Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition

"Yes" on Senate Amendment 2837

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont introduced an amendment to the Senate leadership's health bill that would delete the bulk of that bill's language and substitute the wording of his single-payer, Medicare-for-All bill, S. 703. Under Senate rules, his amendment will go straight to the floor for debate. The vote could come very soon.

Sanders measure, known as Senate Amendment 2837, would create "a universal, single-payer health insurance system" that is federally funded but administered by the states. It was introduced with two co-sponsors, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Sen. Roland Burris of Illinois, although there are others such as Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, chair of the important Senate HELP committee, who are likely to vote for it.

Please urge your senators to vote "yes" on Senate Amendment 2837 as quickly as you can. The time factor is critical.

Senator Amy Klobuchar: 202-224-3244
Senator Al Franken: 202-224-5641

While we will not achieve single payer this time around, it's significant (and historic) that we took it from a non-starter position to a place on the Senate floor. It seems like a small deal, but it is huge. The vote will also give us a chance to find out who is willing to stand up in the Senate for the only just, workable and cost-effective option: single payer.

Read a press release from Physicians for a National Health Program
Read Senator Sanders' Talking Points

By Carol Miller, Public Health Professional and Health Care Advocate
Albuquerque Journal
November 15, 2009

A very complex, mandatory private insurance scheme recently passed the U.S. House. The public is being overwhelmed by sound bites on one hand about how great it is, on the other, how terrible. We are hearing few of the details that are actually in the bill. Having read the bill, it is clear now that what started as health reform has emerged from the political process as health "deform," building on the worst, not the best of the current system...
...Imagine real reform, as simple as adding people ages 55 to 65 years old to Medicare in 2010, 35-55 in 2011, and so on until everyone is included by 2013. The bills that promote this kind of reform are under 200 pages, they are simple to implement, cost effective and equitable. Choose a doctor, choose a hospital when needed and let the government pay the bills. Everyone in one system...

Read in full

There's Almost Nothing Left to Give Away in a Healthcare Compromise

By Robert Reich
Salon.com
November 19,2009

First there was Medicare for all 300 million of us. But that was a nonstarter because private insurers and Big Pharma wouldn't hear of it, and Republicans and "centrists" thought it was too much like what they have up in Canada -- which, by the way, cost Canadians only 10 percent of their GDP and covers every Canadian. (Our current system of private for-profit insurers costs 16 percent of GDP and leaves out 45 million people.)

Read the full post

by Ann Settgast MD and Elizabeth Frost MD
Published in Minnesota Medicine
November 2009

As physicians, we are troubled by the direction of federal health care reform. Whether via a public health insurance option or an insurance mandate, the proposals on the table build on the structure of our broken system-the most costly, fragmented, and bureaucratic in the world...

...Elimination of U.S.-style private insurance has been a prerequisite to achieving universal health care coverage in every other industrialized nation. We ask, "What if the rest of the world is right?" Only under single-payer can we eliminate the administrative costs associated with billing hundreds of payers and the sizeable overhead of the private insurance industry. These overhead dollars are spent marketing, underwriting, lobbying, and fighting claims-none of which makes our patients healthier. Elimination of this administrative waste would save more than $400 billion annually.  Read the entire article

By Mary Susan Littlepage
Thursday November 5, 2009
Truthout

After Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), lobbied throughout the past week to get his amendment calling for a single-payer health care system modeled after Medicare back on the table, the House rejected Kucinich's attempts to reinsert the amendment in the bill.

That's after a committee stripped the amendment from the House health care bill without giving him any advanced explanation...

...The congressman also said he doesn't accept the decision to remove the amendment from the bill, and he said that there would be one more chance for the American people to push for a single-payer system.

"Once the health care bill passes the House, and the Senate passes its version, the two bills will go to a Conference Committee," Kucinich said. "It is at this point that we will have one more chance. We need to insist that the Kucinich Amendment be included in the Conference Committee report, since that is what will ultimately become law."  Read the article

by Daniel Barlow
Times Argus, Vermont
October 29, 2009

U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders will likely make history this year when - for the first time ever - he brings a bill creating a national single-payer health care system to the floor of the Senate for a vote.

As a compromise on a public-option plan that would allow states to opt out gains steam in the U.S. Senate, Sanders, a Vermont independent, continues to focus his attention on a single-payer bill, although he acknowledges that there are not enough votes to pass it...

...Knowing that his single-payer bill is likely to fail, Sanders said he also plans to try including a provision in the final health-care bill that would allow states such as Vermont to experiment with a single-payer system on a state level. Read full article

Public Option Gets a Boost from Ex-UnitedHealth Executive
By Chen May Yee
Star Tribune
10-28-09

Lois Quam has been many things: a health insurance executive, a venture capitalist and, most recently, owner of her own strategic advisory firm.

Now add insurance industry critic.

In a speech Wednesday at the University of Minnesota's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, Quam threw her support behind a proposed government-run health insurance plan that would compete with private insurers. Read full article

Public Option Push in Senate Comes with Escape Hatch
By Robert Pear and David Herszenhorn
New York Times
10-26-09

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, sided with his party's liberals on Monday and announced that he would include a government-run insurance plan in health care legislation that he plans to take to the Senate floor within a few weeks.

His proposal came with an escape hatch: A state could refuse to participate in the public insurance plan by adopting a law to opt out. Even so, the announcement was a turning point in the debate over how much of a role government should play in an overhauled health care system, and it set the stage for a test of Democratic party unity. Read the full article

Democrats in House Present $894 Billion Health Care Package
By Robert Pear
New York Times
10-29-09

House Democrats on Thursday unveiled an $894 billion package to remake the health care system, and celebrated by holding an outdoor rally at the Capitol where they asserted that tens of millions of Americans would soon gain affordable insurance...

..."It is with great pride and with great humility that we come before you to follow in the footsteps of those who gave our country Social Security and then Medicare - and now universal, quality, affordable health care for all Americans," Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a crowd of several hundred people.  Read full article

The bill expands Medicaid eligibility to 150% of the poverty line, and includes a public option requiring the government to negotiate rates with providers. Up to 35 or 36 million uninsured would gain coverage, leaving an estimated 12 million still without coverage.

Greg Hitt and Janet Adamy
October 19, 2009
Wall Street Journal
The idea of creating a government-run health-insurance plan, once on life support in the Senate, is making a recovery among Democrats writing health-care legislation...

...Several variations short of a national plan are being considered. One would establish a national plan only if other proposals in the Democrat-led health overhaul fail to expand insurance coverage. Another would create a government plan, but allow states to opt out. Still another would allow states to opt in to a government plan, or experiment with their own plans.  Read More