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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), who ruled single payer “off the table” before he even started considering healthcare reform, is now trying to pressure the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to judge the Baucus health plan financially sound.

Baucus held a Finance Committee hearing last Wednesday (2/25/09) at which the sole witness was CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf.

According to CongressDaily (2/25), Baucus, other lawmakers, and “some special interest groups have not been particularly pleased with what they view as CBO’s conservative scoring of some supposed cost-cutting efforts that are needed to help offset the enormous price tag” of overhauling the health care system under the Baucus plan.

Baucus said if healthcare reform is to pass, the CBO needs to “get ever more creative to find … pathways to get the savings that we have to have.” (Edney, CongressDaily, 2/25)

Baucus told the head of CBO at last Wednesday’s hearing that the Congressional Budget Office will play a significant role in efforts to overhaul the U.S. health care system because the agency’s cost assessments will “make or break this enterprise,” CQ HealthBeat. Experienced observers assert that this is Baucus’ way of pressuring the agency to come up with figures to justify the kind of healthcare reform Baucus wants. Similar pressure in the extreme was placed upon the CBO in the early 1990’s when the Clinton health plan was being debated.

The CBO is responsible for “scoring” any legislative proposal for its true costs and savings. CBO has been recognized for the accuracy of its findings and projections and for its non-partisanship. In fact, a 1991 CBO study found that a single payer system in the US could cover all the uninsured at the (then) current level of spending or less because of reduction in administrative costs. https://pnhp.org/facts/single_payer_system_cost.php?page=all

Many recently proposed healthcare plans, similar to the one Baucus says he is drafting, keep private-for-profit health insurance companies in the mix and are based on claiming hugh savings from such things as the introduction of computerized record keeping. These so called “savings” are then touted as the way the proposed plan can be “paid for”.

The CBO has issued a series of recent studies which have found that most savings claimed, in the effort to keep private-for-profit insurance companies in the mix, do not exist. Recent CBO studies of disease management, “medical homes,” electronic medical records, comparative effectiveness research, a public plan that competes with the private insurers and others, do not save money as claimed.

Call, write or fax Senator Baucus and tell him we need accurate numbers not creative figuring. Single payer should be on the table and should be given a full and fair hearing by the Senate Finance Committee.

Senator Max Baucus
511 Hart Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-2651(Office)
(202) 224-9412 (Fax)

#30#

HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a greatly improved Medicare system to everyone residing in the U. S.

HR 676 would cover every person for all necessary medical care including prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and preventive care, emergency services, dental, mental health, home health, physical therapy, rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care, hearing services including hearing aids, chiropractic, durable medical equipment, palliative care, and long term care.

HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save hundreds of billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs.

In the current Congress, HR 676 has 59 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.

HR 676 has been endorsed by 485 union organizations in 49 states including 120 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 39 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI, MT, NE, NY, NV & MA).

For further information, a list of union endorsers, or a sample endorsement resolution, contact:

Kay Tillow
All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551
Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayerHR676.org
03/02/09

To STOP receiving these emails reply with REMOVE in subject line.

On Thursday, March 5, 2009, the White House will host a summit on how to reform the healthcare system.

The 120 invited guests include lobbyists for various interest groups including the private-for-profit insurance industry (AHIP), some members of Congress including Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus who has already ruled single payer “off the table,” and various others concerned with healthcare.

No single payer advocates have been invited to attend.

Please urge President Obama to fulfill his promise for transparency and openness in government

Call The White House (202) 456-1414 or (202) 456-1111.

Tell them to let single payer into the White House Summit on healthcare.

Distributed by:
All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551
Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayerHR676.org

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), who ruled single payer “off the table” before he even started considering healthcare reform, is now trying to pressure the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to judge the Baucus health plan financially sound.

Baucus held a Finance Committee hearing last Wednesday (2/25/09) at which the sole witness was CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf.

According to CongressDaily (2/25), Baucus, other lawmakers, and “some special interest groups have not been particularly pleased with what they view as CBO’s conservative scoring of some supposed cost-cutting efforts that are needed to help offset the enormous price tag” of overhauling the health care system under the Baucus plan.

Baucus said if healthcare reform is to pass, the CBO needs to “get ever more creative to find … pathways to get the savings that we have to have.” (Edney, CongressDaily, 2/25)

Baucus told the head of CBO at last Wednesday’s hearing that the Congressional Budget Office will play a significant role in efforts to overhaul the U.S. health care system because the agency’s cost assessments will “make or break this enterprise,” CQ HealthBeat. Experienced observers assert that this is Baucus’ way of pressuring the agency to come up with figures to justify the kind of healthcare reform Baucus wants. Similar pressure in the extreme was placed upon the CBO in the early 1990’s when the Clinton health plan was being debated.

The CBO is responsible for “scoring” any legislative proposal for its true costs and savings. CBO has been recognized for the accuracy of its findings and projections and for its non-partisanship. In fact, a 1991 CBO study found that a single payer system in the US could cover all the uninsured at the (then) current level of spending or less because of reduction in administrative costs. https://www.pnhp.org/facts/single_payer_system_cost.php?page=all

Many recently proposed healthcare plans, similar to the one Baucus says he is drafting, keep private-for-profit health insurance companies in the mix and are based on claiming hugh savings from such things as the introduction of computerized record keeping. These so called “savings” are then touted as the way the proposed plan can be “paid for”.

The CBO has issued a series of recent studies which have found that most savings claimed, in the effort to keep private-for-profit insurance companies in the mix, do not exist. Recent CBO studies of disease management, “medical homes,” electronic medical records, comparative effectiveness research, a public plan that competes with the private insurers and others, do not save money as claimed.

Call, write or fax Senator Baucus and tell him we need accurate numbers not creative figuring. Single payer should be on the table and should be given a full and fair hearing by the Senate Finance Committee.

Senator Max Baucus
511 Hart Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-2651(Office)
(202) 224-9412 (Fax)

#30#

HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a greatly improved Medicare system to everyone residing in the U. S.

HR 676 would cover every person for all necessary medical care including prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and preventive care, emergency services, dental, mental health, home health, physical therapy, rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care, hearing services including hearing aids, chiropractic, durable medical equipment, palliative care, and long term care.

HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save hundreds of billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs.

In the current Congress, HR 676 has 59 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.

HR 676 has been endorsed by 485 union organizations in 49 states including 120 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 39 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI, MT, NE, NY, NV & MA).

For further information, a list of union endorsers, or a sample endorsement resolution, contact:

Kay Tillow
All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551
Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayerHR676.org
03/02/09

To STOP receiving these emails reply with REMOVE in subject line.

Email Pres. Obama: What happened to Openess and Transparency?

Published by Swing State
March 3, 2009
Washington, DC

One group is being left out of the White House’s health reform forum Thursday: supporters of single payer health care.

President Obama has promised an open discussion as he begins an aggressive push for health care reform. Obama said Monday he is “bringing together business and labor, doctors and insurers, Democrats and Republicans” to discuss.

Progressive Democrats of America and Physicians for a National Health Program, leading proponents of expanding Medicare, government-run health care to cover all Americans, have not been invited and are “seeking” an invitation.

John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, has become Congress’ leader for single payer. He has authored H.R. 676, the model bill for single payer advocates, which has 59 cosponsors. He too has not yet received an invitation.

Liberal health consumer advocate groups such as Families USA and Health Care for America Now are invited and are attending. Neither plan to push single payer.

Even Obama’s new nominee to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius’ own newly implemented state agency, the Kansas Health Policy Authority, recommended single payer as one of four policy options. Despite the government agency’s determination that single payer would be the cheapest, Kansas has also decided to reject that route thus far.

Despite President Obama’s pledge for an open discussion where every position has a seat at the table, one idea seems to be off the table.

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UPDATE 3: What People Said at Obama’s Health Summit

by Chuck Idelson
California Nurses Association blog
February 26, 2009

Hours after President Obama’s speech to Congress in which he laid down a marker for achieving “comprehensive” healthcare reform, and getting it done this year, top administration aides have outlined the goals of what they want to achieve.

What Politico called “the 8 keys to his health plan,” certainly reflect a bold determination for action and a grand vision.

There’s only one problem. Virtually all the proposals being bandied about in various Congressional committees — and the administration made it clear this week they will let Congress figure out the details — fail to meet the test of those “8 keys.”

With one important exception — single payer reform, or expanding and updating Medicare to cover everyone.

So what are those lofty goals set by the administration?

Obama has endorsed eight guiding principles for health reform, the White House officials said on the conference call. They stressed that they intend to work with lawmakers and other stakeholders on how to accomplish the goals, but the principles will lay down a marker for any congressional plan.

Drum roll, please. A healthcare plan, they told reporters, should be:

* Universal, everybody in, nobody out

* Portable, not tied to your job, if you even have one

* Maintaining choice of doctor and insurance

* Ensuring affordable coverage

* Protecting Americans financial health

* Investing in prevention and wellness

* Improving patient safety and quality of care

* Fiscally responsible and sustainable

To the administration’s credit, these should be the benchmarks of any real reform. And to give them further props, the administration is even projecting progressive tax reform as a financing mechanism.

The combined effect of the two revenue-raising proposals, on top of Mr. Obama’s existing plan to roll back the Bush-era income tax reductions on households with income exceeding $250,000 a year, would be a pronounced move to redistribute wealth by reimposing a larger share of the tax burden on corporations and the most affluent taxpayers.

But on the construct of the plan itself, a huge barrier stands in the way. The present private insurance-based system is an implacable impediment to every one of these goals.

The insurance giants, of course, are not care providers. They are big corporations. They exist to make money, primarily to return profits for their shareholders. Every aspect of their operations are geared to that end.

Private insurance plans:

* Aren’t universal because they exclude people based on pre-existing conditions or age or anyone else they think will be expensive to cover.

* Don’t guarantee choice of physician or hospital, but limit you to their network of providers.

* Won’t assure affordability because they are constantly raising premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and other fees to generate high revenues and profits.

* Can’t guarantee safety and quality because they actively discourage the delivery of care or deny treatments, diagnoses, or referrals because they don’t want to pay for it.

* Will never be fiscally responsible because there is no independent oversight, decisions are made in secret in closed board rooms or CEO offices, and, again, their priority is profits.

Thus any plan which sustains, protects, or expands the role of the insurance industry in healthcare cannot, by definition, achieve any of these worthy aims.

One bill, however, does succeed in all eight areas. That is HR 676, the U.S. National Health Care Act by Rep. John Conyers, which also happens to be the one reform that has a broad, national grassroots constituency led by nurses, doctors, patients, and health care activists.

With the administration having laid our a vision, but deferred implementation to Congress, that should be a signal to all of us to put their feet to the fire and push for real reform, like HR 676.

by Chuck Idelson
California Nurses Association blog
February 26, 2009

Hours after President Obama’s speech to Congress in which he laid down a marker for achieving “comprehensive” healthcare reform, and getting it done this year, top administration aides have outlined the goals of what they want to achieve.

What Politico called “the 8 keys to his health plan,” certainly reflect a bold determination for action and a grand vision.

There’s only one problem. Virtually all the proposals being bandied about in various Congressional committees — and the administration made it clear this week they will let Congress figure out the details — fail to meet the test of those “8 keys.”

With one important exception — single payer reform, or expanding and updating Medicare to cover everyone.

So what are those lofty goals set by the administration?

Obama has endorsed eight guiding principles for health reform, the White House officials said on the conference call. They stressed that they intend to work with lawmakers and other stakeholders on how to accomplish the goals, but the principles will lay down a marker for any congressional plan.

Drum roll, please. A healthcare plan, they told reporters, should be:

* Universal, everybody in, nobody out

* Portable, not tied to your job, if you even have one

* Maintaining choice of doctor and insurance

* Ensuring affordable coverage

* Protecting Americans financial health

* Investing in prevention and wellness

* Improving patient safety and quality of care

* Fiscally responsible and sustainable

To the administration’s credit, these should be the benchmarks of any real reform. And to give them further props, the administration is even projecting progressive tax reform as a financing mechanism.

The combined effect of the two revenue-raising proposals, on top of Mr. Obama’s existing plan to roll back the Bush-era income tax reductions on households with income exceeding $250,000 a year, would be a pronounced move to redistribute wealth by reimposing a larger share of the tax burden on corporations and the most affluent taxpayers.

But on the construct of the plan itself, a huge barrier stands in the way. The present private insurance-based system is an implacable impediment to every one of these goals.

The insurance giants, of course, are not care providers. They are big corporations. They exist to make money, primarily to return profits for their shareholders. Every aspect of their operations are geared to that end.

Private insurance plans:

* Aren’t universal because they exclude people based on pre-existing conditions or age or anyone else they think will be expensive to cover.

* Don’t guarantee choice of physician or hospital, but limit you to their network of providers.

* Won’t assure affordability because they are constantly raising premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and other fees to generate high revenues and profits.

* Can’t guarantee safety and quality because they actively discourage the delivery of care or deny treatments, diagnoses, or referrals because they don’t want to pay for it.

* Will never be fiscally responsible because there is no independent oversight, decisions are made in secret in closed board rooms or CEO offices, and, again, their priority is profits.

Thus any plan which sustains, protects, or expands the role of the insurance industry in healthcare cannot, by definition, achieve any of these worthy aims.

One bill, however, does succeed in all eight areas. That is HR 676, the U.S. National Health Care Act by Rep. John Conyers, which also happens to be the one reform that has a broad, national grassroots constituency led by nurses, doctors, patients, and health care activists.

With the administration having laid our a vision, but deferred implementation to Congress, that should be a signal to all of us to put their feet to the fire and push for real reform, like HR 676.