PNHP MEETINGS
PNHP’s Spring Meeting will be held in May; all other information is TBA.

PNHP’s Fall Meeting 2003 will be held in San Francisco, November 15, 2003.

SPEAKING EVENTS

Announcement of 2 New Jersey PNHP meetings (3/18 David Himmelstein. MD; 4/1 Joseph Heyman, MD, AMA and Oliver Fein, MD PNHP)

Summary of Leonard Rodberg, PhD talk for PNHP-NY Metro Chapter Feb 8 2003 forum “Paying for Single Payer: Where Will the Money Come From?”

RALLIES

Michigan State University health Care Rally April TK Dr John Ross on Single-Payer and Dr Green on TK April Tk 2003

DEBATES/FORUMS
Dr Quentin Young debates University of Chicago Professor Epstein

Please share your story, from the tragic to the tragic-comic, about our dysfunctional health system. PNHP collects these stories as “evidence” of our inherently-flawed health care system. Required fields are in red.

Name*
Email Address*
Phone
PNHP is sometimes contacted by the media looking for a specific health care story. May we share your story or contact information with a reporter or post it on our website?*
Yes, PNHP or a reporter can contact me about my story in further detail. Yes, PNHP can post my story.
Your Story*

PREPARATION

* Reserve a rent-free hall that can seat a minimum of 250 people for the town hall meeting. The location will determine the type of audience you will attract.

* Organize six dedicated people who will be able to attend all planning meetings. Invite a doctor, a few nurses and some lay activists to be part of this planning team.

* Designate a health professional in this working group to screen the testimony.

* Limit the planning committee to 10 or 12 people for efficiency.

* Find an office location to do mailings and make phone calls.

* Hold a working meeting every two weeks to plan, coordinate, delegate responsibility and execute tasks.

* Do not discuss strategy or policy at these meetings.

PLANNING

* Allocate approximately $300 for flyers, business cards, mailings and sound equipment.

* Designate a health professional who can take calls from people who want to testify at the town hall meeting. It is best if this person is also on the planning committee.

* Select someone to be the master of ceremonies. This person will introduce the legislators and those people who are testifying.

AT EIGHT WEEKS

* Choose a topic for discussion for your hearing.

*Print at least 1,000 business cards. These should have the title, location, purpose of the event, and contact person’s phone number. The cards not only serve to advertise the event, but are great for health professionals to distribute at work to patients and colleagues who may want to testify.

* Start collecting stories from nurses, doctors, and health professionals from particularly hard-hit fields like psychiatry.

* Send out invitations to legislators. Invite city, county, state and federal legislators and the state attorney general to your meeting. Note the focus or topic for discussion.

AT SIX WEEKS

* Print flyers and begin posting them in hospitals, particularly in places where doctors and nurses will see them.

* Divide up the names of the legislators amongst your core group.

* Compile lists of names, addresses and phone numbers of all the legislators printed up for each committee member. Call each legislator to be sure that they received the invitations.

AT FOUR WEEKS

* Send a media advisory to all of the television, radio and newspapers in your area. This should include the who, what, when, where and why of your event.

* Continue to collect stories. You should limit testimony to five minutes maximum. Require written testimony from everyone in advance.

* Arrange for sound equipment. Reserve at least one microphone for the legislators, one for the master of ceremonies, and one for those testifying. You should also try to get someone to videotape and audiotape the event.

AT TWO WEEKS

* Send a press release and follow it up with a phone call. This serves two purposes: Getting the message out and free advertising. The press release should include the names of the legislators who have confirmed that they will attend. It is also effective to include little sound bites of the stories they will be hearing.

* Call any legislators to invite them again personally.

AT ONE WEEK

* Call those who have agreed to testify to remind them of the time, place, date, etc. Remind them of the time limit of five minutes for their testimony. If they haven’t already done so, get them to submit their testimony in writing.

* Contact the media outlets again to determine interest and remind them of the event.

NIGHT OF THE EVENT

* Arrive two hours ahead of time to prepare the room and receive attendees.
* Check sound.
* Set-up videocamera and conduct test run
* Enlist three people to sign-in attendees, greet media and welcome speakers.
* Set-up signage welcoming attendees
* Set-up table with educational literature
* Start event on time
* Reserve one hour at the end of meeting for discussion. Allow for questions and comments from the audience at this time.
*Optional: Host reception with lite food and drinks immediately following event to encourage continued informal discussion in lobby or common area

Let people know you are part of an ever-growing powerful grass roots movement. This is only the beginning for the Single-Payer movement in the United States.

Contributed by Dr. Deb Richter, Vermont

It’s important to let your national Representatives and Senators know how you feel about national health insurance. Contact them and show your support for single-payer national health insurance.

If you don’t know your Congressperson or their contact information, you can find their contact information from Congress.org.

Here is a sample letter to Congress

The Long Island Coalition For A National Health Plan
P.O. Box 382
Hicksville
New York 11802-3183

Phone: (516) 766-8658
Fax(516)766-6402

The Honorable Carolyn McCarthy
1 Fulton Avenue #30
Hempstead, NY 11550

Dear Congresswoman McCarthy,

We write to thank you and congratulate you on your firm opposition to the incredibly bad Medicare “reform” act just passed by Congress. We believe that continued education of America by Democratic senators and representatives will turn this into a winning backlash issue for Democrats.

Beyond this bill, listen to the public which not only opposes privatization of Medicare, but wants it expanded to cover everyone with simple drug coverage included. A recent Harris poll asked, do you think health care should be an entitlement like education, highways, police and fire protection ? 65% said yes, 12% not sure. In an ABC/Washington Post poll, 62% favored a system of universal health care financed by the government and paid for by taxes.

It is time for congressional Democrats to turn away from the big money of the drug and insurance companies and lead where the people want to go. We’ll help you all we can.

Sincerely,
James S. Bernstein MD, President

Writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper is one of the best ways to influence health care reform. Letters to the editor are an easy way to voice your opinion, draw attention to an issue, bring issues to the attention of your legislators, and correct or interpret facts in response to an inaccurate or biased article.

Submitting an effective letter

• Keep it short
• Use local statistics and personal stories
• Relate your letter to a recent article or op-ed
• Include your phone numbers and address, as the publication will need to confirm that you wrote the letter before they publish it.

Writing Op-Eds

• Opinion/editorials are longer than letters to the editor (between 500 and 800 words.)
• Be newsworthy: Tie your topic into an upcoming vote, appropriate holiday, anniversary, community event, the release of a new report, a recent article, or a popular movie.
• Consider inviting a respected or influential member or your community to co-sign or co-author the Op-Ed with you.
• Use local statistics to capture people’s attention.
• It usually takes editorial boards two weeks to review submissions.

Influencing Editorials

Editorials endorsing a particular issue or piece of legislation can change even the most committed policy maker’s mind.

• Research the newspaper to discover if they already have written an editorial on the topic and to make sure that their editorials are locally written.
• Research your topic with an eye to arguments from other sides.

The following are examples of effective letters to the editor:

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The cost of emergency room care

By John Perryman, M.D., May 27, 2018

To the Editor:

Re “Is That E.R. Trip Necessary? An Insurer May Not Think So” (front page, May 20):

Anthem’s tactic of refusing to pay emergency room bills in certain cases is portrayed as an effort to influence patient behavior and avoid the most costly medical setting for minor ailments. Asking frightened patients to diagnose their illnesses without the benefit of training is absurd on its face.

Anthem, like most health insurers, is obligated to maximize the wealth of its shareholders. The company has been very successful in this regard, generating profits of $3.8 billion in 2017, and paying an effective tax rate of 3.1 percent, according to Healthcare Finance.

The practice of threatening not to cover an E.R. visit is consistent with this goal. What does it matter if a few patients die or are injured because they are afraid of getting hit with a large medical bill? Profits jumped by 55 percent in 2017!

When third-party payers are driven to be profitable, these types of incentives result. This ridiculous, immoral situation is yet another reason the United States must adopt a single-payer health system.

https://www.nytimes.com…

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There is just no denying that Medicare for all is the right solution

By Olveen Carrasquillo, M.D., September 21, 2018

To the editor:

Keep the government away from Medicare. Seriously?

Herman Cain, former CEO of the National Restaurant Association and a former presidential candidate, ludicrously argues that single-payer healthcare would be a death sentence for seniors in his Sept. 19 op-ed in the Miami Herald. He seems unaware seniors are already insured through single-payer health insurance — it’s called Medicare. He cites anecdotes from other countries, yet all academic studies show such nations have better access and quality healthcare. They also have better health outcomes at much lower costs.

In our public hospital, we are confronted daily with the suffering that results from having so many with poor access to health care. In our offices, we waste way too much time fighting private insurance companies that arbitrarily deny tests, procedures and medications to our patients. Skyrocketing insulin prices force many with diabetes to ration or not take their lifesaving medications.

It is easy to dismiss rhetoric from someone whose political ads highlighted the virtues of smoking. But Cain is correct that Obamacare was problematic. It provided many with expensive private insurance with limited benefits. Wisely, Obama has seen the error of his ways and now advocates for an improved Medicare for All.

Medicare is the right solution for our seniors and now needs to be extended to everyone else!

Dr. Carrasquillo is Professor of Medicine and Public Health; and Chief, Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine.

https://www.miamiherald.com…

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Our current medical system is failing

By H. Dixon Turner M.D., September 24, 2018

To the Editor:

I have been involved in providing primary care medical care for 44-plus years. Unfortunately, I now on a daily basis encounter many ways that our current medical system is failing. The costs of medical insurance, medications and many aspects of care are outrageously expensive and many patients do not even have access to basic care.

A case in point is the cost of epinephrine. I regularly order epinephrine ampules for the emergency cart in my office. Not too long ago I could get 25 ampules for around $25. When I ordered ampules about 18 months ago the cost for 25 ampules had risen to $62.50 or $2.50 per ampule. When I ordered the same ampules 2 weeks ago the cost had risen to $23-$25 per ampule!! That represents a 10 fold increase in cost in 1 ½ years. This is outrageous and quite frankly immoral. Unfortunately under our current medical care system such arbitrary price increases are allowed and are not regulated.

President Trump’s and the Republicans’ efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act will further fragment our medical care system, lead to more people not having access to care and will greatly increase the cost of medical care for all of us. These efforts — in the name of allowing “free choice” — only lead to increased profits for insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

Currently in the USA 17 percent of our GPA is spent on medical care, which does not cover all of our citizens. Compared to other developed countries, we have the worst medical outcomes even though those countries’ expenditures are as little as half as much as ours.

We must move toward a single payer or regulated payers’ system where reasonable limits are set on the cost of medications and medical care and in which all people are included and have access to medical care.

http://www.seacoastonline.com…

ENDORSE THE PHYSICIANS’ PROPOSAL

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