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Health Care is a Human Rights Issue

By Ronald W. Pies, MD
Psychiatric Times, Nov. 15, 2010

COUCH IN CRISIS

Some see health care as a political or economic issue. They are correct, of course, on one level. But I believe that health care is fundamentally a moral issue; indeed, a matter of basic human rights. I do not believe that a nation as rich as ours (albeit with most wealth concentrated among the upper income levels) can shirk its moral responsibilities in the matter of providing basic health care for all its citizens. This doesn’t mean that everybody who wants a face-lift should get one on the taxpayer’s dime: I am talking about providing all citizens with the most basic health care, required to sustain life and limb. And, yes: I believe this is a right that any citizen may claim, particularly in a country purporting to be “civilized.”

I am hardly alone in this view, nor is my position new. In 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 25 of which states:

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

I don’t pretend to be an expert on health care economics, and I am aware of significant logistical problems in some countries that provide health care to all their citizens; e.g., very long waiting lists for elective procedures. I am not advocating the infamous “government takeover” of health care that has been so much a part of recent political diatribes from some quarters. Rather, I favor a single-payer national health insurance system. One ambitious proposal describes this as

“…a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private. Under a single-payer system, all Americans would be covered for all medically necessary services, including: doctor, hospital, preventive, long-term care, mental health, reproductive health care, dental, vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs. Patients would [retain] free choice of doctor and hospital, and doctors would [retain] autonomy over patient care.” —Source: Physicians for a National Health Program

I would urge all psychiatrists to read over the FAQ section of this website. The PNHP site also notes the following:

“A number of studies (notably a General Accounting Office report in 1991 and a Congressional Budget Office report in 1993) show that there is more than enough money in our health care system to serve everyone if it were spent wisely. Administrative costs are at 31% of U.S. health spending, far higher than in other countries’ systems. These inflated costs are due to our failure to have a publicly financed, universal health care system. We spend about twice as much per person as Canada or most European nations, and still deny health care to many in need. A national health program could save enough on administration to assure access to care for all Americans, without rationing.” —Source: Physicians for a National Health Program

On the specific issue of mental health care, we have a long way to go as a nation. For example, many patients with depression—particularly some minority groups—are not being provided adequate care. Contrary to the much-ballyhooed claim that “depression is over-treated” in this country, a recent study1 suggests that many Americans with clinical depression are not getting any kind of care at all. As the lead author, Hector Gonzalez, MD, put it in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, ““Few Americans with depression actually get any kind of care, and even fewer get care consistent with the [best practice] standards of care.”2 Gonzalez and colleagues found, in particular, that Mexican American and African American individuals meeting 12-month major depression criteria “…consistently and significantly had lower odds for any depression therapy and guideline-concordant therapies.”1

In this country, according to a 2002 study by the Institute of Medicine, 18,000 Americans die every year because they don’t have health insurance.3 Almost certainly, some of these individuals die by their own hand, owing to untreated major depression. This is simply unconscionable, particularly in the nation with the highest GDP in the world. Recent changes in health care coverage will improve things for many thousands of Americans,4, but much more must be done. A publicly financed, universal health care system, while not without its own costs and problems, is worth trying—and is surely preferable to our current health care debacle. It is also the right thing to do.

For the Couch in Crisis blog that prompted Dr. Pies’ commentary, please see Diagnostic Criteria for PIISD – Private Insurance Induced Stress Disorder.

References
1. González HM, Vega WA, Williams DR, et al. Depression care in the United States: too little for too few. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2010;67:37-46.
2. Wang SS. Studies: Mental Ills Are Often Overtreated, Undertreated. Wall Street Journal. Jan. 5, 2010. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703580904574638750777038042.html. Accessed November 15, 2019.
3. Care Without Coverage: Too Little, Too Late. http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2002/Care-Without-Coverage-Too-Little-Too-Late.aspx. Accessed November 15, 2019.
4. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Understanding the Affordable Care Act: Introduction. http://www.healthcare.gov/law/introduction/index.html. Accessed November 15, 2019.

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/blog/couchincrisis/content/article/10168/1724080?GUID=5CD431AE-B535-439A-B654-871119CCDBBA&rememberme=1

Beware high out-of-pocket costs for Medicare recipients

Letters
The Seattle Times, Nov. 18, 2010

Froma Harrop’s column does a disservice to the deficit-reduction discussion by failing to mention that the co-chairs’ proposal would require Medicare recipients to pay more out-of-pocket costs, while reducing their benefits [“Give deficit plan a chance, liberals,” Opinion, Nov. 17]. Such barriers to care result in poorer health outcomes and increased suffering.

The typical Medicare beneficiary, already on low income, pays 15 percent of it on medical care, whereas health-policy experts consider spending more than 10 percent of income on health care as a real hardship, even for the average American family. Harrop asks Aunt Mary, a liberal scrambling to live on Social Security, to play her part in reducing our deficit by accepting the “hard choice” to pay more for her heart medications.

Skyrocketing health-care costs are a major component of our deficit and the new health-care legislation does little to change this trajectory. The best way to decrease the deficit would be to bring our health-care spending under control by enacting an improved and expanded Medicare for all, an equitable system similar to the rest of the industrialized world, where medical costs are half what we spend, with improved quality of care.

— David McLanahan, board member, Physician for a Nation Health Program, Western Washington Chapter, Seattle

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/northwestvoices/2013466229_columnistharropdeficitplanyeswecan.html

Vital Signs: National organizers find Madison single-payer movement alive and kicking

By SHAWN DOHERTY
The Capital Times (Madison, Wis.), Nov. 21, 2010

Dr. Margaret Flowers, a leader of the single-payer health care movement, was in town this week to drum up support for the Madison chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). The Baltimore pediatrician was arrested on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 2009 during the health care hearings for trying to get a seat at the bargaining table. I decided to check out a couple of her events to see what she had to say now about the state of single-payer reform, commonly referred to as “Medicare for All.”

I also wanted to find out what her audience had to say. How were local health care activists feeling in the wake of a nasty electoral beating? Maybe I could blog about how depressed they all were, I thought. If they even showed up. A lot of “experts” have declared their cause a goner.

Well, the fight for single-payer health care reform ain’t dead yet. Or, if it is, some people are in denial.

Around 60 people showed up at Madison’s Labor Temple to talk with Flowers on Wednesday, and 40 at a Friday fundraiser at the EVP Coffee House on Mineral Point, and they seemed more fired up than they have been for a couple of years now, almost as fired up as they were in the heady days of the Obama campaign. Republican victories and problems with the national health care act have only made them more determined, some said. “It’s not depressing, it’s motivating,” said Meaghan Combs, a resident at the UW Madison School of Medicine.

Alexandra Thebert, PNHP’s national organizer, said fundraising and membership are growing faster this year than last year, when the group was shoved aside in the push to pass Obama’s more moderate reforms. “It’s more frenetic than ever,” she claims. “We’re swamped up to the gills.”

Are they in dreamland? Not at all, she said. But the rest of the country is. Our current system of is unsustainable, Thebert said. Even if Obama’s reforms withstand Republican attacks, they are “totally doomed,” she said. “Costs will skyrocket and millions of people still won’t be covered. What we’re doing is educating people so that when it collapses they know about a system that works.”

The mood at these gatherings was defiant. Flowers greeted the crowd Friday with a sarcastic joke. “I’m a little puzzled,” she said. “Why is everybody here? Didn’t we already pass health care reform?” “No!” the audience shouted. “We are undaunted,” Flowers said. “The insurance companies have tremendous resources, but we can match them with our spirit.”

At Wednesday’s session, a listener asked about what some people see as a downside of single-payer reform. “What will happen to the insurance companies?” she asked. “They’ll go to hell!” several audience members retorted, as others laughed.

There were the same old familiar faces, minus one of the most beloved, staunch single-payer champion Dr. Linda Farley, who died in 2009. Her husband, Dr. Gene Farley, showed up, with Wisconsin labor leader David Newby, now retired. State Sen. Mark Miller, D-Monona, was also there, and outgoing state Rep. Chuck Benedict, D-Beloit, both past sponsors of failed state legislation with single-payer provisions in them. And a passel of longtime activists and doctors, including Laurel Mark, head of the Madison PNHP chapter and a family practitioner with UW Health. Mark sported a pin she had first worn to a march in New York City in 1975. It read: “Healthcare for People Not Profit.”

Mark said she had invited the national organizers to come to town and stay at her house even before this month’s election to infuse the local movement with new energy, dollars, and members. “We’re not just going to sit in a corner and be depressed and suck our thumbs,” she said. “We are going to move this forward.”

It is time, Flowers told supporters, to shift their efforts from getting Obama elected, and then trying (mostly in vain) to have a say in the national legislation, to pushing for action at the state level. Vermont legislators have already hired a Harvard consultant to draft plans for a statewide single-payer program.

Our country pays more than any other industrialized country for its health care yet gets much less in terms of fairness and affordability, according to surveys. Republican and Tea Party critics of the current system blame big government; single-payer activists blame big industry. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation “stupid enough,” Dr. Farley said, to allow corporate profits to run the show. Rep. Benedict, a retired neurologist, also blamed our health care crisis on what he called “the profiteers,” noting that he believed “health care ought to be a right.”

Republicans like to interpret their recent victories as a mandate to dismantle health care reform. But polls show the situation is more nuanced than that. Many people unhappy with the national reforms are single payer advocates who felt it did not go far enough. So Republican efforts to dismantle it completely could backfire, activists say, leading to another electoral shakeup. “They might throw everybody out again in another two years and we’ve got to be ready,” said Susan Carson, a retired Madison physician. “The Republicans are going to do everything they can to bollix up reform,” agreed state Sen. Miller, soon to become the minority leader. “That can present us with another opportunity.”

There was a bit of an I-told-you-so feeling in the meetings I attended, a belief that if Obama had not backed away from his campaign support of single-payer reform then Democrats might not have been clobbered so heartily at the voting booths. Politicians would have been seen as more forceful, and progressive voters may have been more motivated to vote, the theory went. It’s not that hardcore single-payer supporters were gloating, exactly. But they were angry. “It’s important that people realize that the labor unions and more moderate health care organizations worked with Barack Obama to make sure we were marginalized,” said John Stauber, founder of the Center for Media and Democracy, at Wednesday’s meeting. “A lot of people in this room were played for suckers.”

Such bitterness creates what Mark called a “dilemma” for some of the activists, who wondered out loud whether they should bother to defend a national health care law they never really believed in or simply focus on pushing for a single-payer system again. Dr. Marc Hansen said Obama’s efforts deserved more support than the “faint praise” they were getting from the group. “We better protect what’s been gained before we kick it out the door,” he argued.

Several in the crowd compared the single-payer movement with all its ups and downs to the Civil Rights battle and the fight for a woman’s right to vote, and predicted that ultimately they will win this historical struggle, too. “We are not going to stop,” said Karen Matteoni, a Madison mother and retired utility worker.

Flowers also conducted grand rounds with doctors at local hospitals during the week and met with around 50 UW-Madison medical students, five of whom pledged to start a PNHP chapter at their school.

All in all, it was a good week, Mark said. “It was a disastrous election for us, let’s face it,” she said. “Nonetheless, I saw much more optimism than I had expected. People are still engaged and willing to keep working. And that’s what we need to do.”

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/health_med_fit/vital_signs/article_26495ce6-f4db-11df-ad34-001cc4c002e0.html

Sen. Bernie Sanders: 'Vermont stands a chance to be the first state in the nation to pass single-payer'

By Ezra Klein
The Washington Post, Nov. 18, 2010

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has long supported state waivers in the health-care bill, and for a very specific reason: He’d like to see Vermont create the first single-payer system in the nation, as he believes it’ll demonstrate enough cost and quality advantages that other states will want to follow suit. We spoke by phone last night, and a lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Ezra Klein: You worked hard on getting the original version of the state waiver into the legislation. Why? Liberals aren’t usually associated with federalist approaches.

Bernie Sanders: As a single-payer advocate, I believe that at the end of the day, if a state goes forward and passed an effective single-payer program, it will demonstrate that you can provide quality health care to every man, woman and child in a more cost-effective way. So we wanted to make sure that states have that option, we wanted it to be available when the bill gets implemented in 2014. But we ran into the most insane objections from the Congressional Budget Office.

Is that why it got pushed back to 2017?

Our argument was we don’t want any more money from the federal government. When the bill is implemented, let the states use the money the federal government would already be paying to implement single-payer. The CBO came up with one of the weirder counterarguments we’ve ever heard. The CBO said we think the states are smarter than the federal government and they’ll outmaneuver the feds to get more money. So we were forced by the CBO — not by anybody in the Congress — to push it back to 2017. And I agreed to that very reluctantly.

So what happens if Scott Brown and Ron Wyden get their way and the waiver moves up to 2014? Will Vermont use it?

We believe Vermont stands a chance to be the first state in the nation to pass single-payer. The governor-elect campaigned on it, and we have support in the House and Senate. We’re not asking for one nickel more than we’d otherwise get. The other thing we think we have an opportunity to do is reach out to our conservative friends and say, hey, Vermont wants to go forward with a single-payer system, and Mississippi and Alabama don’t, but maybe they have other ideas. Now, we’re conscious of the need to make sure that the health-care reform bill’s standards aren’t diminished. So everyone needs to provide the same quality of health care as the bill provides and at the same, or lower, price. But if they can do that, then they should be able to go for it.

And then the various models can compete with one another and, presumably, spread to other states if successful?

Absolutely. And that’s what we wanted from it. In my state, it’ll be single-payer. In California, I think there’s a chance it could be single-payer. In other states, it will be something else. This makes the states laboratories for the system, and then other states can copy them. Now, you need a minimum level for coverage and quality. You can’t go lower than health-care reform.

Sen. Bernie Sanders: ‘Vermont stands a chance to be the first state in the nation to pass single-payer’

By Ezra Klein
The Washington Post, Nov. 18, 2010

Ezra Klein: You worked hard on getting the original version of the state waiver into the legislation. Why? Liberals aren’t usually associated with federalist approaches.

Is that why it got pushed back to 2017?

So what happens if Scott Brown and Ron Wyden get their way and the waiver moves up to 2014? Will Vermont use it?

And then the various models can compete with one another and, presumably, spread to other states if successful?

An Interview About National Health Insurance

By Ellen R. Hale
Louisville Medicine, Nov 2010

Garrett Adams, MD, MPH, spent 40 years practicing medicine as a pediatrician, as chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, and as medical director of communicable diseases at the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness. In January, he will begin serving as the president of Physicians for a National Health Program, which since 1987 has been the only national physician organization in the United States dedicated exclusively to implementing a singlepayer national health program. As proposed by PNHP, the system would have public funding but private delivery of care. “Under a single-payer system, all Americans would be covered for all medically necessary services, including: doctor, hospital, preventive, long-term care, mental health, reproductive health care, dental, vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs,” according to www.pnhp.org. The Louisville Medicine Editorial Board drafted a list of questions for Dr. Adams. GLMS Communications Associate Ellen Hale interviewed him on the board’s behalf.

Q: How did you become involved in promoting a single-payer national health program?

A: In 2003, I read this JAMA article on the “Proposal of the Physicians’ Working Group for Single-Payer National Health Insurance.” I thought, that just makes sense. I went to the website and endorsed it. At that time, there were 8,000 physicians who had endorsed it; today there are 17,000. I began to think about the way medical care had changed during my years of experience. Doctors were taken away from their patients, and I began to realize that the way medical care was being paid for had really intruded into the physician-patient relationship.

A lot of Americans and even some physicians are not aware of the great disparity in the ability to deliver quality health care among the United States and other developed countries. We’re way behind in terms of the efficiency and in terms of quality. And there’s this unjustified idea that we have “the best health care in the world.” It may be true in isolated instances, but overall it’s just wrong. We’re being dragged back by this market-driven, profit-driven system that has really put a damper on our ability to provide quality care for everyone in this country.

Q: What do you hope to accomplish as president of PNHP?

A: We’d like to grow the organization, particularly in the South. One of our goals will be to spread the message of the advantages of a national health system to people who will benefit from it. Some of the worst health statistics are in the South. So these are the people who would benefit from a good national health system. I’d like to recruit physicians to the idea. There’s a lot of education that needs to be done. Our challenge is uphill because the private health insurance industry and the for-profit health industry are opposed to many of the ideas of a national health plan. A lot of their effort is misinformation and propaganda, so we want to try to counteract that with facts. For example, the term “socialized medicine” came about when Harry Truman proposed it. The insurance industry hired an advertising firm, and they came up with “socialized medicine.” That was during the McCarthy era, and people were just afraid. There’s a lot of fear and distrust of government. I’d like to replace the fear with knowledge and understanding and get our government leaders, physicians and the public to understand that we can do better. We’re hurting ourselves by not adopting a simplified system that is in the hands of the people rather than the corporate, profit-making organizations.

Q: How would the proposed national health program be in “the hands of the people” instead of “the hands of the government?”

A: Government is the people. There are American governmental institutions that function very well. Our plan envisages a board, such as the Federal Reserve Board, that would not be run directly by elected officials but more by professionals. Then regional boards would have citizens, physicians and professionals who would make judgments. Medicare in this country has been very successful. There are problems that should be fixed, but it’s made a huge difference in the health of our seniors and also in the financial health of our seniors. Without Medicare, so many people would be totally broke.

There are some institutions that do well as policies change and as the political power changes in Washington. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is an outstanding example of an American government project that’s been very successful and effective. There are lots of things we can be thankful for and proud of that come out of the CDC.

Q: Everyone agrees that costs are rising at an unsustainable rate, but getting agreement on solutions to the problem of rising costs is more difficult. What sort of cost-cutting ideas do you think could get widespread public and political support?

A: A national health insurance model or single-payer model is the only model that will control costs. Second to improved quality and improved health care delivery, control of costs is one of the most important advantages of this system. Right away, you gain 30 cents of every dollar that goes into administrative costs. Twenty percent is the usual administrative expense of an insurance company and then the additional 10 percent is the cost of the providers working with the payers. A dermatologist colleague of mine here asked her billing clerk how many plans were represented in their current bills outstanding. It was 287 plans. That’s where a huge amount of expense and time on the part of the physician could be recouped immediately. Medicare, with its faults, has an administrative expense of 3 percent or less. National health insurance would increase it to be more in line with some other developed countries, around 12 percent. The number of billing clerks at Massachusetts General Hospital is about 300. Toronto General, a hospital of equal size, has three billing clerks.

The ability to purchase pharmaceuticals and supplies in volume bulk purchasing would save huge amounts of money. We’re paying roughly 40 percent more here per prescription. The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 strictly forbade Medicare from negotiating with pharmaceutical manufacturers for volume discounts.

Q: As part of the new health reform law, there are incentives for providers to begin using more and more HIT tools. But to ensure that patients are receiving the most benefits from adoption of the tools, the law requires that providers meet certain “meaningful use” standards. In what ways can providers and your proposed singlepayer program work together to ensure patients are receiving the most benefits from the adoption of HIT tools?

A: The best example is in France where in 1998 they adopted a “carte vitale.” Every citizen has a card. This would be the ideal. It has all the information – the patient’s medical records, X-rays, consultation results and physicals. The mothers of children under 16 years of age carry the card for their children. So they come to the doctor’s office, the doctor swipes the card, and then he has his monitor and he can see all the information. It’s always updated after the visit. Patients can go to any doctor, any hospital, anywhere.

Q: Physicians currently have complaints about Medicare regarding payment and services covered, and getting Congress to permanently fix the SGR formula has been a problem for years. Why was Medicare chosen as the model for the national health program? In what ways would it be improved under the national health program?

A: The defects that are pointed out in that question would have to be corrected. We need higher reimbursements, and we foresee higher reimbursements in a standard formula that doesn’t change. The national health program would provide all comprehensive medically necessary care from birth to death. There are no bills to the patient. All the bills go directly to the NHI (national health insurance), and NHI pays. The bill in Congress that will be reintroduced in January – John Conyers’ House Resolution 676 – provides for payment within 30 days.

I just read that AARP reported that the number of doctors refusing Medicare patients is higher now than it’s ever been. If I’m asking for Medicare for all, then that means the doctors wouldn’t want that because they’re refusing Medicare patients. That’s why we say improved and expanded Medicare for all.

To quote our national coordinator, Dr. Quentin Young: “Medicare is not without its problems, of course. Its benefits package could be richer. It lacks authority to negotiate lower prices with drug companies. The reimbursement rate to physicians could be enhanced and stabilized, instead of depending on an annual cat-and-mouse game with Congress over a flawed accounting formula that only erodes physician confidence in the program … By replacing our crazy-quilt, inefficient system of private health insurers with a streamlined, publicly financed single-payer program, we would reap enormous savings.”

Q: How would a national health program affect physician income?

A: Higher and more dependable reimbursement for primary care physicians; dependable reimbursement for everyone. High-end specialists would probably make less, but they would still do fine. But the primary care physicians would get more, and they would always be paid. They’d have more time to spend with their patients, which is what most of them went into medicine for in the first place.

Q: In a national health program, would physicians still have the right and realistic ability to open a private practice of medicine in a meaningful manner?

A: Absolutely. They just submit their bills. The payment schedules will be adjusted regionally. Within a state, there would be negotiations between representatives of physician groups with the regional board for their payment schedule. Say a school physical exam is set at $60. The patient comes in, gets their exam, the office sends the bill to the NHI, and they get their $60.

Q: Do you foresee any problems with setting protocols for treatment based on the input of a small number of physicians, and then making those protocols the only services that will be covered?

A: No. The concept is very clear that all medically necessary services would be provided. The treating physician makes the choice of what should be done for a patient. Physicians would have muchimproved authority from what we currently have.

Q: Do you foresee any restrictions on a patient’s freedom to make decisions on the manner and scope of their medical treatment?

A: Much less so than now. I see much more freedom of choice for physicians under this program. There’s some evidence to support that claim, and that evidence is in Canada and in France. Those doctors are happy with what they can provide for their patients, and they’re not constricted by pre-approvals from the insurance company. We wouldn’t have to go through the insurance company’s denial management. There’s more freedom for physicians and better ability to prescribe patient’s treatment as they need it.

Q: In a national health program, would individuals have the right to opt out of the system and still purchase private health insurance?

A: No, because that could undermine the system.

Q: How do you foresee the role of restriction of choice in the overall ability to finance health care for all? Won’t it eventually lead either to a two-tier system in which the wealthy are still able to purchase care not available to the average consumer, or conversely to unconstitutional limits on the ability of citizens to spend their money the way they choose?

A: You can’t buy something that is provided by the system. The question presumes that it’s an American right to spend money and buy whatever you want to buy. I guess the answer is that national health insurance does interfere with that so-called right. If it’s not what’s considered medically necessary, then they can buy that. It’s an egalitarian system that provides the best for everyone.

Q: What else would you like Louisville’s physicians to know?

A: I would like to invite fellow GLMS members to go to the website of PNHP to read in depth the answers to all of these questions. I also invite them to join our chapter of PNHP in Kentucky. We have members across the state.

I want this idea to be apolitical. There is a moral premise of providing health care for everyone. This is a simple program. The House bill is 18 pages. Everybody deserves health care. Everybody. Good health care. That’s the bottom line. That’s where we’re starting from.

I like to look around when I’m out in public, say when I walk from here out to my car. I’ll see a dozen people, and I’d like to think each one of them has health care. I get choked up because it’s not that way now. But it could be, and it should be.

Will the Wyden/Brown state waiver enable single payer?

Senators push bipartisan state healthcare waiver

Reuters
November 18, 2010

A Democrat and a Republican teamed up in the Senate on Thursday to offer legislation that would give states the flexibility to implement their own healthcare approaches when the federal overhaul goes into full effect in 2014.

The proposal by Democrat Ron Wyden and Republican Scott Brown moves up the date when states can apply for waivers from the federal law in order to implement their own approaches.

The law, which passed in March, currently allows states to apply for waivers in 2017.

Under the Wyden and Brown proposal, states could apply for an exemption from some requirements of the reform law — including the mandate that everyone purchase insurance and the employer penalty for not providing coverage — if they offer an alternative that is considered at least as effective and affordable.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AH4NT20101118

And…

S. 3958 (the entire bill)

To allow an earlier start for State health care coverage innovation waivers under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
NOVEMBER 17, 2010

Mr. WYDEN (for himself and Mr. BROWN of Massachusetts) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance

A BILL
To allow an earlier start for State health care coverage innovation waivers under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Empowering States to Innovate Act”.

SEC. 2. EARLIER START FOR STATE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE INNOVATION WAIVERS.
Section 1332(a) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is amended—

(1) by striking ‘‘January 1, 2017’’ in paragraph (1) and inserting ‘‘January 1, 2014’’, and
(2) by inserting ‘‘beginning not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of the Empowering States to Innovate Act’’ after ‘‘application’’ in paragraph (4)(B)(ii).

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:s3958is.txt.pdf

And…

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (excerpts):

PART IV–State Flexibility to Establish Alternative Programs

Sec. 1332. Waiver for State innovation.

(a) Application.
    (3) Pass through of funding.–With respect to a State waiver under paragraph (1), under which, due to the structure of the State plan, individuals and small employers in the State would not qualify for the premium tax credits, cost-sharing reductions, or small business credits under sections 36B of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 or under part I of subtitle E for which they would otherwise be eligible, the Secretary shall provide for an alternative means by which the aggregate amount of such credits or reductions that would have been paid on behalf of participants in the Exchanges established under this title had the State not received such waiver, shall be paid to the State for purposes of implementing the State plan under the waiver.

(b) Granting of Waivers.
    (1) In general.–The Secretary may grant a request for a waiver under subsection (a)(1) only if the Secretary determines that the State plan–
      (A) will provide coverage that is at least as comprehensive as the coverage defined in section 1302(b) and offered through Exchanges established under this title as certified by Office of the Actuary of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services based on sufficient data from the State and from comparable States about their experience with programs created by this Act and the provisions of this Act that would be waived;
      (B) will provide coverage and cost sharing protections against excessive out-of-pocket spending that are at least as affordable as the provisions of this title would provide;
      (C) will provide coverage to at least a comparable number of its residents as the provisions of this title would provide; and
      (D) will not increase the Federal deficit.

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ148.111

And…

Sen. Bernie Sanders: ‘Vermont stands a chance to be the first state in the nation to pass single-payer’

By Ezra Klein
The Washington Post
November 18, 2010

Ezra Klein: So what happens if Scott Brown and Ron Wyden get their way and the waiver moves up to 2014? Will Vermont use it?

Bernie Sanders: We believe Vermont stands a chance to be the first state in the nation to pass single-payer. The governor-elect campaigned on it, and we have support in the House and Senate. We’re not asking for one nickel more than we’d otherwise get. The other thing we think we have an opportunity to do is reach out to our conservative friends and say, hey, Vermont wants to go forward with a single-payer system, and Mississippi and Alabama don’t, but maybe they have other ideas. Now, we’re conscious of the need to make sure that the health-care reform bill’s standards aren’t diminished. So everyone needs to provide the same quality of health care as the bill provides and at the same, or lower, price. But if they can do that, then they should be able to go for it.

Ezra Klein: And then the various models can compete with one another and, presumably, spread to other states if successful?

Bernie Sanders: Absolutely. And that’s what we wanted from it. In my state, it’ll be single-payer. In California, I think there’s a chance it could be single-payer. In other states, it will be something else. This makes the states laboratories for the system, and then other states can copy them. Now, you need a minimum level for coverage and quality. You can’t go lower than health-care reform.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/11/sen_bernie_sanders_vermont_sta.html

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

The initial reaction to S. 3958, The Empowering States to Innovate Act, sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), is that the bill will enable states to bypass the requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and set up their own state-based programs, even single payer should the states prefer. But what does the bill actually say?

PPACA already authorizes a program for state waivers, but not until 2017. The Wyden/Brown bill does only one thing. It moves the state waiver program forward to 2014, the same year that the individual mandate and insurance exchanges go into effect. It does not change the waiver in any other way.

For those states that wish to establish their own programs, advancing the eligibility date removes the very burdensome task of complying with the insurance exchanges, mandates and other requirements for an interval of only three years, and then facing the additional costs and burdens of transitioning to their own programs. If you agree with the policy that states should be able to set up their own pr
ograms, then this is a very wise move.

Massachusetts already has a program similar to PPACA. Sen. Brown would much rather modify what they have by complying with the waiver than to have to comply with all details of PPACA for the first three years. For Sen. Wyden, his preferred model of reform was rejected by Congress, but he would still like to experiment with his model, as much as possible, within the state of Oregon, while protecting what innovative programs they already have.

So just how much leeway does the PPACA state waiver allow? It does allow innovations as long as coverage is at least as comprehensive, cost sharing is at least as affordable, at least as many residents would be covered, and as long as the federal deficit would not be increased. It also passes through to the state the funds that would have been used for premium tax credits, cost-sharing reductions, and small business credits. Is that enough funding to establish a single payer system?

What about the funds for Medicare? Medicaid? CHIP? Taft-Hartley plans? What about ERISA requirements? What about the multitude of other funding requirements such as the VA system, academic institutions, safety-net institutions, community health centers, the Indian Health Service, the U.S. Public Health Service, and the many others?

There is no authorization in the Wyden/Brown bill, PPACA, nor any other existing law or regulation to fold many or all of these programs into one single payer system. Think of trying to run a partial single payer system (an oxymoron) while still having to deal with the massive Medicare and Medicaid programs. The point is, don’t let up on your advocacy, thinking that Wyden/Brown is our entry to single payer. We would still have a highly fragmented financing system.

Our best option remains enacting a national single payer bill such as HR 676, which will be re-introduced in the next session of Congress. In lieu of that, we should continue with our efforts to enact single payer systems on the state level. Just don’t be fooled into thinking that a bill such as Wyden/Brown is the ticket. The enabling federal legislation that would be required for state programs would be as complicated, if not more so, than a bill establishing a national single payer program – an improved Medicare for everyone.

Vermont is a test. Without enabling comprehensive federal legislation, I’m already apprehensive.

International comparisons: It's the insurance, stupid!

Consumers and Insurance: Experiences In Eleven Countries

By Chris Fleming
Health Affairs Blog
November 18, 2010

As the United States begins implementing health reform, how does the U.S. experience compare with that of other high-income countries? To answer that question, The Commonwealth Fund conducted its thirteenth annual health policy survey, this year focusing on access, cost, and care experiences. The survey findings were published today in a Health Affairs Web First article by Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen and coauthors.

Overall, the survey identified significant differences between countries and found that US adults — even when insured — were the most likely to incur high medical expenses, spend more time on paperwork, and have more claims denied.

The countries surveyed were Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Key findings include the following:

* Twenty percent of US adults surveyed said they had had serious problems paying medical bills in the previous year. Responses to the same question from the other ten countries were in the single digits. US respondents were also significantly more likely than adults in other countries to have gone without care because of cost.

* Thirty-five percent of US adults had out-of-pocket medical spending of $1,000 during the previous year, a far higher percentage than in any other country.

* A lower proportion of adults in the United States (70 percent) than in all other countries except Sweden (67 percent) and Norway (70 percent) were confident that they would receive the most effective treatment when needed.

* When asked about access to prompt medical care, 57 percent of US adults said they had seen a doctor or nurse the same or next day the last time they were sick and needed care. Switzerland had the most rapid access (93 percent). Adults in three other countries (Canada, Norway, and Sweden) reported longer waits than US adults.

* Nearly one third of US adults (31 percent) reported either denial of payments by insurers or time-consuming interactions with insurers, a higher rate than in all other countries. Twenty-five percent of US respondents reported that their insurance company denied payment or did not pay as much as expected; 17 percent said they spent a lot of time on paperwork or disputes for medical bills or insurance — the highest rates in the survey.

* The United States had the widest and most pervasive differences in access and affordability by income of the eleven countries. The United Kingdom had the least.

http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2010/11/18/consumers-and-insurance-experiences-in-eleven-countries/

And…

How Health Insurance Design Affects Access To Care And Costs, By Income, In Eleven Countries

By Cathy Schoen, Robin Osborn, David Squires, Michelle M. Doty, Roz Pierson and Sandra Applebaum
Health Affairs
November 18, 2010

US Insurance Reforms: Challenges Ahead

Concerns expressed by US respondents were concentrated in the working-age population that is the target of insurance reforms. In this age group, wide disparities by income for those insured throughout the year underscore the importance of the Affordable Care Act’s emphasis on benefits with income-related provisions. The law will expand eligibility for Medicaid to those earning 133 percent of the federal poverty level. It will also provide subsidies for premiums for people up to 400 percent of poverty and for cost sharing for people up to 250 percent of poverty.

However, by international standards, the United States will remain an outlier for cost sharing. The annual limits for the least expensive benefit option will range from $2,000 per person ($4,000 per family) for those with incomes just above 133 percent of poverty, to $6,000 per person above subsidy thresholds. Families can opt for lower cost exposure, but only if they can pay higher premiums.

As US reforms unfold, it will be important to monitor access and affordability. The Affordable Care Act will provide billions of dollars in subsidies for premiums and cost sharing to address affordability for individuals and families with low or modest incomes. Even so, it is still possible that some of the insured will remain at substantial financial risk for care they cannot afford when sick and bills they cannot pay.

Even after the enactment of health reform, the United States will also remain unique among countries in that it covers low-income people in a separate program. This poses the dual challenge of promoting equity across programs and ensuring continuity of insurance. In the other ten countries in our survey, providers were typically paid the same amount regardless of patients’ incomes, which is not currently the case in the United States. Nor is it likely to be the case after full implementation of health reform. Avoiding coverage gaps as patients’ circumstances change will require creative efforts to enable single portals of entry for people to enroll in publicly sponsored and private insurance, and smooth transitions as families gain or lose eligibility for insurance. To the extent that provider networks also differ for those low-income insurance programs, continuity of care as well as insurance will remain at risk after reforms take effect.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.2010.0862v1

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

Compared to other high-income nations, the health care financing system in the United States does not perform well. We pay more; we have greater problems paying medical bills; we have excessive out-of-pocket spending; we have greater hassles with insurers; and we have the greatest disparities in access and affordability based on income levels.

We clearly needed reform, but will the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) correct these deficiencies? It looks grim. The law has perpetuated the flawed system that we already have, one based on the U.S. version of dysfunctional private insurance plans plus a welfare program – Medicaid.

PPACA does include some important insurance regulations such as guaranteed issue and removal of annual and life-time spending caps, but it doesn’t do much to end the administrative hassles that are designed to protect the insurers from loss (i.e., protect them from having to pay medical bills). In fact, by making plans with low actuarial values the new standard, patients will face even greater out-of-pocket expenses and administrative hassles when they access health care. The government subsidies are not adequate to reduce the problems that patients already have with paying their medical bills.

Although other countries have special provisions for low-income individuals, Medicaid is unique in that beneficiaries are enrolled in an entirely different program that generally pays much lower rates than do private insurers. Thus the Medicaid networks of willing providers can be quite different from the networks for the private insurers, which in themselves also can vary greatly from plan to plan. Care can be very disruptive as individuals move in and out of the Medicaid program because of fluctuations in their eligibility, or move between various private plans based on such factors as employment, place of residence, or premium affordability. Such disruptions can aggravate the access problems noted in this study.

Another important observation in this study is the protection
that is afforded by Medicare. Quoting from Schoen et al, “US adults under age sixty-five were significantly more likely to report insurance paperwork, disputes, or insurance surprises than were those sixty-five and older and covered by Medicare (35 percent compared to 16 percent). The high rates of insurance concerns among younger adults may stem from unstable coverage as well as complex benefit designs.”

What we needed was a program that includes everyone, funds care equitably, eliminates financial barriers to care, provides automatic life-long enrollment, provides choice of any health care professionals and facilities, and has public funding that would ensure adequate capacity in the system. A single payer, improved Medicare for all would have those goals.

Instead, we’ll be pouring even more money into the system we have, and still compare unfavorably to these other high-income nations, that is unless we are willing to do something about it. We need to tell our policy makers, “It’s the insurance, stupid!”

International comparisons: It’s the insurance, stupid!

Consumers and Insurance: Experiences In Eleven Countries

By Chris Fleming
Health Affairs Blog
November 18, 2010

As the United States begins implementing health reform, how does the U.S. experience compare with that of other high-income countries? To answer that question, The Commonwealth Fund conducted its thirteenth annual health policy survey, this year focusing on access, cost, and care experiences. The survey findings were published today in a Health Affairs Web First article by Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen and coauthors.

Overall, the survey identified significant differences between countries and found that US adults — even when insured — were the most likely to incur high medical expenses, spend more time on paperwork, and have more claims denied.

The countries surveyed were Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Key findings include the following:

* Twenty percent of US adults surveyed said they had had serious problems paying medical bills in the previous year. Responses to the same question from the other ten countries were in the single digits. US respondents were also significantly more likely than adults in other countries to have gone without care because of cost.

* Thirty-five percent of US adults had out-of-pocket medical spending of $1,000 during the previous year, a far higher percentage than in any other country.

* A lower proportion of adults in the United States (70 percent) than in all other countries except Sweden (67 percent) and Norway (70 percent) were confident that they would receive the most effective treatment when needed.

* When asked about access to prompt medical care, 57 percent of US adults said they had seen a doctor or nurse the same or next day the last time they were sick and needed care. Switzerland had the most rapid access (93 percent). Adults in three other countries (Canada, Norway, and Sweden) reported longer waits than US adults.

* Nearly one third of US adults (31 percent) reported either denial of payments by insurers or time-consuming interactions with insurers, a higher rate than in all other countries. Twenty-five percent of US respondents reported that their insurance company denied payment or did not pay as much as expected; 17 percent said they spent a lot of time on paperwork or disputes for medical bills or insurance — the highest rates in the survey.

* The United States had the widest and most pervasive differences in access and affordability by income of the eleven countries. The United Kingdom had the least.

http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2010/11/18/consumers-and-insurance-experiences-in-eleven-countries/

And…

How Health Insurance Design Affects Access To Care And Costs, By Income, In Eleven Countries

By Cathy Schoen, Robin Osborn, David Squires, Michelle M. Doty, Roz Pierson and Sandra Applebaum
Health Affairs
November 18, 2010

US Insurance Reforms: Challenges Ahead

Concerns expressed by US respondents were concentrated in the working-age population that is the target of insurance reforms. In this age group, wide disparities by income for those insured throughout the year underscore the importance of the Affordable Care Act’s emphasis on benefits with income-related provisions. The law will expand eligibility for Medicaid to those earning 133 percent of the federal poverty level. It will also provide subsidies for premiums for people up to 400 percent of poverty and for cost sharing for people up to 250 percent of poverty.

However, by international standards, the United States will remain an outlier for cost sharing. The annual limits for the least expensive benefit option will range from $2,000 per person ($4,000 per family) for those with incomes just above 133 percent of poverty, to $6,000 per person above subsidy thresholds. Families can opt for lower cost exposure, but only if they can pay higher premiums.

As US reforms unfold, it will be important to monitor access and affordability. The Affordable Care Act will provide billions of dollars in subsidies for premiums and cost sharing to address affordability for individuals and families with low or modest incomes. Even so, it is still possible that some of the insured will remain at substantial financial risk for care they cannot afford when sick and bills they cannot pay.

Even after the enactment of health reform, the United States will also remain unique among countries in that it covers low-income people in a separate program. This poses the dual challenge of promoting equity across programs and ensuring continuity of insurance. In the other ten countries in our survey, providers were typically paid the same amount regardless of patients’ incomes, which is not currently the case in the United States. Nor is it likely to be the case after full implementation of health reform. Avoiding coverage gaps as patients’ circumstances change will require creative efforts to enable single portals of entry for people to enroll in publicly sponsored and private insurance, and smooth transitions as families gain or lose eligibility for insurance. To the extent that provider networks also differ for those low-income insurance programs, continuity of care as well as insurance will remain at risk after reforms take effect.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.2010.0862v1

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

Compared to other high-income nations, the health care financing system in the United States does not perform well. We pay more; we have greater problems paying medical bills; we have excessive out-of-pocket spending; we have greater hassles with insurers; and we have the greatest disparities in access and affordability based on income levels.

We clearly needed reform, but will the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) correct these deficiencies? It looks grim. The law has perpetuated the flawed system that we already have, one based on the U.S. version of dysfunctional private insurance plans plus a welfare program – Medicaid.

PPACA does include some important insurance regulations such as guaranteed issue and removal of annual and life-time spending caps, but it doesn’t do much to end the administrative hassles that are designed to protect the insurers from loss (i.e., protect them from having to pay medical bills). In fact, by making plans with low actuarial values the new standard, patients will face even greater out-of-pocket expenses and administrative hassles when they access health care. The government subsidies are not adequate to reduce the problems that patients already have with paying their medical bills.

Although other countries have special provisions for low-income individuals, Medicaid is unique in that beneficiaries are enrolled in an entirely different program that generally pays much lower rates than do private insurers. Thus the Medicaid networks of willing providers can be quite different from the networks for the private insurers, which in themselves also can vary greatly from plan to plan. Care can be very disruptive as individuals move in and out of the Medicaid program because of fluctuations in their eligibility, or move between various private plans based on such factors as employment, place of residence, or premium affordability. Such disruptions can aggravate the access problems noted in this study.

Another important observation in this study is the protection that is afforded by Medicare. Quoting from Schoen et al, “US adults under age sixty-five were significantly more likely to report insurance paperwork, disputes, or insurance surprises than were those sixty-five and older and covered by Medicare (35 percent compared to 16 percent). The high rates of insurance concerns among younger adults may stem from unstable coverage as well as complex benefit designs.”

What we needed was a program that includes everyone, funds care equitably, eliminates financial barriers to care, provides automatic life-long enrollment, provides choice of any health care professionals and facilities, and has public funding that would ensure adequate capacity in the system. A single payer, improved Medicare for all would have those goals.

Instead, we’ll be pouring even more money into the system we have, and still compare unfavorably to these other high-income nations, that is unless we are willing to do something about it. We need to tell our policy makers, “It’s the insurance, stupid!”

They Said They Would Push Me “Off a Cliff”

By Michael Moore
Open Mike Blog, 17 November 10

Yesterday, on the TV and radio show “Democracy Now” hosted by Amy Goodman, the former Vice President of CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies, revealed that CIGNA met with the other big health insurers to hatch a plan to “push” yours truly “off a cliff.”

The interview contains new revelations about just how frightened the health industry was that “Sicko” might ignite a public wave of support for “socialized medicine.” So the large health insurance companies came together over a common cause: Stop the American people from going to see “Sicko” – and the way to do that was to cause some form of harm to me (either personally, professionally or … physically?).

Take a look at this stunning section of the interview with Wendell Potter:

WENDELL POTTER [former executive, CIGNA]: … We were concerned that the movie [“Sicko”] would be as successful as “Fahrenheit 9/11” had been. And we knew that if it were, it really would change public opinion about our health care system in ways that would be harmful to the profits of health insurers. So, it was very important for this [attack] campaign to succeed. At one point during a strategy meeting, one of the people from [the insurance companies’ public relations firm] APCO said that if our efforts, our initial efforts, were not successful, then we’d have to move to an element of the campaign to push Michael Moore off a cliff. And not meaning to do that literally, but to –

AMY GOODMAN: Are you sure?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, I’m not sure. To tell you the truth, when I started doing what I’m doing [as a whistleblower], I was concerned about my own health and well-being, maybe just from paranoia. But these companies play to win. And we’re talking about some big bucks at stake here – billions and billions and billions of dollars.

AMY GOODMAN: So what were they talking about when they said, “If this doesn’t work, we’re going to push him off the cliff”?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, it would be just an incredibly intense PR effort, if necessary, to spend more premium dollars to defame Michael Moore, to discredit him even more as a filmmaker.

AMY GOODMAN: So, were you doing research on him?

WENDELL POTTER: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: You were going – personally?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, I was a part of the effort. I didn’t – that was part of the reason for hiring APCO and to work with a trade association, is that it relieved me of the responsibility of doing that kind of work. You paid for it to be done by people who were experts in doing that kind of research.

AMY GOODMAN: But they were doing an investigation into him personally?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, absolutely. We knew as much about him probably as he knows about himself.

AMY GOODMAN: About his wife, about his kid, about –

WENDELL POTTER: Oh, yeah. You know, it’s important to know everything that you might be able to use in some kind of a campaign against someone, to discredit them professionally and often personally.

AMY GOODMAN: And did you use that?

WENDELL POTTER: You use it if necessary.

The interview goes on as Potter reveals how his front group was able to get its talking points and smears into stories in the New York Times and CNN. It is a chilling look inside how easy it is to manipulate our mainstream media – and just how worried the health insurance companies were that the American people might demand a true universal health care system.

In particular, Potter talks about how they may have succeeded in influencing CNN to run a factually untrue story about “Sicko” by its reporter, Sanjay Gupta (which led to my infamous encounter with Wolf Blitzer and later, an apology from CNN for getting their facts wrong).

Potter believes his work to defame “Sicko” succeeded, as the film didn’t end up posting “Fahrenheit 9/11” grosses. To be clear, “Sicko” went on to become the 3rd largest grossing documentary of all time at that point. And as the release of “Sicko” in June of 2007 was the first time since the defeat of Hillary Clinton’s healthcare bill in 1994 that the issue of health insurance was brought to the forefront of the national media, I believe it helped to reignite the issue during the 2008 election year by exposing millions of Americans to the truth about the health insurance industry. More than one person on Capitol Hill will admit that “Sicko” was a big help in rallying public support for the compromise bill that eventually passed earlier this year. But I agree, their smear campaign was effective and did create the dent they were hoping for – single payer and the public option never even made it into the real discussion on the floor of Congress.

(There was really only one reason “Sicko” didn’t sell as many tickets as “Fahrenheit” and that was because of a felony that was committed – a felony that I will discuss for the first time on this site in the coming weeks or months ahead. Stay tuned.)

Please read or watch the entire interview with Wendell Potter. It’s a fascinating peek behind the curtain of how corporate America really runs this country. And how if any of us get in their way, then those people must be stopped. It begs the question: Seeing how there’s more of us than there are of them, how long will we let their takeover of our democracy continue?

God Bless the Ruling Class,
Michael Moore

P.S. Over the next few days I will continue this examination of the Wendell Potter revelations on “Democracy Now” and in his new book. Please check in here on MichaelMoore.com.

They Said They Would Push Me "Off a Cliff"

By Michael Moore
Open Mike Blog, 17 November 10

Listen to Dr. Flowers on health care

By JOHN NICHOLS
The Cap Times
November 18, 2010

If the Obama White House and congressional Democrats had listened to Dr. Margaret Flowers, they would have produced a single-payer “Medicare for All” health reform that would have excited the party’s progressive base. That base would have waded into the 2010 election campaign to defend real reform, closing the “enthusiasm gap” and changing the course of political history.

Unfortunately, instead of listening to Dr. Flowers, top Democrats had her arrested, and forcibly removed one of the nation’s top experts on health care from Senate hearings on the issue.

The Democrats who did that were fools, and they got their comeuppance Nov. 2, to their own and the republic’s disservice.

Now it’s time to listen to Dr. Flowers, a genuine hero in the struggle to reform our broken health care system.

No one did a better job than she when it came to challenging the Obama administration and compromise-prone Democrats during a health care debate that ended up creating a weak and dysfunctional “reform” rather than the “Medicare for All” system that would care for all Americans, cut costs and break the stranglehold of the big insurance companies.

I’ve been writing about Flowers and the fight for single-payer health care for years and I am a huge fan of the group she works with, Physicians for a National Health Program.

That group, with which the beloved Madison-area physician Dr. Linda Farley was closely associated before her death (and with which Linda’s husband, Dr. Eugene Farley, remains active), will be holding a fundraising event Friday night with Dr. Flowers, state Sen. Mark Miller, D-Monona, and state Rep. Chuck Benedict, D-Beloit. It will run from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the EVP Coffee House at 3809 Mineral Point Road. Anyone who wants to get up to speed on the ongoing fight to achieve real reform should make a point of being there.

Flowers has been in the thick of the fight and she is not giving up.

She has some “war stories” to tell about battling not just Republicans but misguided Democrats.

Here’s part of a piece I wrote about her in the spring of 2009, when she and other doctors and nurses tried to force senators to open the debate that was needed:

“Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, the insurance industry-friendly Democrat who is managing show hearings on health care reform, has come up with a novel way to express his commitment to care for the almost 50 million Americans who have no health care and roughly equal number who have inadequate care.

“The senior senator from Montana is ordering the arrest of doctors and nurses.

“Medical practitioners who have shown up at Baucus-chaired ‘roundtable discussions’ to demand consideration of a real fix — the single-payer, genuinely public reform that assures all Americans will have health care while at the same time holding down costs — are being taken into custody and removed from the hearing rooms.

“At the first Finance Committee session last week, Dr. Margaret Flowers and seven others were taken into custody when they urged Baucus to include witnesses who support single-payer.

“Dr. Flowers discussed her arrest on Ed Schultz’s MSNBC show, explaining that physicians, nurses and reform groups representing more than 20 million Americans wanted to give voice to the more than 60 percent of Americans who in polls have repeatedly expressed support for a single-payer reform.

“But the answer from Baucus, who has been charged by the Obama administration with shaping a health care plan, has been to call in the cops.

“ ‘They just don’t want to hear from single-payer,’ explained Dr. Flowers, a pediatrician from Maryland. ‘We’ve been trying for months now, meeting with members of Congress, to be included in the hearings, at the events that they are holding, and they keep excluding us.’

“After reviewing the details of the Baucus overreaction, Schultz asked: ‘President Obama: Do you support excluding people from the discussion?’

“Obama has not responded.

“But Baucus has.

“On Tuesday, at the second Finance Committee session, dozens of California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee members and their allies showed up to protest the heavy-handed tactics. At the opening of the hearing, roughly 30 of them rose and turned their backs to Baucus. On their backs were signs reading: ‘Pass Single-Payer’ and ‘Nurses Say: Patients First.’ Other signs, reading ‘Stop AHIP,’ protested the collaboration by the Obama administration and Baucus with the country’s most powerful industry lobby, the America’s Health Insurance Plans group.

“While the health insurance lobby has been welcomed to the roundtable discussions organized by Baucus, the nurses and their allies were told to leave. When five objected to their exclusion from the hearing, and to the exclusion of single-payer from the debate about how to fix a broken private health care system, they were arrested. Among those taken into custody were Dr. Judy Dasovich, Dr. Steven Fenichel and California nurses DeAnn McEwen and Sue Cannon.

“Their crime? As health care professionals, they dared to dissent from the Baucus-led attempt to impose an insurance company approved plan under the guise of ‘reform.’

“Dr. Dasovich, a physician from Springfield, Mo., dared to say, ‘We request that single-payer advocates be allowed at the table. Health care should be for patients, not for profits.’ Nurse Cannon said, ‘People at the table have failed Americans for 30 years. We want single-payer at the table. We want guaranteed health care so we can give the care we need, when we need to give it.’

“When the doctors, nurses and their allies left the Capitol, activist David Swanson reported, members of the CNA/NNOC, Progressive Democrats of American, Code Pink and allied single-payer advocates chanted: ‘Lock Up Baucus!’ and hoisted a sign reading: ‘Most Physicians Want a Single-Payer National Health System.’

“At the White House, reporter Helen Thomas asked Obama administration spokesman Robert Gibbs: ‘Did anyone represent single-payer at this meeting today?’

“Gibbs tried to spin it.

“ ‘Well, I don’t think it was a full meeting of those that might be at the table,’ the scrambling spokesman said. ‘I believe that people of varying opinions have been here for different meetings, have been part of the larger health care reform summit that was done earlier this year, and I don’t doubt that in the coming days differing viewpoints about how to achieve cost savings in increased coverage will be part of that discussion.’

“If that sounded like a dodge, it was.

“But single-payer advocates weren’t fooled.

“They’re raising the banner of real reform higher. …”

John Nichols is the associate editor of The Capital Times. jnichols@madison.com

pnhpf3a

S. 3958 (the entire bill)

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (excerpts):

Sen. Bernie Sanders: ‘Vermont stands a chance to be the first state in the nation to pass single-payer’

Comment:

How Health Insurance Design Affects Access To Care And Costs, By Income, In Eleven Countries

Comment:

Consumers and Insurance: Experiences In Eleven Countries

How Health Insurance Design Affects Access To Care And Costs, By Income, In Eleven Countries

Comment:

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