February 16, 2011
Dear PNHP colleagues,
Great news! There’s a medical student rally for single payer in Vermont being planned for March 26, and our national single-payer bill, H.R. 676, has just been reintroduced on Capitol Hill. You can help advance both of these efforts today.
1. Please lend a helping hand to medical students and other health professional students who are organizing for a regional rally in support of single-payer health reform the steps of the Vermont Statehouse in Montpelier, Vt., on Saturday, March 26, at 1 p.m. EST by donating to their effort today. The event is sponsored by Physicians for a National Health Program (pnhp.org) and the American Medical Students Association (amsa.org).
You can help this effort immensely by making a tax-deductible contribution today. Money is needed for buses, sound system equipment, posters, banners and more, all of which will help medical and health professional students from throughout the Northeast show they want the Vermont Legislature to enact a single-payer program and to help point the way for the nation toward fundamental health reform.
Here’s how one medical-student organizer from Connecticut explains his involvement:
“I’m helping organize students to rally for single payer in Vermont because I believe that injustice is inherent in our current insurance system. Right now, Vermont’s political climate is ripe for single payer. We have an extraordinary opportunity to enact change — change that could spread to other states, as it did when Saskatchewan became the first province to enact single payer in Canada. Let us stand together and show the medical community, politicians, and Americans that Vermont can be a beacon for health justice across all the United States!”
— Carl Berdahl, MS4, Yale School of Medicine
Please contribute to this important effort today. To keep on top of other Vermont developments, visit the Vermont state news page on our website (also accessible on our home page).
2. At the national level, Rep. John Conyers Jr. reintroduced H.R. 676, the national single-payer bill, into Congress last Friday. The bill is now titled “The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act.” PNHP’s news release about it appears below.
As Dr. Don McCanne observed this week, “The immediate task for all of us who support an expanded and improved Medicare for all is to begin to recruit more co-sponsors [beyond the initial 25 announced on Friday]. Remind your representative that this does not eliminate the important beneficial measures of the Affordable Care Act. What it does instead is it replaces the highly flawed financing structure of ACA with a proven model that both makes health care affordable and includes everyone – the paramount goals of health care reform that have remained elusive until now.”
PNHP activists are urged to call the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak to their representatives about becoming a co-sponsor of H.R. 676. A personal call from a physician carries considerable weight, even if you only speak to the health legislative aide.
Cordially,
Garrett Adams, M.D.
President
P.S. Once again, if you haven’t done so already, please make a donation to the medical student rally organizing effort in Vermont. While we suggest a contribution of $50 or more, any amount will be much appreciated.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 15, 2011
Contact:
Garrett Adams, M.D., president, Physicians for a National Health Program
Margaret Flowers, M.D., congressional fellow
Quentin Young, M.D., national coordinator, (312) 782-6006
Mark Almberg, communications director, (312) 782-6006, mark@pnhp.org
Doctors’ group hails reintroduction of Medicare-for-all bill
Single-payer health program would cover all 51 million uninsured, upgrade everyone’s benefits and save $400 billion annually on bureaucracy, physicians say
A nationwide physicians’ group today hailed the reintroduction of a popular federal bill that would quickly upgrade the Medicare program and expand it to cover the entire population.
The “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act,” H.R. 676, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., would replace today’s private health insurers – and the Obama law’s individual mandate, which is being challenged as unconstitutional – with a single, streamlined public agency that would pay all medical claims, much like Medicare works for seniors today. (See bill summary here.)
“There’s no doubt that expanding Medicare to all is both constitutional and the most cost-effective way to cover everyone,” said Dr. Garrett Adams, president of Physicians for a National Health Program. “A national single-payer program would save over $400 billion a year on bureaucracy and paperwork alone. Plus, it would use proven, effective cost-control techniques like negotiating drug prices and hospital budgets.”
“An improved Medicare-for-all program would provide comprehensive coverage to all of the 51 million people who are currently uninsured and enhance the coverage that everyone else has, by eliminating co-pays and deductibles,” Adams said. “It would go far beyond the new health law, which would still leave 23 million people uninsured in 2019.”
“In these difficult economic times, with lack of health coverage leading to thousands of deaths and personal bankruptcies each year, and states struggling to pay the high costs of Medicaid and health coverage for st
ate workers and retirees, everyone’s taking another look at single payer,” he said. “Legislation that could lead to a single-payer plan was just introduced last week in Vermont, led by a push from the governor and a report by Harvard economist William Hsiao that single payer would cover everyone and save the state $490 million in 2015 and at about four times that much by 2024.”
“Surveys have repeatedly shown that about two-thirds of the public supports a Medicare-for-all approach,” Adams said. “And a recent survey of physicians shows that a solid majority now favor government legislation to create national health insurance.”
“As the founder of a free medical clinic in rural Tennessee, I can assure you that the need for fundamental health care reform has never been greater,” he said. “It’s time to stop putting the interests of private insurance companies over patient needs and adopt a single-payer national health program in the U.S.”
*****
Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org) is an organization of 18,000 physicians who advocate for single-payer national health insurance, an improved Medicare for all. To speak with a physician/spokesperson in your area, visit www.pnhp.org/stateactions or call (312) 782-6006.