Speaker – Page 714

Sen. Sanders to introduce bill for single payer waiver

Sanders promises to seek health care waiver from Obama for Vermont

By Susan Smallheer
Rutland Herald
August 1, 2010

U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., pledged to personally take Vermont’s case for a statewide single-payer health care system to President Obama if the Legislature authorizes it next year.

Sanders, speaking at a health care rally at the Hetty Green Park in downtown Bellows Falls on Saturday afternoon, said that he and other members of Congress would also introduce legislation that would roll back to 2014 the current 2017 restriction for states to apply for a waiver in order to implement their own systems. He said Democratic Reps. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and John Conyers of Michigan would be co-sponsoring the legislation with him.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100801/NEWS02/708019832/1003/NEWS02

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

Although the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would allow states to apply for waivers to implement their own systems, they cannot do so until 2017, three years after they are required to implement the private insurance exchanges. Many have asked if Sen. Sanders still intends to introduce legislation to move that date up so that states would not have to set up the exchanges only to replace them soon thereafter with a single payer system. The answer is yes.

Strengthen Medicare and expand it to everyone

By Dr. Carol Paris
South Maryland Newspapers
Friday, July 30, 2010

Today, July 30, marks the 45th birthday of the Medicare program. Since the passage of this landmark legislation in 1965, Medicare has substantially lowered poverty among the elderly in our country, reducing the dilemma of having to choose between buying needed health care or buying groceries. While the cost of health care keeps rising, the cost is rising more slowly for those on Medicare than for those with private health insurance.

Overall, our nation’s health care costs are rising 2.5 percent faster than our gross domestic product and are a leading cause of our financial deficit. The recent legislation, misleadingly titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, lacks proven cost controls and was predicted in April by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to cause U.S. health care costs to rise faster than if there had been no reform at all.

Yes, millions more Americans will leave the ranks of the uninsured, but only to join the ranks of the underinsured. In other words, they will be mandated to purchase health insurance products that are barely affordable and far from comprehensive. This, of course, protects the profits of the private health insurance industry.

Has anyone reading this letter had their health insurance premium go up this year? Their co-pays? Their deductibles?

Make no mistake, the private health insurance industry wrote the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, they spent millions lobbying Congress to get it passed according to their specifications, and now they even have an insider hired by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to write the regulations.

A recent physician survey by MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society, revealed that nearly 77 percent of respondents considered moving their practice to another state, closing their practice, retiring early or converting to a fee-for-service only, in order to eliminate the costly and infuriating hassle of dealing with multiple insurance company protocols that get in the way of providing necessary medical care for their patients.

Patients aren’t satisfied. Providers aren’t satisfied. Insurance companies are very satisfied. And politicians’ campaign coffers are growing with their cut of the insurance companies’ profits.

When we, as a nation, decide to improve and strengthen our Medicare program and expand it to everyone living in the United States, we will achieve universal coverage, we will reduce the national debt, and we will improve the health and well-being of patients and providers alike. Happy birthday, Medicare.

If you would like to help accomplish this goal, please go to www.healthcare-now.org and join. We need your time, your donations and your votes.

The writer is a member of the Maryland Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program.

http://www.somdnews.com/stories/07302010/entelet163234_32300.shtml

Despite health-care reform, system remains broken

By Joseph Birnbaum
Times Herald-Record (Middletown, N.Y.), Aug. 1, 2010

I was impressed with Dr. Teitelbaum’s expressed concerns (“CEO wants fix for health-care system,” TH-R, July 26) regarding the new health reform law being touted by Rep. Hall and the current administration.

Teitelbaum has created and manages a large, uniquely organized, equipped and housed group of health-care providers. He, better than most, understands that while this legislation was the first stumbling step in the right direction, it cannot and does not address the crumbling and chaotic health-care system we alone, among all the industrialized nations of the world, must live with.

Teitelbaum notes quite correctly that the attempt to provide cost-effective, accessible, quality health care for 32 million more Americans (while leaving millions more under- or uninsured) can’t be paid for as predicated by the administration.

Despite the valuable controls being put in place to prevent the insurance companies from denying and limiting needed care, the fact remains that Big Insurance and Big Pharma (the medical/industrial complex) are still in firm control of our health-care system and will still be able to spend 25-35 percent (or more) of your health-care dollars on management, marketing and huge administrative salaries.

The insurance industry is attempting to develop loopholes in the badly worded new legislation mandating that they spend 80 percent of your premium dollar on providing health care. They seek to include their insurance brokerage fees and a host of non-medical care expenses as part of that 80 percent mandate.

Those of us who are providers of health care and who have been urging an improved Medicare for all (PNHP.org), which would eliminate multiple third-party payers and would spend only 6-8 percent of your health-care dollar on managing the delivery of care, were let down when this legislation was passed.

We agreed with President Obama and many of the legislators who initially recognized that single-payer universal health care for all was the best and most workable solution. We watched in despair as the president and many in his party abandoned this concept in order to pass the current watered-down health-care reform bill. This legislation keeps us in thrall to the bottom lines of the insurance and drug industries and does not honestly address the broken elements in our current delivery system.

The 17,000 members of Physicians for a National Health Plan will continue to press for an improved Medicare for all, and now that we have health reform legislation that can be repaired and redirected to achieve this end, our mission might be nearer fruition.

Joseph Birnbaum, O.D., lives in Monroe, N.Y.

Sen. Sanders to introduce bill for single payer waiver

Sanders promises to seek health care waiver from Obama for Vermont

By Susan Smallheer
Rutland Herald
August 1, 2010

U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., pledged to personally take Vermont’s case for a statewide single-payer health care system to President Obama if the Legislature authorizes it next year.
Sanders, speaking at a health care rally at the Hetty Green Park in downtown Bellows Falls on Saturday afternoon, said that he and other members of Congress would also introduce legislation that would roll back to 2014 the current 2017 restriction for states to apply for a waiver in order to implement their own systems. He said Democratic Reps. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and John Conyers of Michigan would be co-sponsoring the legislation with him.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100801/NEWS02/708019832/1003/NEWS02

Happy birthday, Medicare

By Susanne L. King
The Berkshire (Mass.) Eagle
Friday July 30, 2010

Say “Happy Birthday” to Medicare, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson 45 years ago, on July 30, 1965.

This national program provides health insurance coverage for everyone 65 years and older, regardless of income or health status, as well as covering people with disabilities. Our senior citizens love Medicare, which, along with Social Security, has substantially lowered poverty among the elderly, providing a secure safety net for our most vulnerable citizens.

Medicare is an example of a “single payer” health insurance program, in which health care dollars are administered by only one payer, the federal government. Medicare patients love the program for a number of reasons. Their premiums, deductibles and co-payments are reasonably priced. No one 65 and older can be denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions. Patients have their choice of doctors and hospitals, and are able to make decisions with their doctors about the care they need.

This safety net is now being threatened. President Obama has appointed a committee, the “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform,” to make recommendations to Congress for reducing our federal deficit. Unfortunately, some members of this commission are already considering cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits. Other solutions for reducing the deficit, like cutting the military budget, taxing the rich, negotiating drug costs, and eliminating the waste of the private health insurance industry by enacting a single-payer health insurance program, are not being considered. The commission is expected to make its recommendations to the House of Representatives after the fall elections, with a vote anticipated in December during a lame duck period of Congress.

Instead of cutting Medicare benefits, a better solution is to eliminate the failed and very costly for-profit “multiple payer” model, that includes hundreds of private health insurance companies with their high administrative costs and exorbitant CEO salaries, as well as their intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship. A much more cost-effective insurance approach would be to improve and expand Medicare to include everyone. At a time when our nation faces high unemployment, and fiscal crises, an expanded Medicare program would be a boon for individuals, small businesses, towns and states.

How would such a program produce savings and control health care costs? First, with Medicare, administrative costs are much lower than for private insurance companies. Administrative savings would be about $400 billion/year, enough money to provide coverage for everyone. Second, prescription drug prices would be negotiated, and drug costs could be lowered by 40 percent, bringing U.S prices in line with other developed countries. Third, an expanded Medicare system could establish global budgets for health care facilities.

The majority of Americans support Medicare and an expansion of this program to provide single-payer health insurance for everyone. Last week this was demonstrated again when participants in town meetings sponsored by “America Speaks” demanded single-payer as the option to solve the health care crisis, and 71 percent voted to not cut Medicare and Medicaid.

Our public and private dollars are flowing into the coffers of the private health insurance industry. These insurance companies continue to squeeze patients and health care providers financially, while paying their executives enormous salaries and bonuses. In 2009, the United Health Group, one of the biggest health insurance companies, paid CEO Stephen Helmsley a compensation package of over $107. 5 million. A recent conference of health economists in Chicago concluded that increasing consolidation in the health insurance industry has led to higher premiums, fewer jobs for health care workers, and reduced physician earnings.

Obama’s commission should not recommend cutting Medicare benefits. Write to your senators and representatives, and let them know how you feel about preserving, and expanding Medicare. Ask them to improve and strengthen Medicare by making it available to everyone, so that in coming years we will all be able to enjoy and celebrate the birthday of this life-saving health insurance program.

Susanne L. King, M. D., is a Lenox-based practitioner.

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/columnists/ci_15636458

Celebrate Medicare's 45th by fixing it for future

Letters To The Editor
Palm Beach Post
Friday, July 30, 2010

Americans should celebrate this 45th anniversary of Medicare.

During just nine months in 1965, without the aid of computers, every elderly American got the option to enroll in Medicare. Most did. Medicare lifted elderly citizens out of poverty while lowering levels of sickness and death. Today, Medicare subsidizes most profits of the private insurance industry, indirectly and directly, by removing the oldest, sickest and most disabled Americans from the risk pool, paying private insurers more to cover some Medicare-eligible Americans and by providing taxpayer money to private companies to offer rationed drug formularies to some Medicare patients. Medicare also subsidizes large private businesses by removing the burden of health care legacy costs of retired employees.

The health care delivery practices of doctors, hospitals, clinics and therapists have progressed in the last five decades. Medicare has remained entrenched in its 1960s structure. Medicare remains the only insurer in the world forbidden by law to bid competitively on a medicine formulary. Americans therefore pay the highest prices for medicines in the world. With no funding available, Medicare cannot develop and integrate a single electronic records and billing system for its contracted physicians, hospitals, therapists, pharmacies and clinics. Without this, real-time tracking of fraud is impossible.

Congress can ensure a healthy, solvent future for Medicare by broadening its risk and premium pool to include young and healthier Americans, allowing Medicare to bid on a drug formulary, ending redundant Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage subsidies and financing development of an electronic system to track medical outcomes and billing fraud and therefore allow competition among doctors, hospitals and drug companies based on quality of care.

HOWARD A. GREEN, MD
West Palm Beach

Editor’s note: Dr. Howard A. Green is a member of Physicians for a National Health Plan.

Celebrate Medicare’s 45th by fixing it for future

Letters To The Editor
Palm Beach Post
Friday, July 30, 2010

Americans should celebrate this 45th anniversary of Medicare.

HOWARD A. GREEN, MD
West Palm Beach

Editor’s note: Dr. Howard A. Green is a member of Physicians for a National Health Plan.

QOTD: Lawmakers vow to continue fight for Medicare for All

The following text is an open letter to the single-payer community from Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. It was released on the eve of Medicare’s 45th anniversary.

Congress of the United States
July 29, 2010

Dear friends of health care for all,

Now that a new health care bill has been signed into law, it has never been more important to have a strong movement behind Medicare for All.

Many health care experts have expressed concern that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act does not adequately contain costs for American families and businesses. If they are correct, and we believe they are, additional legislative cost containment measures will be necessary in the future.

When it is time for Congress to try to control health care costs again, the demand for Medicare for All must be undeniable. There is substantial support for a federal Medicare for All solution, embodied by H.R. 676, the National Health Care Act, and S. 703, the American Health Security Act, in the Congress and around the country. We believe that this support can and will continue to grow.

The truth is not enough. We already know that such a health care system has repeatedly proven to control costs more effectively, cover everyone or almost everyone, and deliver care of significantly higher quality than health care systems that tolerate the presence of private health insurance companies. Now we must make it so that the truth can no longer be ignored.

During the health care debate, the movement created significant momentum on which to build. Its voice was heard in multiple Congressional hearings – it won historic victories in a House vote to grant an ERISA waiver to a state that passes a Medicare for All-like plan and in a Senate provision allowing a waiver from the Exchanges for states to innovate with health coverage such as a state-based Medicare for All-like system that was included in the new law.

The latter victory created a new opening. Though the effective date for the Exchange waiver was pushed back to 2017 by the Congressional Budget Office to avoid driving up the estimated cost of the bill, the waiver’s presence sent a clear message: if a state thinks it can do better, Congress wants to see it.

We are encouraged by the progress already garnered in multiple states toward guaranteed health care and we will continue to work hard in Congress to clear any obstacles in the way. The 2017 date can be changed at the same time Congress considers all of the other waivers from federal laws that will be required for the state to move forward. That can happen either before or after a state passes a Medicare for All-like bill.

Regardless of the legislative path, we vow to continue to fight alongside you for health care justice at the both the federal and state levels. We believe that Medicare for All is inevitable in the United States. It is up to all of us to determine when the inevitable becomes the reality.

Sincerely,

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich

Rep. John Conyers Jr.

Sen. Bernie Sanders

https://pnhp.org/news/2010/july/lawmakers-vow-to-continue-fight-for-medicare-for-all

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

On the 45th anniversary of Medicare it is reassuring to know that the vision of President Lyndon Johnson and the 89th Congress for an America that ensures health care for everyone, through a comprehensive Medicare for all, not only still lives, but is an inevitability.

Lawmakers vow to continue fight for Medicare for All

Congress of the United States
July 29, 2010

Dear friends of health care for all,

Now that a new health care bill has been signed into law, it has never been more important to have a strong movement behind Medicare for All.

Sincerely,

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich

Rep. John Conyers Jr.

Sen. Bernie Sanders

After 45 years, Medicare needs support

By CHRISTINE ADAMS
Houston Chronicle, July 29, 2010

Today marks the 45th birthday of Medicare, the public insurance program that guarantees basic medical coverage to all seniors and people with severe disabilities regardless of their income, health status or where they live.

In Texas, Medicare covers just under 3 million Americans. The breakdown by race is 60.7 percent white, 24.9 percent Hispanic, 11.7 percent black and 2.6 percent “other.” Of those Texans covered, 84.2 percent are seniors and 15.3 percent are disabled.

Medicare enjoys popular support despite the initial bitter resistance to passing it. Before its enactment, the elderly were at high risk for falling into poverty because most people had health insurance through their employer. Upon retirement, many had difficulties paying for medical care.

Over the years, the program has expanded. You are probably unaware that the Medicare program also pays for much of the durable equipment for many hospitals. It also funds the vast majority of residency training in the United States, including resident physician salaries and benefits, and gives subsidies to teaching hospitals in exchange for training resident physicians.

The president’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is considering cuts to the Medicare program. We are told that the purpose of the cuts in Medicare (and to Social Security as well) would be to reduce the national deficit and protect the nation’s financial health. One has to ask: Are health care and insurance against poverty for seniors and the disabled no longer priorities for our society? And if Medicare is cut, where would the money come from to educate our future physicians and other health professionals?

Rather than cut Medicare, if we want to dramatically reduce health care costs and thus lower our national debt, we need to build on what works and expand to a “Medicare for All” national health insurance program. Every other industrialized nation has some form of national health insurance. They pay half as much per person, cover everyone and have as good or better overall medical outcomes than we do. According to both the World Health Organization and the Commonwealth Fund, our overall rankings are still at the bottom or near bottom when compared to other industrialized nations despite that fact that we spend twice as much.

How can these democratic nations spend so much less yet have such high-quality care? It’s because none have for-profit private health plans that play central roles in financing health care. They are able to put a higher percentage of their health care dollars to actual health care because they are not paying for the waste and profiteering associated with the “middleman” private health insurance industry.

Medicare operates as a single-payer health care system with administrative costs of just 4 percent to 6 percent compared with for-profit health insurance administrative costs of between 16 percent and 26.5 percent. In a “Medicare for All” program, administrative savings would amount to about $400 billion each year by eliminating unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy. That’s enough to provide high-quality health care for every American and end co-pays and deductibles. Americans could go to any provider they wished to see. And, as with Medicare, the majority of health providers and hospitals would remain private and could receive fair reimbursements for their services.

So celebrate the birthday of Medicare (and Social Security on Aug. 14) and reflect on their lessons for today: that we have a social contract to care for our fellow citizens and we can save money if we fulfill it with a national health program. Tell the debt commission, “No cuts to Medicare. Expand it to all of us.”

Adams is a licensed psychologist and statewide secretary for Health Care for All Texas.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7131223.html

Lawmakers vow to continue fight for Medicare for All

The following text is an open letter to the single-payer community from Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. It was released on the eve of Medicare’s 45th anniversary.
Congress of the United States
July 29, 2010
Dear friends of health care for all,
Now that a new health care bill has been signed into law, it has never been more important to have a strong movement behind Medicare for All.
Many health care experts have expressed concern that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act does not adequately contain costs for American families and businesses. If they are correct, and we believe they are, additional legislative cost containment measures will be necessary in the future.
When it is time for Congress to try to control health care costs again, the demand for Medicare for All must be undeniable. There is substantial support for a federal Medicare for All solution, embodied by H.R. 676, the National Health Care Act, and S. 703, the American Health Security Act, in the Congress and around the country. We believe that this support can and will continue to grow.
The truth is not enough. We already know that such a health care system has repeatedly proven to control costs more effectively, cover everyone or almost everyone, and deliver care of significantly higher quality than health care systems that tolerate the presence of private health insurance companies. Now we must make it so that the truth can no longer be ignored.
During the health care debate, the movement created significant momentum on which to build. Its voice was heard in multiple Congressional hearings – it won historic victories in a House vote to grant an ERISA waiver to a state that passes a Medicare for All-like plan and in a Senate provision allowing a waiver from the Exchanges for states to innovate with health coverage such as a state-based Medicare for All-like system that was included in the new law.
The latter victory created a new opening. Though the effective date for the Exchange waiver was pushed back to 2017 by the Congressional Budget Office to avoid driving up the estimated cost of the bill, the waiver’s presence sent a clear message: if a state thinks it can do better, Congress wants to see it.
We are encouraged by the progress already garnered in multiple states toward guaranteed health care and we will continue to work hard in Congress to clear any obstacles in the way. The 2017 date can be changed at the same time Congress considers all of the other waivers from federal laws that will be required for the state to move forward. That can happen either before or after a state passes a Medicare for All-like bill.
Regardless of the legislative path, we vow to continue to fight alongside you for health care justice at the both the federal and state levels. We believe that Medicare for All is inevitable in the United States. It is up to all of us to determine when the inevitable becomes the reality.
Sincerely,
Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich
Rep. John Conyers Jr.
Sen. Bernie Sanders
https://pnhp.org/news/2010/july/lawmakers-vow-to-continue-fight-for-medicare-for-all

Doctors hard to find for patients in Massachusetts' first for-profit health plan: NEJM article

“Immigrants’ experience with publicly funded private health insurance,” Ruth Hertzman-Miller, M.D., M.P.H.; Malgorzata Dawiskiba, M.D.; Cassie Frank, M.D. New England Journal of Medicine, Aug. 5, 2010.

“Immigrants’ experience with publicly funded private health insurance”
Ruth Hertzman-Miller, M.D., M.P.H.; Malgorzata Dawiskiba, M.D.; Cassie Frank, M.D. New England Journal of Medicine, Aug. 5, 2010.

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Sanders promises to seek health care waiver from Obama for Vermont

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