• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

PNHP

  • Home
  • Contact PNHP
  • Join PNHP
  • Donate
  • PNHP Store
  • About PNHP
    • Mission Statement
    • Board of Directors
    • National Office Staff
    • Speakers Bureau
    • Local Chapters
    • Students for a National Health Program
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
  • About Single Payer
    • What is Single Payer?
      • Policy Details
      • FAQs
      • History of Health Reform
      • Información en Español
    • How do we pay for it?
    • Physicians’ Proposal
      • Full Proposal
      • Supplemental Materials
      • Media Coverage
    • The Medicare for All Act of 2025
  • Take Action
    • Moral Injury and Distress
    • Medical Society Resolutions
    • Recruit Colleagues
    • Schedule a Grand Rounds
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Lobby Visits
    • Organizing in Red Districts
  • Heal Medicare
    • HealMedicare.org
    • Sign our Petition
    • Take our Survey
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Stop REACH
  • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Maternal Mortality
    • Mental Health Care
    • Health Care Voters Guide
    • COVID-19 Endangers Health Workers
    • COVID-19 Exacerbates Racial Inequities
    • Public Health Emergencies
    • Rural Health Care
    • Racial Health Inequities
    • Surprise Billing
  • Latest News
    • Sign up for e-alerts
    • Medicare Advantage harms report
    • Members in the news
    • Health Justice Monitor
    • Articles of Interest
    • Latest Research
    • For the Press
  • Member Resources
    • 2024 Annual Meeting Materials
    • Member Interest Groups (MIGs)
    • Newsletter
    • Slideshows
    • Materials & Handouts
    • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • COVID-19 Response
      • Why we Need Medicare for All
      • PNHP’s 8-point plan
      • New Study: Perils and Possibilities
      • Emergency COVID-19 Legislation
      • Kitchen Table Toolkit
      • Take Action on COVID-19
      • Telling your COVID-19 story
      • PNHP members in the news
    • Events Calendar
    • Webinars
    • Film Room
    • Join or renew your membership

Health Justice Monitor

Voting Rights and Single Payer – Strikingly Similar

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Summary: The Freedom to Vote Act now facing a filibuster defeat in the US Senate specifies rules to implement fair elections. It is a desperately needed cure for systematic efforts to subvert the principle of one-person-one-vote in order to profit the GOP. Similarly, single payer specifies a set of rules to implement fair (and efficient) health care, a desperately needed cure for our system’s subversion of the right to health care in order to profit the rich. Both reforms enjoy majority support; can they prevail?


Letters from an American, January 12, 2022, by Heather Cox Richardson


The Freedom to Vote Act provisions [our summary from narrative]:

Voting Process: Two weeks of early voting, including nights and weekends, minimum 10 hours a day. Voting by mail and drop box. Election Day a holiday. Uniform standards for voter IDs. Waiting time max 30 minutes. Federal crime to lie to voters to deter voting. Increased penalties for voter intimidation.

Voting Eligibility: Voter registration – uniform rules; automatic at DMV; same-day & online; protection from voter list purges. Federal voting rights for people who have been incarcerated.

Equal Representation: No partisan gerrymandering.

Election Funding: Disclosure of major donors and advertising funders. Harder for PACs to coordinate with candidates. Stronger Federal Election Commission oversight.

Vote Count: Protects local election officers from intimidation and firing for partisan purposes. Expands penalties for tampering with ballots. Regulates election audits. Voting machines must leave a paper record.


Sinema Rejects Changing Filibuster, Dealing Biden a Setback, New York Times, January 14, 2022, by Carl Hulse


President Biden’s campaign to push new voting rights protections through Congress appeared all but dead on Thursday, after it became clear that he had failed to unite his own party behind his drive to overhaul Senate rules to enact the legislation over Republican opposition.

In an embarrassing setback for Mr. Biden, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, stunned her colleagues just hours before the president was slated to make his case to them in person at the Capitol by taking the Senate floor to declare that she would not support undermining the filibuster to pass legislation under any circumstances.


Comment:

By Jim Kahn, M.D., M.P.H.

Our democracy stands at a crossroads. The GOP is altering state voting laws to make it harder for Democrats to vote, to assure GOP legislator majorities much higher than vote majorities (via gerrymandering), and to install partisan election officials who can declare victory even if the GOP loses. This week, President Biden delivered a long-overdue, impassioned defense of democracy. He is urging Senate passage of The Freedom to Vote Act, already through the House of Representatives. It can win in the Senate only if all 50 Democrats agree to carve out an exception to the filibuster rule that permits 41 Senators to stall legislation. At the moment, prospects are slim, due to opposition by Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and likely Joe Manchin (WV). Their arguments that protecting the filibuster will restore bipartisanship are not credible.

As I took in Prof. Richardson’s summary of The Freedom to Vote Act, it was obvious how similar this bill is to single payer.

Both are based on laudable goals rooted in fundamental values, using simple, efficient, and equitable means.

The Freedom to Vote Act aims to make voting fair, using procedures to realize the fundamental democratic value of one-person-one-vote. The rules proposed are simple (clear and unconvoluted), efficient (through standardization), and equitable (similarly treating all voters in all states).

Single payer aims to make health care universal, using procedures to realize the fundamental human right to health care. The mechanisms are simple (one payer, standard benefits, uniform payments), efficient (slash administrative burden and profits), and equitable (everyone is similarly covered).

Both end exploitation of systems (voting and health care) for personal and group gain – especially by the rich and powerful.

Both enjoy majority popular support. Democrats in the Senate represent 50-56% of US voters, depending how to count, to the GOP’s 43%. And 70% of voters support the Freedom to Vote Act. National single payer support is 50-60% with neutral phrasing.

I’m not cheered by today’s news about Sen. Sinema’s obstruction. I’m still hoping desperately that she, Sen. Manchin, and all Senate Democrats take the actions so obviously necessary to preserve voting rights and democracy.

Regardless, the linked fights for democracy and for single payer continue.

http://healthjusticemonitor.org…


Stay informed! Subscribe to the McCanne Health Justice Monitor to receive regular policy updates via email, and be sure to follow them on Twitter @HealthJustMon.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Health Justice Monitor

  • Immigrants and Health Care
  • Premier Medical Journal Scrutinizes Corporatization of US Health Care
  • Laying out the Ill-Effects of Medicaid Cuts in the Congressional Budget Bill
  • Public Provisioning of Services: Adjunct to Single Payer
  • Health Reform Review: What’s Breaking, & Breaking Through
  • About PNHP
    • Mission Statement
    • Board of Directors
    • National Office Staff
    • Speakers Bureau
    • Local Chapters
    • Students for a National Health Program
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
  • About Single Payer
    • What is Single Payer?
      • Policy Details
      • FAQs
      • History of Health Reform
      • Información en Español
    • How do we pay for it?
    • Physicians’ Proposal
      • Full Proposal
      • Supplemental Materials
      • Media Coverage
    • The Medicare for All Act of 2025
  • Take Action
    • Moral Injury and Distress
    • Medical Society Resolutions
    • Recruit Colleagues
    • Schedule a Grand Rounds
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Lobby Visits
    • Organizing in Red Districts
  • Heal Medicare
    • HealMedicare.org
    • Sign our Petition
    • Take our Survey
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Stop REACH
  • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Maternal Mortality
    • Mental Health Care
    • Health Care Voters Guide
    • COVID-19 Endangers Health Workers
    • COVID-19 Exacerbates Racial Inequities
    • Public Health Emergencies
    • Rural Health Care
    • Racial Health Inequities
    • Surprise Billing
  • Latest News
    • Sign up for e-alerts
    • Medicare Advantage harms report
    • Members in the news
    • Health Justice Monitor
    • Articles of Interest
    • Latest Research
    • For the Press
  • Member Resources
    • 2024 Annual Meeting Materials
    • Member Interest Groups (MIGs)
    • Newsletter
    • Slideshows
    • Materials & Handouts
    • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • COVID-19 Response
      • Why we Need Medicare for All
      • PNHP’s 8-point plan
      • New Study: Perils and Possibilities
      • Emergency COVID-19 Legislation
      • Kitchen Table Toolkit
      • Take Action on COVID-19
      • Telling your COVID-19 story
      • PNHP members in the news
    • Events Calendar
    • Webinars
    • Film Room
    • Join or renew your membership

Footer

  • About PNHP
    • Mission Statement
    • Board of Directors
    • National Office Staff
    • Speakers Bureau
    • Local Chapters
    • Students for a National Health Program
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
  • About Single Payer
    • What is Single Payer?
      • Policy Details
      • FAQs
      • History of Health Reform
      • Información en Español
    • How do we pay for it?
    • Physicians’ Proposal
      • Full Proposal
      • Supplemental Materials
      • Media Coverage
    • The Medicare for All Act of 2025
  • Take Action
    • Moral Injury and Distress
    • Medical Society Resolutions
    • Recruit Colleagues
    • Schedule a Grand Rounds
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Lobby Visits
    • Organizing in Red Districts
  • Heal Medicare
    • HealMedicare.org
    • Sign our Petition
    • Take our Survey
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Stop REACH
  • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Maternal Mortality
    • Mental Health Care
    • Health Care Voters Guide
    • COVID-19 Endangers Health Workers
    • COVID-19 Exacerbates Racial Inequities
    • Public Health Emergencies
    • Rural Health Care
    • Racial Health Inequities
    • Surprise Billing
  • Latest News
    • Sign up for e-alerts
    • Medicare Advantage harms report
    • Members in the news
    • Health Justice Monitor
    • Articles of Interest
    • Latest Research
    • For the Press
  • Member Resources
    • 2024 Annual Meeting Materials
    • Member Interest Groups (MIGs)
    • Newsletter
    • Slideshows
    • Materials & Handouts
    • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • COVID-19 Response
      • Why we Need Medicare for All
      • PNHP’s 8-point plan
      • New Study: Perils and Possibilities
      • Emergency COVID-19 Legislation
      • Kitchen Table Toolkit
      • Take Action on COVID-19
      • Telling your COVID-19 story
      • PNHP members in the news
    • Events Calendar
    • Webinars
    • Film Room
    • Join or renew your membership
©2025 PNHP