PNHP’s annual meeting will be held Saturday, October 25, 2008 at the Westin Gaslamp Quarter, San Diego.

PNHP will hold its Leadership Training Institute on October 24 at the Westin Gaslamp Quarter. Please contact Matt Petty at matt@pnhp.org or 312-782-6006 for more information.

To make reservations at the Westin Gaslamp Quarter, call 800-937-8461.

Regular Rates*: $150 Annual Meeting and Dinner, $125 Annual Meeting Only, $50 Annual Dinner Only

Student Rates*: $75 Annual Meeting and Dinner, $60 Annual Meeting Only, $25 Annual Dinner Only

* Regular Rates will increase after September 21, 2008.

Sample meeting agenda below.

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Physicians for a National Health Program
Annual Meeting 2007

Saturday, November 3, 2007 — Washington, DC

Annual Meeting Agenda (tentative)

8:00 AM Registration opens with coffee and bagels

9:00 AM Welcome and Introductions

Dr. Ana Malinow, PNHP President

9:30 AM Health Policy & Politics: Pre-election 2008

Dr. David Himmelstein, Harvard Medical School & PNHP co-founder

The Presidential Candidates’ Health Proposals

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, Harvard Medical School & PNHP co-founder

11:00 Break

11:15 The Crisis in Emergency Care

Dr. Arthur Kellerman, co-chair, Institute of Medicine Committee on the Consequences of Uninsurance

11:45 Update from the States: Massachusetts, California and Colorado

Dr. Simon Ahtaridis, Massachusetts
Dr. Richard Quint, California
Dr. Rocky White, Colorado

12:30 PM Lunch: Lessons from Medicare in the US and Canada

US — Dr. Christine Cassel, American Board of Internal Medicine
Canada — James Clancy, National Union of Public and General Employees
US — Dr. Jason Kelley Lessons from the Veteran’s Administration
Moderated by Dr. Quentin Young

2:00 PM Activist Workshops (tentative)

1. How to give a successful grand rounds

Dr. Oliver Fein, PNHP Board

2. Organizing at the state level

Dr. Garrett Adams, Kentucky
Dr. Rocky White, Colorado

3. International Health systems: Canada and France

Dr. Jon Davine, Canadian psychiatrist
Dr. Paul Sorum, PNHP Capital District (Albany)

4. Getting Started in Health Services Research

Dr. David Himmelstein

2:45 p.m. Break

3:00 PM Activist Workshops (tentative)

5. Medical Student Organizing

Medical students from CA, PA, and the AMSA (will continue to 5 p.m.)

6. International Health Systems: Canada and France

Dr. Jon Davine, Canadian psychiatrist
Dr. Paul Sorum, PNHP Capital District

7. How to give a successful grand rounds (and publish your op-ed!)

Dr. Aaron Carroll, PNHP Board

8. Answering tough health policy questions (e.g. what about illegal immigrants)

Dr. Olveen Carrasquillo and Dr. Don McCanne

3:45 p.m. Break

4:00 PM Policy and Strategy Discussion

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, PNHP co-founder
Dr. Quentin Young, PNHP National Coordinator
Kay Tillow, Nurses Professional Organization
And other single-payer leaders

5:00 PM Activist Networking

7:00 PM Presentation of Dr. Quentin Young Health Activist Awards

Dinner Guest speaker: Sidney Wolfe, MD
Director of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen

Dinner Guest speaker: George Lakoff, PhD
Co-founder and Senior Fellow of the Rockridge Institute

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Sunday, November 4, 2007

Activist Physicians Dinner. Click here to download a flyer with details.

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Click here for sample Speaker Biographies

Don’t forget about PNHP’s Leadership Training Institute taking place Friday, November 2, 2007.

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“The most important medical meeting you’ll ever attend!”
Quentin Young, MD

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Washington, DC hotels near the Washington Marriott at 22nd and M

Embassy Suites Washington
1250 22 Street NW
Reservations: 800-embassy
Lowest rate: $215 at hilton.com, $215 at hotels.com
Distance from Marriott: 0.1 miles

Renaissance M Street
1143 New Hampshire Ave NW
Reservations: 800-HOTELS-1
Lowest rate: $189 at marriott.com, $189 at hotels.com
Distance from Marriott: 0.2 miles

Washington Suites Georgetown
2500 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Reservations: 202-333-8060
Lowest rate: $173 at washingtonsuitesgeorgetown.com, $173 at hotels.com
Distance from Marriott: 0.3 miles

The Melrose Hotel
2430 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Reservations: 800-MELROSE
Lowest rate: $169 at melrosehotel.com, $155 at hotels.com
Distance from Marriott: 0.4 miles

Hotel Lombardy
2019 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Reservations: 800-424-5486
Lowest rate: $196 at hotellombardy.com, $202 at hotels.com
Distance from Marriott: 0.5 miles

One Washington Circle Hotel
1 Washington Circle NW
Reservations: 800-424-9671
Lowest rate: $219 at thecirclehotel.com, $169 at hotels.com
Distance from Marriott: 0.4 miles

Renaissance Mayflower Hotel
1127 Connecticut Ave NW
Reservations: 800-HOTELS-1
Lowest rate: $449 at marriott.com, $229 at hotels.com
Distance from Marriott: 0.5 miles

The George Washington University Inn
824 New Hampshire Ave NW
Reservations: 800-426-4455
Lowest rate: $169 at gwuinn.com, $164 at hotels.com
Distance from Marriott: 0.7 miles

Adopted by the Kentucky State AFL-CIO Convention, October, 2005

RESOLUTION CALLING FOR THE KENTUCKY STATE AFL-CIO CONVENTION TO ENDORSE HR 676, SINGLE-PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

Workers, their families and their union are waging an increasingly difficult struggle to win or keep good health care coverage. Almost every union at every contract deadline must battle and sacrifice merely to sustain health care benefits. The rising costs of health insurance are blocking workers’ progress in wages and other areas. All of our unions face a health care crisis.

But the crisis extends far beyond union members. More than 45 million people in the U.S. are currently without health care insurance. More than 75 million went without for some length of time within the last two (2) years; and millions more have inadequate coverage or are at risk of losing their coverage. Women, people of color and immigrants are denied care at disproportionate rates, while the elderly and many others must choose between the necessities and life sustaining drugs and care. Unorganized employers, such as Wal-Mart dump their responsibilities for health care onto public programs.

The U.S. health system continues to treat health care as a commoditydistributed according to the ability to pay, rather than a social service to be distributed according to human need. Insurance companies and HMOs compete not by increasing quality or lowering costs, but by avoiding covering those with the greatest need.

Economic necessity and moral conscience compel us to seek a better way.

Therefore, be it resolved that:
A single payer program as provided for in Congressman John Conyers’ bill HR 676, ‘Expanded and Improved Medicare for All,’ a single payer health care program is the only affordable option for universal, comprehensive coverage.

That the Kentucky State AFL-CIO will work with unions and community groups to build a groundswell of popular support and action for single payer universal health care and HR 676 until we make what is morally right for our nation into what is also politically possible.

That the Kentucky State AFL-CIO will send a copy of this resolution to Congressman Conyers, to all the Kentucky members of the U.S. House and Senate, to the AFL-CIO Executive Committee, and to the news media.

Respectfully submitted by,
AFSCME Local 2629
Sheila Wade, President

PNHP Activist Newsletter has updates of current and upcoming events.

Click here to download(pdf) file

Excerpted from Labor Notes December 2004
http://www.labornotes.org

Steward’s Corner
Educating Members About Health Care Reform
By Rand Wilson

I recently did a series of one-hour workshops about the health care crisis for the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 227 stewards in Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky. The objective was to educate members about health care reform and give participants confidence to explain the issue to their co-workers, neighbors, and friends.

Local 227 (which has about 18,000 members in grocery, meatpacking, dairy, poultry processing, apparel manufacturing, and other retail and manufacturing operations) had just been through bruising contract negotiations with Kroger and other grocery employers over contributions to the members health and welfare fund. Local President Gary Best wanted to make sure that the members recent experience was linked to a broader political reform movement.

He told members that unless there is a political solution to the health care crisis before the next round of contract negotiations, there is no way that the union can preserve members benefits.

Health Care’s Holy Trinity

The key to bringing people to a better understanding of the health care crisis is relating their own experiences as union activists and patients to the trinity of cost, access, and quality. The goal is that everyone understand that cost, access, and quality are all essential to understanding the health care crisis, and that reform proposals must be evaluated on how well they addresses all three factors.

To help focus the discussion, I provided members with a few fact sheets about rising costs, the dramatic drop in employer-based coverage, and the poor quality of health care in the United States, despite spending almost twice as much per capita as any other country. These fact sheets reinforced the gut knowledge that members already had.

Economics 101

The second part of the workshop discussion focused on why we are paying more for health care, but actually getting less care. I asked members to compare how supply and demand set the prices for housing, cars, and other goods–when you pay more, you usually get more. Health care is different because of the unique problems of consumer choice and decision making in health care. This led to a good discussion about how no one can wait for a sale on appendectomies or casually shop for a low-priced emergency room.

The key point was that there is no free market in health care, and there never will be. And since there is no free market, both liberal and conservative reforms designed to achieve better performance by treating health care like a consumer good will fail.

People enjoyed the next section of the workshop the most: naming the special interests in health care. We made a list of insurance companies, drug companies, doctors, and hospitals and then analyzed their stake in the existing system and how each seeks shape any emerging reform proposals.

The objective was to get everyone to understand that powerful special interests are trying to shape reform solutions to their own benefit, but because these interests are in conflict with one another, reform is politically paralyzed.

Health Care For All

Finally, I asked the stewards to talk about reforms that would work for working families. Reminding everyone about the “holy trinity,” we talked about how well Medicare performs relative to cost, access, and quality:

It provides insurance at about one tenth the administrative cost of private insurance companies, and has the bulk purchasing power to hold down costs by negotiating prices with doctors, hospitals, and, potentially, with drug companies.

It covers almost everyone over 65 and long-term disabled. Most patients actually have more choice, not less.

It is able to benchmark quality, track doctor and hospital performance, and promote prevention, wellness, and public health.

Its not too big a leap after this discussion to see that what already works for large numbers of people in the United States Medicare could be improved and expanded to cover everyone.

We concluded the workshop talking about how cost, access, and quality can be used as a road map to building a powerful movement for reform. I asked the stewards to identify constituencies most affected in each area: workers (especially union members) and many employers; the uninsured and the underinsured, as well as communities that have lost access to health care services or facilities; caregivers concerned about short staffing and patients worried about health care quality.

The health care crisis offers a strategic opportunity for the labor movement to connect its struggle to stop employer cost-shifting with the vast majority of workers who have no say in their benefits at all. But just resisting benefit reductions when so many workers are uninsured or underinsured isn’t enough.

It will take a reform movement that unites union members, the uninsured, and caregivers to capture the imagination of millions of workers while creating enough power to force politicians to stand up to the special interests. Making these connections like Local 227 has done needs to begin with shop stewards in every union.

[Rand Wilson is a national organizer for Jobs with Justice. Labor Notes readers who are interested in getting an outline and educational fact sheets for giving this workshop should contact him at rand@mindspring.com.]

June 23, 2004

Dear Senator Alpert,

I am writing today to express my strongest possible support for SB 921, the single payer health care initiative authored by Sheila Kuehl (D-23)

In January 2004, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences estimated
that every year, 18000 Americans die needlessly as a result of having
inadequate or no health insurance. To put that into perspective in the words
of our times, that is a new September 11th tragedy every two months. A tragedy
that is entirely self-inflicted, and persisting for as long as we don’t fix our broken health care ‘system.’ Roughly 10% of those people die in California, based on our percentage of the nation’s population.

It’s time for everyone to have healthcare, and SB 921 provides a solution. I ask you to do everything in your power to support this bill and to seek solutions to provide EVERY Californian with health care.

Sincerely,

Myles Sussman, PhD
Member, Physicians for a National Health Program
8840 Costa Verde Bl #3445
San Diego, CA 92122
858-546-1142

LETTER TO THE EDITOR (L.A. Times 05/24/04)
Broken Health Insurance System 
Re “No Insurance Doesn’t Mean No Healthcare,” Commentary, May 21: Conrad Meier’s misguided analysis of healthcare in this country is almost a joke. When he states that more people paying cash for services is a trend, it is not because they want to, it is because they can’t afford insurance. Even if you have insurance you do not necessarily get good healthcare. A friend can’t get her gynecologist to even return a call, much less make an appointment to see her. My wife, with an $8,000 insurance premium, waits over two weeks for approval of a radiological study to rule out a tumor. I was, unfortunately, in an auto accident. Hospitalized for 1 1/2 days, without any surgery, I was billed over $23,000 dollars, not including doctors’ fees and ambulance costs!

Who would elect to pay cash for this? Insurance companies make profits that do not contribute to services. Advertising takes dollars away from services. Jobs that do not provide insurance deprive millions of services. The system is broken. Just saying there are only 25 million people without health insurance instead of 44 million is not enough to make it better. We need universal healthcare — nothing less.

Leonard A. Zivitz MD
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I agree with a good bit of Robert L. Borosage’s advice to John Kerry on how to fill in the blanks.  But, I take issue with his anaemic recommendations on how to handle the health care crisis.  What he recommends is not much more inspiring than the poor excuse for a solution the senator is currently failing to arouse the electorate with.  The time has come when the entire progressive movement must speak with one loud, clear voice.  As I see it, the Nation is not, up until now, assuming the role on this issue that it should have taken on some time ago.  It is the opinion of Floridians for Health Care, a fighting grassroots group in Palm Beach County, Florida that single payer, medicare extended to everyone, is the only solution to the rapidly intensifying problem.  That is also the opinion of the 10,000 member physicians for a national health program.  It can be summed up in the words of one of their leaders, the distinguished former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell.  She said: “We can no longer afford not to have single payer universal health care.”  I urge Nation writers to take that stand forthrightly. Let’s start building the mass movement the situation is screaming for.
 
David Prensky, D.D.S.

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Margaret Warner
The News Hour
PBS

Dear Ms. Warner:
Thank you for trying to elicit from your guests tonight some comment about the political ramifications of the unacceptable new numbers of uninsured people. Timidly, neither offered any solution, or even seemed to understand some of your questions. Neither questioned the efficacy of the model of employment-based insurance plus an inadequate safety net that has brought us to this juncture. Neither questioned the legitimacy of the dominant for-profit model or the bureaucratic waste that leave our neighbors to their own devices when cancers appear on their skin.

As this issue develops, I hope you will seek out knowledgeable, forthright advocates for meaningful systemic reform, like Dr. Steffie Woolhandler or
Dr. Quentin Young of Physicians for a National Health Plan. An articulate and well-informed advocate and analyst from the perspective of those most excluded from the health care system, homeless people, is Jeff Singer, MSW, President and CEO of Health Care for the Homeless, Inc., in Baltimore and Chair of my organization’s Policy Committee. Any of these three visionary leaders will make a strong case for single payer health care (a word which you spoke and which neither of your guests tonight dared even comment on).

—
John N. Lozier, MSSW
Executive Director
National Health Care for the Homeless Council
PO Box 60427
Nashville TN 37206-0427
phone: 615/226-2292
fax: 615/226-1656
e-mail: jlozier@nhchc.org

Home

The United States has a serious problem and it is one that affects the lives of all of us. That problem is our ailing healthcare system. We are going to be doctors in a few years and that means we are soon going to be advocates for our patients. Let’s start now. Why not be advocates for those patients who will suffer because the system does not allow you to give them the best care possible.

Here is the problem with healthcare in the United States: too many people are not getting any. Because of the profit-driven healthcare industry that exists today, many patients will not be able to reach us for the care they need. Something is blocking their access.

Does not everyone have the right to adequate healthcare in our society? Healthcare should not be a privilege as it is now, but rather the right of every citizen. How can we live in a society that only allows certain groups of people to see doctors while others cannot? In my opinion, that is discrimination. Not only is our system discriminatory, it is killing people. 44 million people in America are uninsured and almost 50 million are underinsured. That is almost 100 million people. Our country only holds 270 million people. Where have we gone wrong when every other industrialized nation recognizes the moral mandate for universal healthcare, offers it, and still spends a smaller percentage of their Gross Domestic Product on healthcare than the United States?

Here’s the deal. You need to decide whether you will become your patient’s advocate years from now, joining the frustrating struggle against managed care; or, will you become your patient’s advocate now by helping to change the scope of healthcare in America?

We need a new system. A system that embraces equity, choice, efficiency, quality, and continuity of care. We can only achieve these goals through a nationalized healthcare system – that is, a single-payer system. What does that mean in practical terms? It means easier access for patients. It means that no patient will be denied care. It means a healthier America.

Some people may tell you that this is socialized medicine. But they are misinformed. This would not be a system that controls the extent of the patient’s right to healthcare. On the contrary, it gives them all the right. A single-payer healthcare system provides for all people and leaves the medical decision making in the knowing hands of the physician. That’s going to be you and me in just a short while.

We need a new system, and the only way to achieve our goal is with your help. Instead of expressing shock each time we hear that the number of uninsured has gone up another million people, we can actually do something about it.

Join Physicians for a National Health Program in advocating universal healthcare access through a single-payer system.

Remember, insurance plans do not deliver healthcare, physicians do. Our patient advocacy needs to begin today because we want quality healthcare for all people in the United States.

Assaf Yosha
Albany Medical College, 2002

Invite a speaker to give a talk to medical students and/or faculty on health care reform. Visit the find a speaker page or call the national office at (312) 782-6006 for help in locating a speaker near you. PNHP has a slide show that has been used for talks to physicians and students and that has been very positively received. It is available to borrow or purchase from the national office.

# Host and evening pizza party with a local PNHP speaker for students interested in national health insurance.
# Arrange a session on health care reform at the next AMSA or other organization meeting.
# Post an article on a student bulletin board.
# Copy and distribute articles on national health insurance to students and faculty.
# Write an op-ed or letter to local papers, your school paper, or legislators.
# Network with students at other universities to discuss activities.
# Participate in meeting held by medical association, church groups, and other civic or student groups on health care reform.
# Let local press and other organizations working on health care reform know that you are willing to speak out about the flaws in the current system and the need for universal coverage and national health insurance.
# Form a student chapter of PNHP or get involved with another student group (such as AMSA) that supports national health insurance.
# Get in touch with the PNHP contact person in your area and attend a local chapter meeting.

PNHP has chapters in nearly every state. One great way to get involved in national health care reform is to work with your PNHP chapter.

To email your chapter contact, simply select your state or nearest chapter from the dropdown list; your message will be sent and your chapter contact can respond with more information.

Please note: If you do not see your city or state listed, please contact the national office, as we have activists in many more locations even if we do not have an official PNHP chapter there.

Select Your State:	Click HereAlabamaArizonaCaliforniaColorado (Denver Metro)Colorado (South / West)ConnecticutDistrict of ColumbiaDelawareFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIowa (Des Moines)Iowa (Iowa City)IdahoIllinoisIndiana (Bloomington)Indiana (Indianapolis)KansasKansas (Kansas City)KentuckyMassachusettsMarylandMaineMichiganMinnesotaMissouriMississippiNorth CarolinaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNevadaNew York (NYC)New York (Albany / Upstate)OhioOregonPennsylvania (Pittsburgh / East)Pennsylvania (Philadelphia / West)Puerto RicoRhode IslandSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexas (Dallas)Texas (Houston)Texas (Austin)UtahVirginiaVermontWashingtonWisconsinWest Virginia
Your Chapter Contact Is:
Your Name:
Your Email Address:
Your Message:

PNHP offers three email mailing lists:

* *Advocates* will receive PNHP press releases, action alerts, and other urgent health care updates (~5 messages per year)
* *Students* receive updates specifically to student activism, allowing students across the country to collaborate and share ideas (message volume varies)
* *Media* receives press releases and other newsworthy items from Physicians for a National Health Program (message volume varies). Please specify if you are with Print Media/Radio or TV

Additionally, you may be interested in several non-PNHP health care mailing lists:

* Quote of the Day, a daily Health Policy analysis from our President, Don McCanne
* Dennis Lazof’s (lazofd@earthlink.net) recent health care news items
* Robert Rochlin’s (bobrnjan@erols.com) national articles and news clips
* James Ramsell’s (ramselj@efn.org) health care articles and news
* MASSCARE’s Mailing List (MASSCARE@aol.com) Massachusetts updates