care is introduced is to blame trial lawyers and malpractice cases for our lack of national health care. In fact, 0.46% of our total health spending is spent on awards, legal costs, and underwriting costs -- about the same as Canada and the United Kingdom and about the same amount we spend on dog and cat food each year. While "defensive medicine" may drive up the price, it hardly accounts for our stunning health care costs. The belief that citizens should give up their right to fair legal redress for legally proven medical mistakes in exchange for lower health care costs rings as true as the promise that if we must give up our civil rights to be safe from terrorists.

Even those with coverage too often pay exorbitant rates. The current profit-driven system, dominated by private insurance firms and their bureaucracies, has failed.

We must establish streamlined national health insurance, "Enhanced Medicare for Everyone." It would be publicly financed health care, privately delivered, and will put patients and doctors back in control of the system. Coverage will be more complete than private insurance plans; encourage prevention; and include prescription drugs, dental care, mental health care, and alternative and complementary medicine.

Perhaps the clearest and most eloquent explanation of the Conyers-Kucinich National Health Insurance Bill was given on February 4, 2003, in Washington, D.C. by Dr. Marcia Angell in introducing H. R. 676. Backed by over 14,000 doctors, this is the future of American medicine.
"We are here today to introduce a national health insurance program. Such a program is no longer optional; it's necessary.

"Americans have the most expensive health care system in the world. We spend about twice as much per person as other developed nations, and that gap is growing. That's not because we are sicker or more demanding (Canadians, for example, see their doctors more often and spend more time in the hospital). And it's not because we get better results. By the usual measures of health (life expectancy, infant mortality, immunization rates), we do worse than most other developed countries.

Furthermore, we are the only developed nation that does not provide comprehensive health care to all its citizens. Some 42 million Americans are uninsured (nearly 46 million today -- updated figure) -- disproportionately the sick, the poor, and minorities -- and most of the rest of us are underinsured. In sum, our health care system is outrageously expensive, yet inadequate. Why? The only plausible explanation is that there's something about our system -- about the way we finance and deliver health care -- that's enormously inefficient. The failures of the system were partly masked during the economic boom of the 1990's, but now they stand starkly exposed. There is no question that with the deepening recession and rising unemployment, in the words of John Breaux, 'The system is collapsing around us.'
"The underlying problem is that we treat health care like a market commodity instead of a social service. Health care is targeted not to medical need, but to the ability to pay. Markets are good for many things, but they are not a good way to distribute health care. To understand what's happening, let's look at how the health care market works ... "

"Mainstream" writers like Ph. D. economist and columnist for the New York Times Paul Krugman now agree with those doctors and Dennis that "covering everyone under Medicare would actually be significantly cheaper than our current system." They all recognize that we already spend enough to provide national health care to all but lack the political courage to make the tough decisions that doctors, nurses and medical professionals must run our health care system, - not "for profit" insurance companies who make money by denying health care.
It is time to recognize that all the civilized countries have a solution that we must adapt to this country. American businesses can no longer be competitive shouldering the entire cost of health care. Health care is a right that all Americans deserve.

http://www.dmiblog.com/archives/2007/12/where_do_the_candidates_stand_15.html#comment-5427

The #1 cause of injury, disability, and DEATH in America is, Health Care. More people die now from contact with the American Medical Health Care system than from any other cause of death. More than from Cancer, Heart disease, or Stroke. More than any other country in the world. Many times more than any other people in the world. This fact is a catastrophic indictment of the entire US Health Care System.

Driven by greed. And a rush to profit. Thousands of Americans are killed, and injured daily in America. By compromised health care. Cutting corners. Over, and under treatments. And poisonings with all manor of toxic, poisonous pharmaceuticals. Especially the children.

America only makes up 2-4% of the world population. But Americans buy, and consume 50% of all pharmaceuticals world wide.

But the tide has turned. I can see it. Hear it. And feel it. The message is getting out. And taking hold about the fact that we have a very serious, and major health care crisis going on in America. Hurting everyone. Especially our precious little children. Rich, and poor alike. And most all Americans seem to understand now that "HR 676 Not For Profit Single Payer Universal National Health Care For All (Medicare For All)" is the way to go. Like all the other developed countries have done. I have seen numbers as high as 90% of Americans want government managed health care Now. Medicare for all. Like other developed countries have. And like older Americans have now.

BRAVO!!! America. YOU GET IT! YOU REALLY GET IT! See sickocure.org.
It's NOW TIME to bring out the BIG GUNS!! The BIG GUNS!! are you. The American people. And anyone else that wants to help. From now until HR 676 is passed into law. I want every person to reach out and touch their fellow Americans every day if you can. I want you to take a phone book. And call at least one of your fellow Americans every day. And ask them to pickup the sword of HR 676 Single Payer Not For Profit Universal Health Care For All (Medicare For All).

Call more than one each day if you can. And ask them to do the same as you are doing if they can. And also to put maximum pressure on their politicians to get HR 676 done. And to make sure their politicians support HR 676. Accept no substitute. HR 676 is a no-brainer. It's the best way to go on health care. It's the only moral, and ethical way to go. That is why every other developed country has done it. Most did it years ago.

Lastly, I am sick and tired of hearing how the candidates, and politicians health care plans are going to protect, and preserve the private for profit health insurance companies that have been killing, and ripping off the American people. And now the politicians want to mandate (require) that every American has to support the private for profit insurance company's that have been killing, and ripping you off. Or you will be fined, and PENALIZED. Thats right. PENALIZED. Ridiculous! The politicians really think you are all detached idiots. CASH COWS! To lead to the slaughter. Don't put up with that.

Medicare cost 2-3% to administer. Private insurance cost 30% to administer.
Under HR 676 everyone would be covered from birth to death. No co-pays. No-deductible. No out of pocket cost. Plus Dental. And Vision. For less cost than we pay now under private health insurance.

With private insurance. You have 47 million Americans with no insurance.
And 89 million Americans that had no insurance part of the time from 2006-2007.
And over a 100 million that are under insured.
18-30 thousand Americans that die each year from lack of health care.
Health Care bills as the #1 cause of personal bankruptcy. And loss of homes.
Under HR 676 health care is moral, and ethical.
Private for profit insurance is immoral. And unethical.
Profit is the primary motive of the private insurance companies.
They make profit by charging needy, vulnerable, sick Americans as much as they can charge them.

Then they make more profit by denying them care when they most need it. And are most vulnerable and unable to fight back. When they are sick. Or trying to recover from major illness.

HR 676: we will save 300 billion dollars in administrative cost each year.  With private insurance: we spent more per capita on health care than any other country in the world. Over twice as much as most other developed country's. Yet we have 47 million with no health care.
We rank at the bottom in quality of health care #37.

Americans have a shorter life expectancy than people from all other developed countries. We rank # 42 in life expectancy. Down from #1.

For the first time in American history. The life expectancy of American children is less than that of their parents. American children are dieing at a record rate. And are in terrible health generally.

People from other country's enjoy a much higher level of general health than the best privately insured Americans.

Americans are also shrinking. We used to be the tallest people in the world. Now we are down to # 10.

People from other country's never have to worry about going bankrupt, or loosing their homes over medical bills if they get sick.

Maybe you should go take a break for a while before I go on. I know this must be upsetting. But this is just a small part of the sad truth about private health insurance that HR 676 can fix.

Under HR 676:
Health care will be based on need. Not on profit. And high standards, and quality will be enforced, and patients protected by the Government through a dedicated civil service. With the power, and resources to rain in abuses of patient care. Like they do with Medicare now.

With private insurance: Medical care is base on ability to pay. And profit. Tens of thousands of patient are killed, and millions are injure, crippled, and mutilated each year under private for profit health care, and insurance.

By insurance companies denying needed care to increase their profits.
By hospitals cutting corners. And using the cheapest least experienced personnel, equipment, and standards they can get away with.

Americans makeup 2-4 % of the world population. But Americans buy, and consume 50% of all pharmaceuticals world wide. This is a monstrous evil. And immorality. 
 
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00676:@@@P
H.R.676 Title: To provide for comprehensive health insurance coverage for all United States residents, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14] (introduced 1/24/2007)      Cosponsors (93) Latest Major Action: 2/2/2007 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Health. 92 Co-Sponsors

http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/tags/obama
obamaNevada RNS on the Single Payer Road: This Shift is Over
Posted by Donna Smith - S... on October 17, 2008 - 11:33pm

http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/legislation/hr-676-conyers/united-states-national-health-insurance-act
How it would help!

HR 676 establishes an American-styled national health insurance program. The bill would create a publicly financed, privately delivered health care program that uses the already existing Medicare program by expanding and improving it to all U.S. residents, and all residents living in U.S. territories. The goal of the legislation is to ensure that all Americans, guaranteed by law, will have access to the highest quality and cost effective health care services regardless of ones employment, income, or health care status.

With over 45-75 million uninsured Americans, and another 50 million who are under insured, it is time to change our inefficient and costly fragmented health care system.

Physicians For A National Health Program reports that under a Medicare For All plan, we could save over $286 billion dollars a year in total health care costs.

We would move away from our present system where annual family premiums have increased upwards to $9,068 this year.

Under HR 676, a family of three making $40,000 per year would spend approximately $1600 per year for health care coverage.

Medicare for All would allow the United States to reduce its almost $2 trillion health care expenditure per year while covering all of the uninsured and everybody else for more than they are getting under their current health care plans.

In 2005, without reform, the average employer who offers coverage will contribute $2,600 to health care per employee (for much skimpier benefits).
Under HR 676, the average costs to employers for an employee making $30,000 per year will be reduced to $1,155 per year; less than $100 per month.

Who is Eligible!

Every person living in the United States and the U.S. Territories would receive a United States National Health Insurance Card and identification number once they enroll at the appropriate location. Social Security numbers may not be used when assigning identification. cards. No co-pays or deductibles are permissible under this act.

Health Care Services Covered!

This program will cover all medically-necessary services, including primary care, inpatient care, outpatient care, emergency care, prescription drugs, durable medical equipment, long term care, mental health services, dentistry, eye care, chiropractic, and substance abuse treatment. Patients have their choice of physicians, providers, hospitals, clinics, and practices. Medicare will be improved and everybody will get it.

Conversion to A Non-Profit Health Care System!

Private health insurers shall be prohibited under this act from selling coverage that duplicates the benefits of the Medicare for All program.

Cost Containment Provisions/Reimbursement

The Medicare for All program will annually set reimbursement rates for physicians, health care providers; and negotiate prescription drug prices. The national office will provide an annual lump sum allotment to each existing Medicare region, which will then administer the program. Payment to health care providers include fee for service, and global budgets. Doctors will be paid based on their current reimbursement rates. The conversion to a not-for- profit health care system will take place over a 15 year period, through the sale of U.S. treasury bonds;

Administration!

The United States Congress will establish annual funding outlays for the Medicare for All program through an annual entitlement, to be administered by the Medicare program. A U. S. National Health Insurance Advisory Board will be established, comprised primarily of health care professionals and representatives of citizen health advocacy groups.

Proposed Funding

Maintaining current federal and state funding of existing health care programs! A modest payroll tax on all employers and employees of 3.3% each. A 5% health tax on the top 5% of income earners. A small tax on stock and bond transfers. Closing corporate tax loop-holes, and repealing the Bush tax cut for the highest 1% of income earners.

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/08/19/obama-says-single-payer-health-care-makes-sense/#more-3168
August 19, 2008, 10:21 am Obama Says Single-Payer Health Care Makes Sense Posted by Scott Hensley

Barack Obama said he would consider embracing a single-payer health-care system sometime in the future as his plan for broader health coverage evolves, the WSJ’s Amy Chozick reports from the campaign trail.
“If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system,” Obama told some 1,800 people at a town-hall meeting on the economy in
Albuquerque, New Mexico.

But Obama repeated that he rejects an immediate shift to a single-payer system. “Given that a lot of people work for insurance companies, a lot of people work for HMOs. You’ve got a whole system of institutions that have been set up,” he said at a roundtable discussion with women Monday morning after a voter asked, “Why not single payer?”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/98083/output/print
A Clinton-Obama Slugfest Factcheck.org decodes the South Carolina debate
Viveca Novak factcheck.org Jan 23, 2008 | Updated: 10:24  a.m. ET Jan 23, 2008

Clinton: Secondly, we have seen once again a kind of evolution here. When Senator Obama ran for the Senate, he was for single-payer and said he was for single-payer if we could get a Democratic president and Democratic Congress. As time went on, the last four or so years, he said he was for single-payer in principle, then he was for universal health care. And then his policy is not, it is not universal. ...
Obama: I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single-payer. What I said was that if I were starting from scratch, if we didn't have a system in which employers had typically provided health care, I would probably go with a single-payer system.

But Obama's denial doesn't hold up. In a speech to the AFL-CIO in 2003, when he was setting up his run for the Senate, Obama said:

Obama (June, 30, 2003): I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, is spending 14 percent, 14 percent, of its gross national product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that's what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see. And as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, we have to take back the House.

That sounds to us like someone who's pretty gung-ho for a single-payer plan. But after Democrats captured control of both the House and Senate in 2006, Obama tempered his position. He said in a New Yorker interview last year:

Obama (in The New Yorker, May 7, 2007): If you're starting from scratch, then a single-payer system ... would probably make sense. But we've got all these legacy systems in place, and managing the transition ... would be difficult to pull off. So we may need a system that's not so disruptive.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/why-not-single-payer-par_b_94239.html
Why Not Single Payer? Part 5: The Single Payer Health Care Movement and the Plans of the Democratic Presidential Nominee

http://www.healthcare-now.org/2008/10/healthcare-now-interviewed-by-mickey-z/
Healthcare-NOW! Interviewed by Mickey Z October 13, 2008 by HC-N!  
Filed under HCN News Mickey Z, of www.mickeyz.net, interviewed our own Katie Robbins.

www.insurancecompanieskillpeople/blogspot.com

http://singlepayerhealth.org/
SINGLE-PAYER IS THE ONLY SOLUTION!

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/october/doctors_to_candidate.php
Doctors to candidates: enact single-payer health reform
Contacts: Steffie Woolhandler, M.D. Oliver Fein, M.D.

Over 5,000 U.S. physicians have signed an open letter calling on the candidates for president and Congress “to stand up for the health of the American people and implement a nonprofit, single-payer national health insurance system.”

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/september/in_texas_the_health.php
In Texas, the health care crisis is only getting worse/ Census statistics show state’s children at risk By DR. ANA MALINOW Houston Chronicle Monday, September 8, 2008

The problems of our state and nation’s health care are systemic. They are a result of a defective model of financing health care, a model based on the investor-owned private health insurance industry, which adds no value to health care.

The private health insurers make profits by enrolling the healthy, screening out the sick and denying claims. I see the destructive results of this “non-system” every day. It is simply not sustainable economically nor justifiable morally.

The cure is a single-payer national health insurance program, an improved and expanded Medicare for all. Cut the administrative waste and profits of the insurance companies out of the picture. Let people go to the doctors and hospitals of their choice. Give everyone, without exception, access to the medically necessary care they need. We don’t need to spend a penny more than we spend right now if we take insurance companies out of the equation.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/september/thinking_big_on_heal.php
A doctors’ organization, Physicians for a National Health Program, has been pressing for single-payer national health insurance. It points out that the United States now spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, while Americans lag in life expectancy and infant mortality rates and 47 million lack health coverage. It argues that 31 percent of the nation’s health care cost now goes into the private insurance bureaucracy and paper-work and that a single-payer plan would save more than $350 billion a year.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/october/pbs_frontline_interv.php
PBS Frontline Interview with T.R.Reid Fall 2008

T.R. Reid is a veteran foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, a commentator for National Public Radio and the author of nine books, including three in Japanese. He is currently working on his 10th book, titled “We’re Number 37!,” in which he compares America’s health care system to others around the world. It is scheduled to be published by Penguin Press in early 2009.

Do you think that reform is going to happen this time?

Yes. I am confident that we’re going to do it. I think Americans are ready for fundamental change, for two reasons.

First, our system is so expensive and inefficient that we can’t afford it anymore. It’s a big competitive disadvantage for U.S. industry.

Second, Americans are too decent and too generous to accept a system that leaves tens of millions of our fellow citizens without access to health care. [According to the Institute of Medicine,] about 18,000 Americans die each year because they can’t get the medical treatment that would save their lives. That’s morally unacceptable.

http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/148/1/55
POSITION PAPER Achieving a High-Performance Health Care System with Universal Access: What the United States Can Learn from Other Countries  American College of Physicians* 1 January 2008 | Volume 148 Issue 1 | Pages 55-75

http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/179/9/916?etoc
Privatizing health care is not the answer: lessons from the United States. Marcia Angell, MD

Marcia Angell is a senior lecturer in social medicine, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA

It is the only industrialized country that treats health care like a market commodity instead of a social service. Thus, health care is distributed not according to medical need but, rather, according to the ability to pay. There is a great mismatch, however, between medical need and the ability to pay. In fact, those with the greatest need are those least able to pay.

It was conservatively estimated that, in 1999, 31.0% of all health care spending in the US was for overhead, nearly twice the estimated 16.7% in Canada.

Polls have shown that about two-thirds of Americans would prefer a Canadian-style system,13 as would three-fifths of doctors.14 However, many businesses that profit from the current system, mainly the private insurance industry and for-profit health care facilities, resist any fundamental change. They in turn have inordinate influence over law-makers and many economists and health policy experts, who propagate the myth that a Canadian-style health care system is "unrealistic." In addition, many procedure-oriented specialists are quite happy with the current system. They are generally paid much more than they are in Canada, and that predisposes them to exaggerate the failings of the Canadian system and minimize those of the American system. 

http://www.pnhp.org/
Physicians for a National Health Program is a non-profit research and education organization of 15,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals who support single-payer national health insurance.

http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2008/092008/interview-woolhandler.html
Unhealthy Solutions: Private Insurance, High Costs and the Denial of Care

An Interview with Steffie Woolhandler

Steffie Woolhandler is a co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, a not-for-profit organization for physicians, medical students and other healthcare professionals who advocate a national health insurance program. She is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard University and co-director of the Harvard Medical School General Internal Medicine Fellowship program. Woolhandler is a co-author of Bleeding the Patient Dry: The Consequences of Corporate Healthcare (2001).

Private health insurance is a defective product. On one hand, you may lose it when you need it most — when you get sick. On the other hand, even if you are able to hold onto private insurance, the gaps in the coverage mean that you may be bankrupted anyway.

A key reason is that the private health insurance industry imposes massive administrative costs on the healthcare system. Administrative costs in U.S. healthcare are about 31 percent of total health spending. In nations with single payer national health insurance, the overhead costs are about 16.5 percent of spending. The possible administrative savings in going from a multipayer system to a single payer system are about $350 billion annually. That means that by going from the current multipayer, private insurance-dominated system to a nonprofit single-payer system, you have a built-in cost savings of about $350 billion.

If single payer faces the serious political obstacles that come from calling for wiping out the private health insurance system, are there incremental things that can be done to take us in that direction?

The only incremental thing that one can do that makes any sense at all would be placing all hospital care into a single payer system as a first step, and then later placing other types of care into a single payer system. That’s what happened in Saskatchewan. They initially enacted a single payer system that covered all the hospitals and then a few years later enacted a single payer system that covered everything.

Every industrialized country except the United States has some version of a single-payer healthcare system.

Private insurance that covers services covered by the national program would be forbidden, although private insurance would be available to insure patients for services not covered under the national program.
The leading legislative proposal for a U.S. single-payer system is H.R. 676, introduced in 2007 by Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, and co-sponsored by 91 Members of Congress.

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2008104214/dangerous-plan-health-care

http://lansing.injuryboard.com/miscellaneous/the-insurance-industry-and-the-bailout-we-gotcha-covered.aspx?googleid=249582
The Insurance Industry And The Bailout: We Gotcha Covered!

http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2008/10/20/dangerous-plans-or-ideological-assertions/
Dangerous plans - or ideological assertions?

Posted by Andrew Coates, MD on Monday, Oct 20, 2008

Look at the evidence: reforms based upon regulating and expanding private health insurance have failed, in many forms, many times over many years. This is because because private health insurance stands in contradiction to caring for the sick and preventing illness among the healthy.

A single-payer program is not only eminently feasible (over 40 years ago Medicare was put in place within a year!), but has the economy to save costs by eliminating preposterous administrative waste, reduce disparities by redirecting resources, improve quality by redirecting resources, protect the caregiver-patient relationship by eliminating a tangle of red tape, allow free choice of care providers because if everybody is in and nobody is out then everybody is in — while providing access to care for everyone in the United States.

Because of the evidence, moral imperative is on our side. Society should offer every person the best possible chance at health. The public should set health priorities. Profit-making should be banished when it comes to caring for the sick. Access to health care should not be tied to a job.

http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/memag/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=558664&pageID=1&sk=&date=

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-insure21-2008oct21,0,6869686.story

http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/1278412.html
Schwarzenegger vetoes universal health care By Aurelio Rojas  Sep. 30, 2008

http://jeffreydach.com/2008/02/24/fighting-the-abusive-practices-of-health-insurance-companies-by-jeffrey-dach-md.aspx
Making Your Health Insurance Company Pay Up by Jeffrey Dach MD
 
Jeffrey Dach MD

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