Single-payer health care

[Rick Rowlands]

25% of the uninsured are illegal aliens.

Lets also keep in mind that Medicare already sucks up over 40% of Ohio's budget.  Extending Medicare to the rest of the citizens will take ALL of Ohio's budget.  If you think the state budget cuts are bad now, just wait until EVERY state agency, program and function is completely eliminated to pay for this huge unfunded MANDATE from Congress.

Might as well say bye bye to not only the West library but to the entire library system if this should ever become law.

[sfc_oliver]

As I understand it there are two facts that are being totally ignored by the main stream media, and the congress.

1. 50% of those who are uninsured have turned down insurance at work.

2. 50% of those insured are financially able to purchase insurance yet have refused it.

Now that means that between 3 and 6 % of American could be uninsured, and a large percentage of those qualify for medicare or medicaid, but haven't applied.

My question is simple; why do we need health care reform? And of course just how accurate are these numbers?

[Towntalk]

Like Car Insurance, Health Coverage May Be Mandated

A Proposed Requirement That All Americans Have Policies Has Broad Support Among Reformers

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/21/AR2009072103410_pf.html

[Towntalk]

Surtax on the wealthy -- worth about $583 billion


Question 1: Just how many "wealthy" people are there in th United States?

Question 2: Based on the $583,000,000,000.00 figure, what would each "wealthy" person have to pay?

Is there a math expert that could answer this question?

[Towntalk]

President Barack Obama said on Tuesday the healthcare overhaul plan working its way through the U.S. Congress needs more work amid signs his top policy initiative, already rejected by Republicans, was running into deeper trouble with his own Democrats.

The Blue Dogs account for 51 of the 256 Democrats in the House and for seven members of the committee -- enough in either case to defeat legislation if they vote with Republicans.

Democratic defections on two House committees yesterday underscored divisions among the party's rank-and-file over the scope of reform, along with its massive price tag. The latest rebellion stirred among newly elected Democrats who are wary of the surtax on wealthy households that the House bill would impose -- a cudgel for Republicans, who portray the tax as a killer for small businesses.

Last night, Elmendorf had more bad news. Hours after Obama vowed that health reform would not expand the deficit over the next decade; the CBO reported that the House bill would increase the deficit by about $240 billion by 2019. A plan to expand insurance coverage to 37 million Americans would cost the government about $1.04 trillion, the CBO said. That would be partially offset by reductions in existing federal programs worth $219 billion and tax increases -- including a surtax on the wealthy -- worth about $583 billion.

In the House, 22 freshmen and sophomore Democrats wrote to Pelosi to protest the surtax on wealthy households that the House would adopt to fund nearly half of its estimated $1.2 trillion, 10-year bill. Under the plan, a 1 percent tax would kick in at $350,000 in annual household income and rise to 5.4 percent on incomes more than $1 million, but the group expressed concern that small businesses would be hit as well.

[iwasthere]

we as an industrial nation must find a suitable health-care plan that all legal and illegal usa residents pay their fair share of the costs for healthcare in this nation. one should never be denied health-care due to their status in this country.

[sfc_oliver]

The point in Government run health care that they are not telling you is that the government and not you and your doctor will ultimately decide which treatments you will receive and which treatments cost too much for society. I know I live with it. I have had treatments denied to me.

[Towntalk]

Surely all members of Congress and other elected and appointed government officials, past and present, and their families, federal and state, must be participants in any national health insurance plan, and should be subject to the same restrictions as citizens are.
It is irrelevant that Congress already has a health insurance plan; so do most citizens. To allow government officials, elected or appointed, to be exempt would be nothing short of elitist.

WHY CONGRESS IS EXEMPT  FROM PUBLIC HEALTH INSURANCE

http://www.emaxhealth.com/1/72/32279/why-congress-exempt-public-health-insurance.html

[Towntalk]

Governors worried by healthcare bill costs

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/07/20/governors_balk_over_what_healthcare_bill_will_cost_states/?page=full

[Towntalk]

OVERHAULING OUR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

http://weiner.house.gov/news_display.aspx?id=1325

[sfc_oliver]

As the Obama administration pushes for a national health care plan, studies show that most Americans are overwhelmingly happy with their own health care -- but they are dissatisfied with the country's overall system, because most Americans who have insurance believe that those who don't have it are not receiving care.

Those same studies, however, show that a surprisingly large 70 percent of the estimated 46 million Americans who don't have insurance say they do, in fact, receive health care, and that a vast majority of them are satisfied with it.

A survey conducted jointly by the Kaiser Family Foundation, ABC News and USA Today, released in October 2006, found that 89 percent of Americans were satisfied with their own personal medical care, but only 44 percent were satisfied with the overall quality of the American medical system. The survey is the only recent poll for which data is publicly available that allows for a comparison of the satisfaction of insured and uninsured Americans. (The data from a just-completed New York Times/CBS poll won't be publicly available for several months; the results that have been reported so far don't make the comparisons discussed in this article.)

Those with recent serious health problems, possibly the people with the best knowledge of how health care is working, were generally the most satisfied. Ninety-three percent of insured Americans who had recently suffered a serious illness were satisfied with their health care. So were 95 percent of those who suffered from chronic illness.

President Obama, in his press conference on Tuesday, seemed to understand that degree of satisfaction. While promising to help people who are "out of luck" on insurance, he said: "If you like your plan and you like your doctor, you won't have to do a thing. You keep your plan; you keep your doctor. If your employer's providing you good health insurance, terrific. We're not going to mess with it."

But while insured Americans say overwhelmingly that they are satisfied, more than half of them -- 52 percent -- believe that becoming uninsured poses a "critical problem," 36 percent view the threat as "serious but not critical," and another 7 percent see it as a "problem, but not serious." Only 4 percent view it as "not much of a problem."

Uninsured Americans, not surprisingly, are not as satisfied as people who have insurance. Nonetheless, 70 percent of the uninsured who indicated their level of satisfaction said they were either "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their health care, and only 17.5 percent said they were "very dissatisfied."

Analysts say legislators should pay close attention before enacting a national health care plan.

"If the insured come to believe that the uninsured are not that dissatisfied with their health care, it is extremely important. It could throw a real wild card into the whole health care debate," Jack Calfee, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, told FOXNews.com.

"It is a common finding in public opinion research," Henry Aaron, a senior fellow for economic studies at the Brookings Institution, told FOXNews.com. "People are satisfied in the small, but dissatisfied in the large. People are satisfied with their child's teachers or school, but dissatisfied with schools generally.... They are satisfied with their doctor or their last visit to the hospital, but they are dissatisfied with what they perceive is happening with medical care as a whole. This finding is just one additional example."

The Kaiser/ABC News/USA Today survey found that about 13.4 percent of Americans were uninsured (a number slightly smaller than the 15.5 percent estimate used in policy debates from a Department of Labor survey). In crunching the numbers, since 13.4 percent multiplied by the 17.5 percent of the uninsured said that they were "very dissatisfied," it follows that out of all Americans, only 2.3 percent are both uninsured and "very dissatisfied" with the care they receive. The number rises to 3.9 percent when you include all the uninsured who are dissatisfied in any way with their health care.

To put those numbers differently, 5 million uninsured Americans are very dissatisfied with their health care. Including those dissatisfied in any way raises that to 8.4 million.

The survey of patient satisfaction also asked about the aspects of health care that dissatisfy Americans. The uninsured were most dissatisfied with their "ability to get the latest, most sophisticated medical treatments" (35 percent were "very dissatisfied"), followed by their ability to get non-emergency medical treatments without having to wait" (32 percent), and their "ability to see top-quality medical specialists, if you ever need one" (31 percent). At the other end, only 10 percent of the uninsured felt "very dissatisfied" with "the quality of their communication" with their doctor.

A majority of the uninsured are not desperately poor; about 60 percent of them have personal incomes over $50,000 per year and pay out of their own pockets when necessary, rather than paying for insurance. Others manage to obtain care at highly discounted rates as charity cases.

But there are two other reasons why most uninsured are satisfied: About 14 million of the "uninsured" qualify for Medicaid, and pre-existing conditions do not exclude people from joining the government program. As a result, many who are eligible for Medicaid wait until they need care to register, so they are effectively insured at all times even when they are not formally enrolled in the program.

In addition, once those who are already effectively covered by Medicaid are excluded, nearly 70 percent of the remaining uninsured are without insurance for less than four months. The large majority may be uninsured for such short periods of time that being uninsured is never relevant for their ability to get health care.

Under Obama's proposal, the government will provide insurance and determine the compensation doctors receive for different services, but doctors' offices and hospitals will still technically be privately run. Many Republicans claim that the subsidies and other advantages provided to government insurance would drive private insurance companies out of business. If so, Obama's proposal would be identical to Canada's health insurance program, so it is useful to compare Americans' satisfaction to Canadians'.

A May 2008 survey by Harris/Decima TeleVox asked Canadians the same questions that appeared in the Kaiser/ABC News/USA Today survey two years earlier. In most comparisons, Canadians were more satisfied than uninsured Americans, but just barely, and they were nowhere as satisfied as insured Americans. Canadians are most similar to insured Americans in terms of their happiness with their ability "to get non-emergency care without having to wait." While 77 percent of insured Americans and 41 percent of uninsured Americans were satisfied with timely non-emergency care, the figure for all Canadians was 60 percent.

Among the biggest differences between percentage of Canadians and insured Americans who were satisfied were the "ability to see top-quality medical specialists, if you ever need one" (26 percentage points difference) and the "ability to get emergency care" (24 percentage points difference).

Another comparison between the U.S. and Canada can be made in terms of how egalitarian the two systems are. That is, is there much difference in levels of happiness between people based on race, education, income, marital status, age, political views, or income? For both Americans and Canadians, higher incomes don't buy higher levels of satisfaction with their health care. In the U.S., there is no difference in happiness by race; blacks are just as satisfied as whites or Asians or Hispanics. Canadians do experience greater differences in happiness across provinces than Americans face across states.

There are certainly some cases in the U.S. where uninsured individuals end up spending much of their life-savings on health care. But only a very small minority of Americans are not covered by insurance and are simultaneously "very dissatisfied" or "dissatisfied" with the health care that they receive.

Sources:

-Uninsured Americans vs. Insured Canadians: Who is More Satisfied with Their Health Care? Oct. 15, 2008
-ABC News/USA TODAY/Kaiser Family Foundation health care poll Apr. 27, 2009
-President Obama press briefing June 23, 2009
-Household Income Rises, Poverty Rate Declines, Number of Uninsured Up Aug. 28, 2007
-Health-Reform Traps: Universal What? June 22, 2009
-Harris/Decima TeleVox poll on Canadian health care May 14, 2008

[irishbobcat]

On Friday, the single payer movement had a victory when the Education and Labor Committee voted to include language allowing single payer at the state level. This is an important breakthrough. Canada got its single payer system on a national level by showing it worked on the state level.

Now, we have an even more important vote coming up this week. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) will introduce, in the Energy and Commerce Committee, an amendment that abolishes private insurance and creates a national single-payer system that would cover everyone. This amendment would substitute Rep. John Conyers' (D-MI) single-payer bill, HR 676, for the current Tri-Committee Health Reform Bill.

Click here to send a letter to the Energy & Commerce Committee to support Rep. Weiner's single payer amendment.

If your representative is a member of the Committee, please call him or her today. Members of Energy & Commerce Committee can be found at: http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=160&Itemid=61. The Congressional Switchboard can be reached at 800-473-6711 or 202-225-3121.

If your representative is not a member, please call Committee Chair Henry Waxman at 202-225-3976 and ask him to support the amendment.

Following is a list of talking points you can use:

HR 676 expands and greatly improves Medicare for everyone residing in the U. S.
HR 676 would cover every person for all necessary medical care including prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and preventive care, emergency services, dental, mental health, home health, physical therapy, rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care, hearing services including hearing aids, chiropractic, durable medical equipment, palliative care, and long term care.
HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save hundreds of billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs.
Single payer provides people with the maximum choice. They will no longer be limited by the insurance or HMO "approved" list but rather will be able to pick their doctor, their hospital and their treatment.
The Democratic leadership bill, America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, fails to control costs, does not provide health care for all, undermines the economy and makes job growth more difficult. "Affordable" health insurance in the Democratic bill means if you make $88,000 per year you will spend 19% of your income on health care that you are required to buy -- or you get additional taxes added to your tax bill. See http://www.prosperityagenda.us/node/866. And, it will choke the economy. Small businesses, $400,000 and up, will face a penalty of 8% of their payroll if they do not provide health insurance. How is that going to help avoid the jobless recovery that seems to be occurring? In fact, this provision ensures a jobless recovery. Single payer which would create 2.6 million new jobs, and infuse $317 billion in new business and public revenues, with another $100 billion in wages. Single payer would actually expand the economy and produce jobs rather than undermine it. See http://www.prosperityagenda.us/node/865
Urge every member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee to vote for the single payer amendment.

Click here to send a letter to the Committee. The Congressional Switchboard can be reached at 800-473-6711 or 202-225-3121.

Please forward this message widely. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Kevin Zeese
Executive Director
ProsperityAgenda.US

P.S. Please join us in Washington, DC on July 30th for Medicare's birthday and a lobby day for single payer. See http://www.healthcare-now.org/campaigns/single-payer-rally/ for more.

[irishbobcat]

Today, Monday July 20, the silence in the House of Representatives around single payer and H.R. 676 will end.  Rep. Anthony Weiner, (D-NY09), who has already rankled Republicans and Blue Dogs with his no-nonsense statements before the House Energy and Commerce hearing on H.R. 3200, will move to amend the current bill.  His proposal is essentially to replace H.R. 3200 with H.R. 676—single payer Medicare for All.

This exciting and potentially monumental move needs our support.  We pushed Rep. Dennis Kucinich's amendment to victory last Friday, and we can do it for Representative Weiner, too.

The full committee and its five subcommittees are spending the next three days debating the bill and performing their markups.  This is the time to act, and Representative Weiner is making his move.

Call or fax the committee members and tell them you want them to support Representative Weiner's proposal.  Listen to his blunt analysis in Friday's session of what real healthcare reform is made of, and you'll get some good ideas of what to say when you call or fax.  It's a no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners approach to the legislative process almost never heard on the House floor.

Energy and Commerce Committee   Phone: (202) 225-2927, Fax: (202) 225-2525
Henry A. Waxman, CA, Chair     Phone:  (202) 225-3976, Fax: (202) 225-4099 
John D. Dingell, MI     Phone:  (202) 225-4071, Fax: (202) 226-0371   
Edward J. Markey, MA       Phone:  (202) 225-2836, Fax: (202) 226-0092
Rick Boucher, VA     Phone:  (202) 225-3861, Fax: (202) 225-0442   
Frank Pallone, Jr., NJ      Phone:  (202) 225-4671, Fax: (202) 225-9665 
Bart Gordon, TN     Phone:  (202) 225-4231, Fax: (202) 225-6887
Bobby L. Rush, IL     Phone:  (202) 225-4372, Fax: (202) 226-0333
Anna G. Eshoo, CA      Phone:  (202) 225-8104, Fax: (202) 225-8890
Bart Stupak, MI     Phone:  (202) 225-4735, Fax: (202) 225-4744
Eliot L. Engel, NY     Phone:  (202) 225-2464, Fax: (202) 225-5513
Gene Green, TX     Phone:  (202) 225-1688, Fax: (202) 225-9903
Diana DeGette, CO      Phone:  (202) 225-4431, Fax: (202) 225-5657
Lois Capps, CA     Phone:  (202) 225-3601, Fax: (202) 225-5632
Mike Doyle, PA     Phone:  (202) 225-2135, Fax: (202) 225-3084
Jane Harman, CA     Phone:  (202) 225-8220, Fax: (202) 226-7290
Jan Schakowsky, IL     Phone:  (202) 225-2111, Fax: (202) 226-6890
Charles A. Gonzalez, TX     Phone:  (202) 225-3236, Fax: (202) 225-1915
Jay Inslee, WA       Phone:  (202) 225-6311, Fax: (202) 226-1606
Tammy Baldwin, WI       Phone:  (202) 225-2906, Fax: (202) 225-6942
Mike Ross, AR       Phone:  (202) 225-3772, Fax: (202) 225-1314
Anthony D. Weiner, NY     Phone:  (202) 225-6616, Fax: (202) 226-0218
Jim Matheson, UT       Phone:  (202) 225-3011, Fax: (202) 225-5638
G.K. Butterfield, NC       Phone:  (202) 225-3101, Fax: (202) 225-3354
Charlie Melancon, LA       Phone:  (202) 225-4031, Fax: (202) 226-3944 
John Barrow, GA       Phone:  (202) 225-2823, Fax: (202) 225-3377 
Baron P. Hill, IN       Phone:  (202) 225-5315, Fax: (202) 226-6866 
Doris O. Matsui, CA       Phone:  (202) 225-7163, Fax: (202) 225-0566
Donna M. Christensen, VI      Phone:  (202) 225-1790, Fax: (202) 225-5517 
Kathy Castor, FL       Phone:  (202) 225-3376, Fax: (202) 225-5652
John P. Sarbanes, MD       Phone:  (202) 225-4016, Fax: (202) 225-9219 
Christopher S. Murphy, CT       Phone:  (202) 225-4476, Fax: (202) 225-5933 
Zachary T. Space, OH       Phone:  (202) 225-6265, Fax: (202) 225-3394 
Jerry McNerney, CA       Phone:  (202) 225-1947, Fax: (202) 225-4060
Betty Sutton, OH       Phone:  (202) 225-3401, Fax: (202) 225-2266 
Bruce L. Braley, IA       Phone:  (202) 225-2911, Fax: (202) 225-6666 
Peter Welch, VT    Phone:  (202) 225-4115, Fax: (202) 225-6790

Check out PDA's Healthcare for All Issue Organizing Team (IOT) pages for recent news on healthcare reform and single payer, as well as resources on legislation and issues.

In solidarity,

Tim Carpenter, National Director
Laura Bonham, Deputy Director
Conor Boylan, Field Coordinator