PNHP

The Case for Busting the FilibusterBusting

The Case for Busting the FilibusterBusting

By Thomas Geoghegan
The Nation, August 12, 2009

This past spring, Senator Claire McCaskill wrote to me asking for $50 to help elect more Democrats, so we could have a filibuster-proof Senate. Now that Al Franken has finally been declared the sixtieth Democratic senator, her plea may seem moot. But even with Franken in office, we don’t have a filibuster-proof Senate. To get to sixty on the Democratic side, we’ll still have to cut deals with Democrats like Max Baucus, Ben Nelson and others who cat around as Blue Dogs from vote to vote. Whether or not Senator Arlen Specter is a Democrat, the real Democrats will still have to cut the same deals to get sixty votes.

Against his better judgment, Thomas Geoghegan has a website with his other complaints, including a petition demanding that the US Senate cloture the filibuster forever.

Maybe we loyal Dems should start sending postcards like the following: “Dear Senator: Why do you keep asking for my money? You’ve already got the fifty-one votes you need to get rid of the filibuster rule.” It’s true–McCaskill and her colleagues could get rid of it tomorrow. Then we really would have a Democratic Senate, like our Democratic House.

She won’t. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which paid for her appeal, won’t. They use the filibuster threat to hit us up for money. And as long as they do, you and I will keep on kicking in for a “filibuster-proof” Senate, which, with or without Franken, will never exist. Every Obama initiative will teeter around sixty, only the deal-cutting will go on deeper in the back rooms and be less transparent than before.

In the meantime, playing it straighter than Claude Rains, McCaskill and other Democrats tell us how shocked, yes, shocked they are that this deal-cutting is going on. May I quote her spring letter? “I’m writing to you today because President Obama’s agenda is in serious jeopardy…”

It still is, as long as it takes sixty and not fifty-one votes to pass Obama’s bills. But no, here’s what she says: “Why? Because Republicans in the Senate–the same ones who spent years kowtowing to George W. Bush–are determined to block each and every one of President Obama’s initiatives.”

But why is that a surprise, if there’s a rule that lets forty-one senators block a bill? The surprise to people in other countries is that the Senate, already wildly malapportioned, with two senators from every state no matter how big or small the population, does not observe majority rule. Her next line:

“It’s appalling really.”

It sure is–the way she and other Democratic senators keep the filibuster in place. But let her go on:

“They’re the ones who got us into this mess. Now they want to stand in the way of every positive thing the President tries to do to set things right. I’m sure it frustrates you as much as it does me.”

Yes, Senator, it frustrates me. But Democratic senators who let this happen and then ask for my money frustrate me even more.

As a labor lawyer, I have seen the Senate filibuster kill labor law reform–kill the right to join a union, freely and fairly–in 1978 and 1994. And, no doubt, in 2010.

And in the end, all we get is a letter from Senator McCaskill asking for more money. Of course, I know there are all sorts of arguments made for the filibuster. For example: “But the filibuster is part of our country’s history, and there’s much to be said for respecting our history and tradition.” Yes, well, slavery and segregation are also part of our history, and that’s what the filibuster was used to defend. I’m all in favor of history and tradition, but I see no reason to go on cherishing either the filibuster or the Confederate flag.

Besides, that’s not the filibuster we’re dealing with.

The post-1975 procedural filibuster is entirely unlike the old filibuster, the one Mr. Smith, as played by the unshaven Jimmy Stewart, stayed up all night to mount in his plea for honest government (though usually it was Senator Bullhorn defending Jim Crow). The old filibuster that you and I and Frank Capra and the Confederacy love so much was very rare, and now it’s extinct. No one has stood up and read recipes for Campbell’s Soup for decades. In 1975 Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, in his role as president of the Senate, ruled that just fifty-one senators could vote to get rid of the filibuster entirely. A simple majority of liberals could now force change on a frightened old guard. But instead of dumping the filibuster once and for all, the liberals, unsure of their support, agreed to a “reformed” Rule 22. It was this reform that, by accident, turned the once-in-a-blue-moon filibuster into something that happens all the time. The idea was to reduce the votes needed to cut off debate from sixty-seven, which on the Hill is a big hill to climb, to just sixty. Liberals like Walter Mondale wanted to make it easier to push through civil rights and other progressive legislation. What’s the harm in that?

The only problem is that, because the filibuster had rendered the chamber so laughable, with renegade members pulling all-nighters and blocking all the Senate’s business, the “reformers” came up with a new procedural filibuster–the polite filibuster, the Bob Dole filibuster–to replace the cruder old-fashioned filibuster of Senate pirates like Strom Thurmond (“filibuster” comes from the Dutch word for freebooter, or pirate). The liberals of 1975 thought they could banish the dark Furies of American history, but they wound up spawning more demons than we’d ever seen before. Because the senators did not want to be laughed at by stand-up comedians, they ended their own stand-up acts with a rule that says, essentially:

“We aren’t going to let the Senate pirates hold up business anymore. >From now on, if those people want to filibuster, they can do it offstage. They can just file a motion that they want debate to continue on this measure indefinitely. We will then put the measure aside, and go back to it only if we get the sixty votes to cut off this not-really-happening debate.”

In other words, the opposing senators don’t have the stomach to stand up and read the chicken soup recipes. We call it the “procedural” filibuster, but what we really mean is the “pretend” filibuster.

But the procedural, or pretend, filibuster is an even worse form of piracy, an open invitation to senatorial predators to prey on neutral shipping, to which they might have given safe passage before. After all, why not “filibuster” if it’s a freebie–if you don’t actually have to stand up and talk in the chamber until you’re not only half dead from exhaustion but have made yourself a laughingstock? That’s what post-1975 senators began to do. In the 1960s, before the procedural filibuster, there were seven or fewer “old” filibusters in an entire term. In the most recent Senate term, there were 138.

At least with the old filibuster, we knew who was doing the filibustering. With the modern filibuster, senators can hold up bills without the public ever finding out their names. No one’s accountable for obstructing. No senator runs the risk of looking like a fool. But while they’re up there concealing one another’s identity, the Republic is a shambles. And now, with a nominal sixty Democratic votes, the need for secrecy as to who has put everything on hold may be even greater than before.

“But just wait till 2010, when we get sixty-two or sixty-three Democrats.” I’m sure that’s what Senator McCaskill would tell me. “So come on, kick in.” But Senator, where will they come from? They could come from bloody border states like yours (Missouri), or from deep inside the South. The problem with the filibuster is not so much that it puts Republicans in control but that it puts senators from conservative regions like the South, the border states and the Great Plains in control. The only true filibuster-proof Senate would be a majority th
at would be proof against those regions.

An astute book published in 2006, Thomas Schaller’s Whistling Past Dixie, argued that to craft a presidential majority Democrats don’t need the Southern vote. That may be true (although it turned out that Barack Obama made historic inroads in the South, winning three states there). But there is no way to whistle past Dixie when a non-Dixie presidential majority tries to get its program through the Senate. After 2010, we could have sixty-four Democrats in the Senate and still be in bad shape.

A filibuster-proof Senate, then, is a conceptual impossibility. Even with a hundred Democrats, a filibuster would still lock in a form of minority rule. Because among the Democrats there would arise two new subparties, with forty-one senators named “Baucus” blocking fifty-nine senators named “Brown.”

Here’s another argument for the filibuster: “If we get rid of it, we’ll be powerless against the Republicans when they’re in charge.” That’s why we need it, they say: we’re waiting for the barbarians, for the nightmare of President Palin. People in the AFL-CIO tell me this even as the filibuster keeps the right to organize a union on ice and union membership keeps shrinking.

Or as a union general counsel said to me: “Everyone here in the DC office would be freaked out completely if we lost the filibuster. They think it’s the only thing that saved us from Bush.” Inside the Beltway, they all think it’s the filibuster that saved those of us who read Paul Krugman from being shipped off to Guantánamo. Really, that’s what many people on the left think. “If Bush ever came back, we’d need it.”

Of course Bush, or a Bush equivalent, will come back–precisely because Obama and our side will be blocked by the filibuster. Obama is in peril until he gets the same constitutional power that FDR had, i.e., the right to pass a program with a simple majority (at least after Senator Huey Long finally ran out of words). But let’s deal with the canard that the filibuster “saved” us from Bush. What’s the evidence? Judicial nominations: that’s the answer they give. Go ahead, name someone we blocked. Roberts? Alito? Of course there’s Bork, whom we blocked in the 1980s. But we didn’t block him with a filibuster.

Think seriously about whom we really stopped. Look, I’m all in favor of opposing atrocious right-wing nominations, and I admit that the filibuster, or at least the GOP’s refusal to nuke it, did keep some appellate and district courts free of especially bad people. But I can tell you as a lawyer who does appellate work, who has to appear before these judges, it makes little difference to me if we lose the filibuster. All it means is that instead of a bad conservative, I end up with a really bad conservative. Either way, I still wind up losing.

I think I can say this on behalf of many liberal lawyers who appear before appellate courts: if we could give up the filibuster and get labor law reform or national health insurance, I’d put up with a slightly more disagreeable group of right-wing judges. We’ll take the heat.

The fact is, as long as we have the filibuster, we ensure the discrediting of the Democratic Party and we’re more likely, not less, to have a terrible bench.

Sure, sometimes liberal Democrats put the filibuster to good use when Republicans are in power. Sure, sometimes a liberal senator can use the filibuster to stop a piece of corporate piracy. It’s impossible to prove that the filibuster never does any good. But the record is awfully thin. Look at all the financial deregulation that Senator Phil Gramm and leading Democrats like Larry Summers pushed through only a decade ago. The filibuster did not stop their effective repeal of the New Deal, but it would block the revival of it today.

On the other hand, Republicans and conservative Democrats use their filibusters on labor, health, the stimulus, everything. They can and will block all the change that Obama wanted us to believe in. And even when they lose, they win. For example, when we say that after a major rewriting of the stimulus package–a rewriting that seriously weakened the original bill–it “survived the filibuster,” what we really mean is that it didn’t.

But let’s turn to the final objection: “No one in Washington cares about this. It’s not on the agenda. It’s a waste of time even to discuss it. What you’re talking about is impossible.”

What Washington insiders partly mean when they say this is, With a filibuster, any senator can stick up the Senate, and what senator is going to turn in his or her sidearm by giving up the right to demand sixty votes? That’s why they’re raising a million dollars a day. Otherwise, they’d be peacefully serving in the House. The right to filibuster is what makes each of them a small-town sheriff. That’s why it would take massive marches in the streets to force them to give it up.

Indeed, it’s hard to imagine how bloody the battle would be. The last time anything so traumatic happened on the Hill was in 1961, when the bigger procedural bar to majority rule was not in the Senate but the House. John Kennedy had just come in, and it was clear that his New Frontier program (we still didn’t have Medicare) would go nowhere because of the power of the House Rules Committee chair, the now forgotten “Judge” Howard Smith. Kennedy had to enlist the Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn, to break Smith’s power to stop any bill he disliked from leaving House Rules. In the end, the battle to beat Smith probably killed Rayburn, who died later in the year.

It was an awful power struggle, and many were aghast that Kennedy had thrown away all his capital for this cause. But had he not done it, there probably would not have been a Civil Rights Bill, or certainly not the full-blown version of the Great Society that Lyndon Johnson pushed through after Kennedy’s assassination. Imagine having to fight the battle for Medicare today. Without that war on Judge Smith, what we now call the “liberal hour” would not have come.

Nor will any “liberal hour” come in our time, until we bring the filibuster down. I know it seems hopeless. But so did knocking out slavery when the abolitionists first started, or segregation, when civil rights activists began their struggle against Jim Crow. It’s a fair enough analogy, since the filibuster is one of the last remnants of racist politics in America: it was a parliamentary tactic used by the Calhounians to make extra certain slavery would stay around.

We should adopt the strategy of the antislavery movement, which in the early stages had three approaches:

1. The laying of petitions on the House. Forgive the archaic legal phrase: I mean petitions to Congress, both houses. In the era of John Quincy Adams–in case you missed the Steven Spielberg movie–there would be mass petitions, with Adams and others reading them on the House floor to the howls of the Southerners. Every group busted by a filibuster should lay on a petition. And start with the House, which is the only place it has a chance of being read.

2. Resolutions by the House, as a warm-up for the Senate. Such resolutions might read: “Resolved, that Congress has no authority to require supermajorities in any chamber except as authorized by the Constitution.” Aren’t House chairs tired of seeing their bills cast into black holes by senators whose names they never even know?

3. Evangelizing. The most effective tactic in the fight against slavery was the preaching of New England clergy against it. We can start in our battle against the filibuster by enlisting faculty at New England colleges to hold teach-ins. Teach the kids why “Yes, we can” can’t happen with the current Senate rules.

By the way, the abolitionists knew the Senate was their enemy, just as it is our enemy today. Let’s hope these tactics work for us in getting rid of this last vestige of slavery: Senate Rule 22. What’s painful is that we have to cross some of our most sainted se
nators. But unless we decide to just give up on the Republic, there’s no way out. To save the Obama presidency, we may have to fight our heroes.

About Thomas Geoghegan
Thomas Geoghegan, a lawyer in Chicago, is the author of In America’s Court: How a Civil Lawyer Who Likes to Settle Stumbled Into a Criminal Trial and Which Side AreYou On? Trying to Be for Labor When It’s Flat on Its Back (both New Press)

This article appeared in the August 31, 2009 edition of The Nation.

Will the insurance exchange be as effective as FEHBP?

Employees Face Big Hike in Health-Care Costs

By Steve Vogel
The Washington Post
Federal Diary
September 30, 2009
Employees enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program will pay an average 8.8 percent more in health-care costs, according to figures released by the Office of Personnel Management.
Blue Cross Blue Shield rates will increase 15 percent for self-only coverage and 12 percent for family coverage, the company said. Enrollees will have to pay more thanks to a wider range of benefits and the company’s wide network of providers, said Jena Estes, vice president of Blue Cross Blue Shield’s federal employee program.
“We have a very strong commitment to managing the costs and managing that trend. You’ll see a real strong focus on coordinating the care and managing the total care,” Estes said.
“This is an enormous increase that erodes federal employees’ standard of living,” Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said in a statement.
The American Federation of Government Employees expressed “grave concern” at the news. “FEHBP is getting more and more unaffordable for more people,” said Jacqueline Simon, AFGE public policy director.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/29/AR2009092903539.html

Members of Congress are promising reform that will give us choices of coverage, just like they have in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). They will do this by establishing an FEHBP-like insurance exchange for the purchase of health plans.
Blue Cross Blue Shield is the most popular program selected by federal employees. They promise to continue with their “very strong commitment to managing the costs.” And how well are they doing? This year’s rate increases are 15 percent for individuals and 12 percent for families.
FEHBP, as an example of an insurance exchange, is proof that a financing system based on private insurance plans is an obsolete model that “is getting more and more unaffordable for more people.” Yet Congress is moving forward with this model.
What about a government financing system? At the Senate Finance markup yesterday, when asked by Sen. Chuck Schumer if Medicare is a good program, Sen. Chuck Grassley replied, “I think that Medicare is part of the social fabric of America.” But then he said that government is not a fair competitor, “it’s a predator.”
Ask federal employees insured by Blue Cross Blue Shield whom they think the predator is. Then ask Medicare beneficiaries.
Medicare should be a part of the social fabric that weaves all of us into its egalitarian patterns, forming an indestructible fabric based on social solidarity.

Will the insurance exchange be as effective as FEHBP?

Employees Face Big Hike in Health-Care Costs

By Steve Vogel
The Washington Post
Federal Diary
September 30, 2009

Employees enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program will pay an average 8.8 percent more in health-care costs, according to figures released by the Office of Personnel Management.

Blue Cross Blue Shield rates will increase 15 percent for self-only coverage and 12 percent for family coverage, the company said. Enrollees will have to pay more thanks to a wider range of benefits and the company’s wide network of providers, said Jena Estes, vice president of Blue Cross Blue Shield’s federal employee program.

“We have a very strong commitment to managing the costs and managing that trend. You’ll see a real strong focus on coordinating the care and managing the total care,” Estes said.

“This is an enormous increase that erodes federal employees’ standard of living,” Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said in a statement.

The American Federation of Government Employees expressed “grave concern” at the news. “FEHBP is getting more and more unaffordable for more people,” said Jacqueline Simon, AFGE public policy director.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/29/AR2009092903539.html

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

Members of Congress are promising reform that will give us choices of coverage, just like they have in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). They will do this by establishing an FEHBP-like insurance exchange for the purchase of health plans.

Blue Cross Blue Shield is the most popular program selected by federal employees. They promise to continue with their “very strong commitment to managing the costs.” And how well are they doing? This year’s rate increases are 15 percent for individuals and 12 percent for families.

FEHBP, as an example of an insurance exchange, is proof that a financing system based on private insurance plans is an obsolete model that “is getting more and more unaffordable for more people.” Yet Congress is moving forward with this model.

What about a government financing system? At the Senate Finance markup yesterday, when asked by Sen. Chuck Schumer if Medicare is a good program, Sen. Chuck Grassley replied, “I think that Medicare is part of the social fabric of America.” But then he said that government is not a fair competitor, “it’s a predator.”

Ask federal employees insured by Blue Cross Blue Shield whom they think the predator is. Then ask Medicare beneficiaries.

Medicare should be a part of the social fabric that weaves all of us into its egalitarian patterns, forming an indestructible fabric based on social solidarity.

Are physicians fleeing Medicare?

Utilization Trends Indicate Sustained Beneficiary Access with High and Growing Levels of Service in Some Areas of the Nation

Medicare Physician Services
GAO
August 2009
GAO found that Medicare beneficiaries experienced few problems accessing physician services during its period of study. Very small percentages of Medicare beneficiaries–less than 3 percent–reported major difficulties accessing physician services in 2007 and 2008. The proportion of beneficiaries who received physician services and the number of services per beneficiary served increased nationwide from April 2000 to April 2008. Indicators of physician willingness to serve Medicare beneficiaries and to accept Medicare fees as payments in full also rose from 2000 to 2008.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09559.pdf

In the debate on health care reform we hear that physicians are leaving the Medicare program because they cannot continue to accept the low fees paid by the government. Not true, according to this new GAO report. Physicians are more willing to serve Medicare beneficiaries and to accept Medicare fees as payments in full.
Some might use this finding to support a public option paying Medicare rates, but it is a much more powerful argument when used in support of a single payer, Medicare for all, national health program. Unlike the private insurance plans, Medicare pays enough, but not too much, though appropriate revisions are a continuing work in progress – as it should be.

The Single Payer Solution For Health Care Reform

The Chattanoogan
Posted September 25, 2009

An open letter to Senator Corker, Senator Alexander and Representative Wamp:

Honorable Elected Officials:

I’ve spent considerable time reviewing the experience of other countries and states within our country, and am disappointed that the for-profit health insurance industry has defined the debate, to the detriment of an affordable, workable solution.

I’m an advocate of the best of capitalism and a free market for most commodities. However, health care is not in the same category as a bushel of corn or an automobile. A health care delivery system that is designed to maximize profit will never deliver the ultimate objective: affordable, universal access to quality health care.

Americans currently spend twice per capita ($7,000 per year) on health care as most other industrialized nations. We’re currently paying more than enough for universal quality health care, but are not getting it.

Our health care outcomes are poorer than other countries, and we continue to leave millions with inadequate care.

Health care costs are a leading cause of personal bankruptcy. It is imperative that we get health care costs under control.

All plans currently under serious consideration in the U.S. Senate and House lack a single payer financing mechanism. Therefore, all these proposals will require large tax increases over the long term.

Plans such as that proposed by Max Baucus would preserve a central role for the private insurance industry, sacrificing both universal coverage and cost containment.

Single-payer health reform solutions have been introduced into both the U.S. Senate and House.

A “single payer” method of collecting and distributing payments for medical services leaves the delivery of medical care in the hands of the private sector. It is not “socialized medicine” like our military health care system, but is “socialized insurance” like our Medicare program. This approach is endorsed by Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP.org), with 17,000 members nationwide.

S703, the American Health Security Act of 2009, is unlike other proposals.

This proposal would cover all of the 46 million Americans who currently lack coverage and improve benefits for all Americans by eliminating co-pays and deductibles while allowing free choice of physician. It is the most fiscally conservative option for reform.

Single payer slashes private insurance overhead and bureaucracy in medical settings, saving approximately $400 billion annually that can be redirected into clinical care.

Highlights of the bill include the following:

Patients go to any doctor or hospital of their choice. By eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private, investor-owned health insurance industry, along with the burdensome paperwork imposed on physicians, hospitals and other providers, the plan saves $400 billion annually – enough money to provide comprehensive, quality care to all. Comprehensive benefits, including coverage for dental, mental health, and prescription drugs.
The program is paid for by combining current sources of government health spending into a single fund with modest new taxes amounting to less than what people now pay for insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses. While federally funded, the program is to be administered by the states.

A similar single payer bill, HR 676 (Expanded and Improved Medicare for All) has over 80 co-sponsors in the House.

An article published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that over 30% of health spending in the U.S. is consumed by administrative cost – nearly double what Canada spends. If we cut our bureaucratic costs to Canadian levels, we’d save nearly $400 Billion annually. This savings would allow the U.S. to provide comprehensive, quality health care coverage to all our citizens, while eliminating premiums, business subsidies, deductibles and co-pays.

By simplifying its payment system, Canada has cut insurance overhead to 1% of premiums (1/20th of Aetna’s overhead) and eliminated expensive paperwork for doctors and hospitals.

A “public plan option” will not realize such savings. Incremental tinkering with private for-profit health insurance will not ultimately control costs. States have tried individual mandate plans and found them not to work.

Single payer is not a panacea. However, without it we will never reach the imperative of providing universal access to quality health care.

It’s time to give the for-profit health insurance companies their pink slip, and provide retraining for their employees who will be displaced.

I recommend you watch an excellent documentary titled Health, Money and Fear.

It addresses the many drivers behind escalating health care costs.

This film was produced by an emergency room physician, and features the former governor of Oregon, Harvard physicians and the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine among others.

Thanks for your financially responsible leadership on this critical issue.

Matthew Hine, M.D., M.P.H.
Fellow, American College of Preventive Medicine
Member, Physicians for a National Health Program

Sit-in today at Aetna office in New York to demand an end to insurance company abuse

19 citizens and health care providers arrested, launching national mobilization for health care for all

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 09/29/2009

Contact:
Lacy MacAuley, (202) 445-4692, lacy@massey-media.com
Katie Robbins, Healthcare-NOW! (330) 618-6379, info@healthcare-now.org
Follow us on Twitter @mob4healthcare

New York, NY — Citizens and health care providers today staged a sit-in at the offices of Aetna, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies, in New York City (99 Park Ave @40th. The action is part of a national mobilization to end health insurance abuses such as the denial of coverage for lifesaving treatments, and win support for the only real public option — Medicare for all, a single payer plan. The action was part of a Mobilization for Health Care for All campaign that includes actions in Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities across the country.

VIDEO: View a video of today’s sit-in on our YouTube channel

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/91239218/Getty-Images-News

The 19 participants, wearing T-shirts with slogans that read “Medicare for All” and chanting “patients, not profits!” linked arms and sat down in the lobby of the Aetna building, prompting Aetna employees to step around them on their way into their offices, where insurance claim reviewers are busy looking for ways to deny people the lifesaving treatment that they need. A crowd of supporters picketing outside the building held signs that said “Aetna is the real death panel,” and “Single payer now.”

Participants in the action demanded that the insurance company immediately approve all doctor-recommended lifesaving treatments in their files, stating that they would not leave until Aetna approved care. Aetna, however, refused to meet with their representative.

“Insurance companies are denying care to people who need it right and left, but that’s not how it should work. Health care is a right, not a privilege,” said Constancia ‘Dinky’ Romily, 68, just before getting arrested. Romily is a retired nurse and a resident of East Village, New York. “I’m putting myself on the line and getting arrested to end insurance abuse and win health care for all,” she says.

The sit-in is part of the Patients Not Profit campaign of the Mobilization for Health Care for All. The mobilization was launched by the organizations Prosperity Agenda, Health Care NOW!, and the Center for the Working Poor. Today’s action has been organized by the Private Health Insurance Must Go coalition, a local New York organization.

“People are dying because these corporations put profits before patients, and the health care bill currently on the floor of Congress fails to address the real cause of the health care crisis — the insurance companies.” says Katie Robbins, an organizer with Healthcare-Now! “The only solution to our health care crisis is the real public option, Medicare for All, a single payer plan.”

Laurie Wen, 38, a Manhattan resident, is one of the everyday Americans who are fed up with the state of health care in our country, and was arrested today to stand up for the hundreds of Americans who are denied lifesaving care every day, and to call for the only solution for health care for all, Medicare for all. A friend of hers, she says, was recently denied by Aetna for coverage for a bone marrow transfusion to treat cancer for three months, setting his care back for three months.

“We will continue to stage these sit-ins as Congress debates legislation that expands the insurance company stranglehold over our health, our lives, and our government,” says Wen. “We need a better system to end insurance abuse and win health care for all.”

# # #

For more information:
Mobilization for Health Care www.MobilizeForHealthCare.org
Health Care NOW!, www.healthcare-now.org
Prosperity Agenda, www.ProsperityAgenda,US
Center for Working Poor, http://centerfortheworkingpoor.org
Private Health Insurance Must Go coalition, www.phimg.org
http://www.youtube.com/mobilize4healthcare

Why the Current Bills Don't Solve Our Health Care Crisis

By Michael Moore
Huffington Post
Posted: September 29, 2009

Co-authored with Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director, California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee

Now we know why they’ve stopped calling this health care reform, and started calling it insurance reform. The current bills advancing in Congress look more like rearranging the deck chairs on the insurance Titanic than actually ending our long health care nightmare.

Some laudable elements are in various versions of the bills, especially expanding Medicaid, cutting the private insurance-padding waste of Medicare Advantage, and limiting the ability of the insurance giants to ban and dump people who have been or who ever will be sick.

But, overall, the leading bills and the President’s proposal are, like the dog that didn’t bark, more notable for what is missing.

Here are 13 problems with the current health care bills (partial list):

1. No cost controls on insurance companies. The coming sharp increases in premiums, deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance, etc. will quickly outpace any projected protections from caps on out-of-pocket costs.

2. Insurance companies will continue to be able to use marketing techniques to cherry-pick healthier, less costly enrollees.

3. No restrictions on insurance denials of care that insurers don’t want to pay for. In case you missed it, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee uncovered data on the California Department of Managed Care website recently that found six of the biggest California insurers rejected, on annual average, more than one-fifth of all claims every year since 2002.

4. No challenge to insurance company monopolies, especially in the top 94 metropolitan areas, where one or two companies dominate, severely limiting choice and competition.

5. A massive government bailout for the insurance industry through the combination of the individual mandate requiring everyone not covered to buy insurance, public subsidies which go for buying insurance, no regulation on what insurers can charge, and no restrictions on their ability to decide what claims to pay.

6. No controls on drug prices. The White House deal with Big Pharma, which won bipartisan approval in the Senate Finance Committee, opposes the use of government leverage to negotiate real cost controls on inflated drug prices.

7. No single standard of care. Our multi-tiered system remains with access to care still determined by ability to pay.

8. Tax on comprehensive insurance plans. That will encourage employers to reduce benefits, shift more costs to employees, promote proliferation of bare-bones, high-deductible plans, and lead to more self-rationing of care and medical bankruptcies.

9. Not universal. Some people will remain uncovered, including those exempted, and undocumented workers, denying them treatment, exposing everyone to communicable diseases and inflating health care costs.

10. No definition of covered benefits.

11. No protection for our public safety net. Public hospitals and clinics will continue to be under-funded and a dumping ground for those the private system doesn’t want. Public monies going to hospitals serving low-income communities will be shifted to subsidies for private insurance.

12. Long delay in implementation. Many reforms don’t go into effect until 2013.

13. Nothing changes in basic structure of the system; health care remains a privilege, not a right.

We may be slow learners, but the rest of the industrial world has figured it out: Universal, single-payer or national health care systems. That’s the reason why all those other countries cover everyone, have better patient outcomes, cause no one to declare bankruptcy or lose their homes because of medical bills, and spend less than half per capita on health care than we do.

We could do it too, by reducing the starting age for Medicare from 65 to 0. There’s still time to act.

Call on your Congress member to support the vote coming up on the House floor on the Anthony Weiner amendment to protect, expand and improve Medicare for All. Senators have the same opportunity in a vote on Senate bill 703, being offered as a floor amendment by Senator Bernie Sanders.

Democrats must also ensure that whatever bill passes includes a provision enabling states to set up their own single-payer systems. These votes are the true litmus tests of the Democrats’ commitment to guaranteeing health care for all, and finally solving our health care crisis.

Are physicians fleeing Medicare?

Utilization Trends Indicate Sustained Beneficiary Access with High and Growing Levels of Service in Some Areas of the Nation

Medicare Physician Services
GAO
August 2009

GAO found that Medicare beneficiaries experienced few problems accessing physician services during its period of study. Very small percentages of Medicare beneficiaries–less than 3 percent–reported major difficulties accessing physician services in 2007 and 2008. The proportion of beneficiaries who received physician services and the number of services per beneficiary served increased nationwide from April 2000 to April 2008. Indicators of physician willingness to serve Medicare beneficiaries and to accept Medicare fees as payments in full also rose from 2000 to 2008.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09559.pdf

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

In the debate on health care reform we hear that physicians are leaving the Medicare program because they cannot continue to accept the low fees paid by the government. Not true, according to this new GAO report. Physicians are more willing to serve Medicare beneficiaries and to accept Medicare fees as payments in full.

Some might use this finding to support a public option paying Medicare rates, but it is a much more powerful argument when used in support of a single payer, Medicare for all, national health program. Unlike the private insurance plans, Medicare pays enough, but not too much, though appropriate revisions are a continuing work in progress – as it should be.

Why the Current Bills Don’t Solve Our Health Care Crisis

By Michael Moore
Huffington Post
Posted: September 29, 2009

Co-authored with Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director, California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee

Now we know why they’ve stopped calling this health care reform, and started calling it insurance reform. The current bills advancing in Congress look more like rearranging the deck chairs on the insurance Titanic than actually ending our long health care nightmare.

Some laudable elements are in various versions of the bills, especially expanding Medicaid, cutting the private insurance-padding waste of Medicare Advantage, and limiting the ability of the insurance giants to ban and dump people who have been or who ever will be sick.

But, overall, the leading bills and the President’s proposal are, like the dog that didn’t bark, more notable for what is missing.

Here are 13 problems with the current health care bills (partial list):

1. No cost controls on insurance companies. The coming sharp increases in premiums, deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance, etc. will quickly outpace any projected protections from caps on out-of-pocket costs.

2. Insurance companies will continue to be able to use marketing techniques to cherry-pick healthier, less costly enrollees.

3. No restrictions on insurance denials of care that insurers don’t want to pay for. In case you missed it, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee uncovered data on the California Department of Managed Care website recently that found six of the biggest California insurers rejected, on annual average, more than one-fifth of all claims every year since 2002.

4. No challenge to insurance company monopolies, especially in the top 94 metropolitan areas, where one or two companies dominate, severely limiting choice and competition.

5. A massive government bailout for the insurance industry through the combination of the individual mandate requiring everyone not covered to buy insurance, public subsidies which go for buying insurance, no regulation on what insurers can charge, and no restrictions on their ability to decide what claims to pay.

6. No controls on drug prices. The White House deal with Big Pharma, which won bipartisan approval in the Senate Finance Committee, opposes the use of government leverage to negotiate real cost controls on inflated drug prices.

7. No single standard of care. Our multi-tiered system remains with access to care still determined by ability to pay.

8. Tax on comprehensive insurance plans. That will encourage employers to reduce benefits, shift more costs to employees, promote proliferation of bare-bones, high-deductible plans, and lead to more self-rationing of care and medical bankruptcies.

9. Not universal. Some people will remain uncovered, including those exempted, and undocumented workers, denying them treatment, exposing everyone to communicable diseases and inflating health care costs.

10. No definition of covered benefits.

11. No protection for our public safety net. Public hospitals and clinics will continue to be under-funded and a dumping ground for those the private system doesn’t want. Public monies going to hospitals serving low-income communities will be shifted to subsidies for private insurance.

12. Long delay in implementation. Many reforms don’t go into effect until 2013.

13. Nothing changes in basic structure of the system; health care remains a privilege, not a right.

We may be slow learners, but the rest of the industrial world has figured it out: Universal, single-payer or national health care systems. That’s the reason why all those other countries cover everyone, have better patient outcomes, cause no one to declare bankruptcy or lose their homes because of medical bills, and spend less than half per capita on health care than we do.

We could do it too, by reducing the starting age for Medicare from 65 to 0. There’s still time to act.

Call on your Congress member to support the vote coming up on the House floor on the Anthony Weiner amendment to protect, expand and improve Medicare for All. Senators have the same opportunity in a vote on Senate bill 703, being offered as a floor amendment by Senator Bernie Sanders.

Democrats must also ensure that whatever bill passes includes a provision enabling states to set up their own single-payer systems. These votes are the true litmus tests of the Democrats’ commitment to guaranteeing health care for all, and finally solving our health care crisis.

Idaho Information

Contact Information

Coming soon

Media Contacts

William Woodhouse, MD
(208) 282-2978
wdhouse@fmed.isu.edu

Dr. Woodhouse serves as associate director of the Idaho State University Family Medicine Residency Program in Pocatello. Prior to moving to Idaho in 1994 he practiced family medicine in Sheridan, WY. His areas of expertise and interest include evidence-based medicine, professional leadership, health care policy and writing. He is a past president of the Idaho Academy of Family Physicians and is a delegate to the American Academy of Family Physicians Congress of Delegates. He is a member of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Group on Health Care and Access and the Idaho Medical Association Committee for the Uninsured. He is also a member of Physicians for a National Health Program and completed their Leadership Training Institute in 2004.

 

Oregon Information

Conversations with Candidates 2024

Mark your calendars now! And register today at http://tinyurl.com/bdhnw3nb.

Ahead of Oregon’s May 21 primary election you are invited to the “Conversations With Candidates” virtual video series—a collaboration between PNHP Oregon and the City Club of Portland.

  • Jan. 23: Eddy Morales; candidate, Congress (CD-3)—recording HERE
  • Jan. 30: Jamie McLeod-Skinner; candidate, Congress (CD-5)—recording HERE
  • Feb. 6: Janelle Bynum; candidate, Congress (CD-5)—session cancelled
  • Feb. 13: Maxine Dexter; candidate, Congress (CD-3)—recording HERE
  • Feb. 20: Lynn Peterson; candidate, Congress (CD-5)—session cancelled, candidate no longer running
  • Feb. 27: Susheela Jayapal; candidate, Congress (CD-3)—recording HERE

Donate to PNHP Oregon

Please click the donate link above to make a tax-deductible financial contribution to PNHP Oregon. Any amount is helpful, and recurring donations (monthly, every three months, or every six months) will help the chapter fund even more events and activities that stimulate further action toward health care for all.

Medicare for All Handbook

This single-payer handbook was prepared by Diane Lucas, M.D., Ph.D. in the fall of 2019, with the assistance of colleagues at the Portland, Ore. chapter of PNHP.

Download the handbook as a PDF file or as a Word document.

Media Contacts

Samuel Metz, MD, Vice President
s@samuelmetz.com

Samuel Metz is Mad As Hell because the United States provides an annual bailout of the health insurance industry to the amount of $320 billion. Meanwhile, Americans with and without health insurance lose their homes and their lives because they cannot afford medical care. There are solutions around the world and in our country. It’s time to put the medical health of 300 million Americans ahead of the financial well-being of 1,100 health insurance companies.

Mike Huntington, MD, Secretary/Treasurer
(541) 745-5635
mchuntington@gmail.com

Mike Huntington grew up in Southern California and attended Oregon State University and the University of Oregon Medical School, now Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU). He was an Army flight surgeon in Viet Nam in 1969. He received his residency training at OHSU, was a Radiation Oncologist for 35 years, and was Medical Director of the Radiation Oncology Department at Samaritan Regional Cancer Center in Corvallis from 1984 to 2006.

Since his retirement he has joined with physicians and other activists in Corvallis and Oregon to engage colleagues and the public in discussion about the urgent need for health care reform. The group has co-sponsored public forums and given talks to civic groups in Corvallis over the past fourteen years. In 2007 this group became the Oregon Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. He was President of Health Care for All Oregon and the Health Care for All Oregon Education Fund in 2012.

Peter Mahr, MD, Past-President
(503) 988-5155
peter.n.mahr@gmail.com

Peter Mahr is a family physician who currently works at the Student Health and Counseling Center at Portland State University and is attending Portland State University’s Masters in Public Health program. He previously worked for 10 years at East County Health Center in Gresham, Ore., which is a primary care clinic run by Multnomah County that provides care for the under-served. He is dedicated to the care of the under-served and a strong proponent of a national, single-payer health program. He is a member of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and the president of the PNHP Portland chapter. He is also a clinical assistant professor at Oregon Health and Science University in the Department of Family Medicine. He graduated from Dartmouth Medical School in 1998 and finished his residency at Oregon Health and Science University in 2001.

Paul Gorman, MD
(503) 292-4669
gormanp@comcast.net

Dr. Paul Gorman, is Associate Professor in the department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology (DMICE) at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU). He is a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, with Added Qualification in Geriatrics and is on the teaching faculty in at OHSU as well as at Providence Portland Medical Center. Currently, Dr. Gorman is co-investigator of an AHRQ funded systematic review of barriers to the use of health it by vulnerable populations, and as Principal Investigator of AHRQ funded research to improve medication safety, “RxSafe: Shared Medication Management and Clinical Decision Support for Rural Clinicians.”

Rick Staggenborg, MD
(541) 217-8044
rstaggenborg@live.com

Dr. Staggenborg is a psychiatrist who most recently worked at the VA outpatient clinic in North Bend, Oregon. Before that he worked at as the Medical Director at a community mental health clinic, providing care in both cases to under-served populations. He specializes in the non-pharmacological treatment of PTSD, using a combination of individual, group and family therapies. He ran for the US Senate in 2010 with a promise to introduce a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood. He sees making corporate campaign contributions illegal as the only sure path to a national single payer health system.

Currently, he is working full time for the single payer, the end of the wars and other social justice causes.

On the Mad as Hell Doctors tour he said “I am mad as hell that our government puts the interests of corporations above those of the People.”

Paul Hochfeld, MD
Retired Emergency Physician
Corvallis, OR
Graduated UC San Diego School of Medicine, M.D. 1978

I’m Mad As Hell because we have a broken, non-system of health care in this country designed and implemented around profit, not people.  It not only represents a health crisis, it is also a fiscal disaster that threatens the solvency of our government. Some form of Single Payer is the only solution.

Conversations with Candidates 2022

Ahead of Oregon’s May 17, 2022 primary election, PNHP Oregon hosted a series of “not to miss” one-on-one talks with candidates for state office (Governor) and for federal office (Congressional Districts 4, 5, 6):

Each event ran about an hour, and was presented via Zoom Webinar format. To raise awareness and elevate the discussion surrounding health care access and delivery, PNHP Oregon is proud to offer this series on a complementary basis.

Local Unions Endorsing Single Payer

  • Branch 82, National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC)

Contact Information

For information on rallies and upcoming events, please go to the Health Care for All Oregon website: http//www.hcao.org

To sign our statement of support for single-payer universal healthcare in Oregon please go to this link: http://pnhporegon.org/resolution/

Dr. Walter Tsou on health care as a public good

Join PNHP Oregon

…read more

Washington Information

Contact Information

PNHP Washington
Website: http://www.pnhpwashington.org
E-mail: pnhp.washington@gmail.com

Media Contacts

David McLanahan, MD | 206.963.6534 | mcltan@comcast.net

Dr. Mclanahan is Surgeon Emeritus, Pacific Medical Centers, and Professor Emeritus, University of Washington School of Medicine. Dr. McLanahan is the co-founder and coordinator of the Washington Chapter of PNHP.

Dana Iorio, ARNP | 206.290.4916 | danacarmelo@outlook.com

Dana Iorio, current Vice-President of PNHP-WA, is a retired Family Nurse Practitioner who last worked at Harborview Medical Center, having previously worked at the King County Jail for the Seattle-King County Health Department. Dana graduated from University of Washington Family Nurse Practitioner program in 1987, and was an original member of PNHP-WA when it was founded in 2005-6. He has been involved in single-payer advocacy since the early 1970s.

Hugh Foy | 206.963.0697 | hughfoy@u.washington.edu

Dr. Foy is a professor of Surgery, UW School of Medicine, and Director of the Surgical Specialties Clinic, Harborview Medical Center. Dr. Foy has extensive experience in emergency care and trauma surgery. He trained at UW, and completed a fellowship in Burn Surgery and Surgical Critical Care at Harborview. Dr. Foy is the co-founder of the Washington Chapter of PNHP.

Sara Weinberg, MD | 206.236.0668 | weinbergsk@msn.com

Dr. Weinberg is a retired pediatrician, Mercer Island; the president of PNHP – Western Washington; and an expert on Washington state’s history of failed health reforms, going back to the 1989 Braddock initiative. Dr. Weinberg graduated from the University of Washington School of Medicine in 1977, and completed her pediatric residency in the University of Washington’s Children’s Orthopedic Hospital.

SB 5204

Local Unions Endorsing Single Payer

  • CWA Local 37083, Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, Seattle, WA
  • AFSCME Retired Public Employees Council of Washington, Chapter 10
  • Washington State Alliance for Retired Americans
  • Washington State Machinists Council, International Association of Machinists District #160 (IAM), Seattle, WA
  • International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) Local 17, Seattle, WA
  • Washington State Labor Council, representing 500 local unions with 400,000 members, endorsing resolution passed at State Convention, August 2006, Seattle, WA
  • North West Washington Central Labor Council, Bellingham, WA