Health debate takes no vacation - news about single payer
August 20, 2009
Dear PNHP members and friends,
While August is often regarded as a quiet vacation month, this
August has been anything but.
1.. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) continues to speak out
forcefully and eloquently in the mass media for single-payer health
reform as the most effective solution to our nation's health care
crisis. When you have a few minutes, you can watch him make the case
for single payer here.
As you may recall, on July 31, in committee, Weiner offered an
amendment to the House leadership's bill that would have deleted the
bill's present language and substituted the text of H.R. 676, Rep.
Conyers' single-payer bill. Speaker Pelosi intervened and promised
Weiner that his amendment would be put to a full floor vote sometime
after the August recess.
The Weiner amendment presents a historic opportunity for House
members to go on record for single-payer national health insurance.
With the goal of getting the greatest number of "yes" votes for this
measure, PNHP has developed an automated letter-writing tool and some
tips on how to speak to members of Congress and their staff.
Incidentally, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is preparing to do something
along the same lines on the Senate side.
2.. PNHP suffered a terrible loss when Nicholas Skala died on
Aug. 8 at the age of 27. Nick was one of PNHP's most gifted and
dedicated members, whose contributions to the national movement for
single payer - including the latest campaign around the Weiner
amendment - were far-reaching and profound. PNHP's statement on his
death appears here. We invite you to share your memories of Nick at
this special tribute page. We vow to carry forward Nick's vision.
3.. Media coverage of town-hall-style meetings during the
August recess has focused on the involvement of raucous,
ultra-conservative elements opposed to any government involvement in
health care, some of them clearly mobilized by right-wing groups
aligned with the health insurance industry and Big Pharma. PNHP
members Laura Boylan, M.D., and Joanne Landy, M.P.H., give their take
on this phenomenon here. Some tips on how to participate in such
meetings can be found here.
4.. The media is also buzzing with news that the Obama
administration is backing away from the so-called public option (which
PNHP has always characterized as unworkable and not a step toward
single payer) and is instead open to the idea of health insurance
co-ops. Dr. John Geyman explains here why co-ops are not a viable path
to genuine reform either. Watch Dr. Claudia Fegan debate the issue on
Fox News here.
5.. PNHP members advocating single payer continue to appear on
television, radio and in the print media. Watch Dr. David Scheiner on
"Real Time with Bill Maher" or Dr. Steffie Woolhandler on Fox News, or
read this interview with Dr. Marcia Angell or this op-ed by Dr. Syed
Quadri. Also note this remarkable op-ed by Helen Thomas, veteran White
House correspondent.
6.. PNHP researchers Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie
Woolhandler had an article published yesterday in the New England
Journal of Medicine showing that taxing job-based health benefits
would hit working families hardest. PNHP's news release and a link to
the study appears below. Earlier this month, our Canadian colleagues
published an article in the British Medical Journal showing that
nonprofit nursing homes provide better care than for-profit
institutions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Action Alerts:
1.. Write your representative about the Weiner single-payer
amendment. Over 3,000 people have used our e-mailing tool to write
their representatives, urging them to support Rep. Weiner's amendment.
We need to keep the pressure on Congress. Show your support for the
Weiner H.R. 676 amendment by writing to your representative today.
2.. Write or call Rep. Weiner and thank him for standing up
for single-payer national health insurance and H.R. 676. His phone
number is (202) 225-6616.
3.. Keep us informed of what you're doing. A quick e-mail is
all it takes to help us keep better track of where legislators stand
and helps us to more efficiently target our resources. If you've met
with your representative or senator or have seen them issue a new
public statement on single payer, please let Ali Thebert know by
writing her at [email protected]. If your chapter has news to report,
please avail yourself of our new blog feature, "News from activists."
4.. Follow or join the Mad as Hell Doctors' Tour. On Sept. 8,
a group of dedicated Oregon physicians will take the message of
single-payer health reform "on the road" in a message-wrapped motor
home headed for Washington, D.C. They'll be stopping in big cities and
whistle-stops alike, meeting with single-payer activists and giving
interviews to the press. For more information or to join them along
the route, visit www.madashelldoctors.com.
5.. PNHP Annual Meeting on Oct. 24. If you haven't signed up
for the PNHP annual meeting on October 24 in Cambridge, Mass., be sure
to visit our online registration page today at www.pnhp.org/meeting.
Keynote speakers include Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief,
New England Journal of Medicine; William Hsiao, Ph.D., Harvard health
economist; T.R. Reid, veteran journalist who produced the PBS film
"Sick around the World"; PNHP co-founders Drs. David Himmelstein and
Steffie Woolhandler; and more. The Leadership Training Program, a
crash course in health policy and politics, will take place on Oct.
23. Contact Matt Petty at [email protected] for more information.
Cordially,
Quentin Young, M.D.
National Coordinator Mark Almberg
Communications Director
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contacts:
August 20, 2009 David Himmelstein, M.D.
Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H.
Mark Almberg, Physicians for a National Health Program,
(312) 782-6006, [email protected]
New Harvard study reveals that taxing job-based health benefits
would hit working families hardest
Income and insurance data show that insured, working-poor
families would be taxed 140 times more than Wall Street execs
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - As the debate over health care reform
continues to unfold in town hall meetings and on Capitol Hill, a new
study by two Harvard researchers has found that taxing job-based
health benefits would heavily penalize insured, working families.
The study, titled "The regressivity of taxing employer-paid
health insurance," appears in the August 19 online edition of the New
England Journal of Medicine. It was written by Drs. David Himmelstein
and Steffie Woolhandler, professors at Harvard Medical School and
primary care doctors at Cambridge Hospital in Massachusetts.
The taxation of employer-sponsored health benefits has been
advocated by many health economists and lawmakers, including some
members of the influential Senate Finance Committee, which is now
drafting health care reform legislation. President Obama has said he
has not ruled out such a tax to fund his reforms.
Analyzing income and insurance data from the 2005 Current
Population Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources, the
authors reveal that taxing workers' job-based health insurance would
cost those with low-incomes ($0- $10,000 annually) 18.3 percent of
their income, but cost high-income (over $100,000) families a mere 2.7
percent. (See the table from the study at
http://healthcarereform.nejm.org/?p=1521)
The authors note that the tax rate would drop even lower for the
super-rich. "A Goldman Sachs executive who enjoyed the firm's infamous
$40,543 health plan got a federal tax subsidy of about $15,367 last
year," they write. "But that's only 0.13 percent of the bonuses
received by the company's four top earners. So though taxing health
benefits would spare the uninsured, the average poor family with
employer-paid coverage would be taxed at a rate 140 times higher than
Wall Street titans."
Dr. David U. Himmelstein, lead author of the study and associate
professor of medicine at Harvard, added: "Most economists and many
politicians have claimed that taxing health benefits would hit the
wealthy hardest, while sparing the poor. But exactly the reverse is
true. For a poor, insured family a tax on their health benefits would
take almost one-fifth of their total income."
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, co-author and professor of medicine at
Harvard, said: "Instead of taxing benefits, politicians should embrace
the only affordable option for universal coverage: a single-payer,
Medicare-for-all program. Single-payer would save $400 billion
annually by simplifying administration, enough to assure quality care
for everyone. We cannot afford to keep wasteful private health
insurers in business, and pay for it off the backs of working
families."
Himmelstein and Woolhandler are co-founders of Physicians for a
National Health Program, an organization of 16,000 doctors and medical
professionals who advocate for single-payer national health insurance.
*******
A copy of the study is available from the New England Journal
website at http://healthcarereform.nejm.org/?p=1521
"The Regressivity of Taxing Employer-Paid Health Insurance,"
David U. Himmelstein, M.D; Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H. New
England Journal of Medicine, August 19, 2009.
Drs. Himmelstein and Woolhandler are available for comment on
their new study and on other aspects of the health care reform debate.
To contact other physician-spokespersons from Physicians for a
National Health Program in your area, visit www.pnhp.org/stateactions
or call (312) 782-6006.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Health care for all
By Helen Thomas
San Francisco Chronicle
Politics Blog
Aug. 13, 2009
It's all so sad. Well-organized conservatives have launched a
full-scale attack on health care reform. And they appear to be winning
- for now.
Their victory strategy involves deliberate distortions of the
truth and scare tactics. Under the plans Congress is considering, a
government bureaucrat will come between you and your doctor, their TV
ads intone ominously. You will lose your private health insurance,
dumping you into an inferior government plan. You won't be able to
choose your doctor, they say.
The desperate opposition also claims we will have "socialized
medicine," rationed care and forced euthanasia for the elderly.
Those falsehoods and calls to disrupt congressional town hall
meetings are being peddled by right-wing organizations such as
Freedomworks.org, which is directed by former House Majority Leader
Dick Armey, R-Texas, now a Washington lobbyist with clients including
a major international pharmaceuticals company.
I covered the battle to create the Medicare system back in the
1960s. The cries of "socialized medicine" worked for years until
President Johnson rammed Medicare through Congress in 1965.
Johnson signed the Medicare legislation on former President
Harry Truman's desk in Independence, Mo. Truman had first proposed a
health care program for the elderly back in the 1950s.
Truman, still feisty at age 81, was all smiles.
I remember a newsman went up to Johnson and told him "my mother
thanks you."
Johnson turned to him and said: "You should thank me," meaning
Medicare would help families with the increasingly heavy financial
burden of caring for seniors.
What kind of a nation are we if we do not provide everyone with
the excellent medical care that only some of us now receive?
I continue to think the so-called single-payer system is the
only answer to the nation's obligation to make sure that no one lacks
health care. Yes, single payer means a government-run health insurance
program for all - the prevailing system in Canada and in many nations
in Europe.
At this point under the current employer-provided private health
insurance system, 47 million Americans have no coverage and more are
losing what they have every day through job loss in this devastating
recession.
President Obama is making a big mistake by ignoring the
single-payer proposal.
Because the words "single payer" have been subjected to such
pervasive demagoguery and misrepresentation, its polling numbers do
not reflect how popular it really is.
In a Kaiser Family Foundation poll last month, 58 percent of
Americans either strongly or somewhat favored a program to provide
insurance "through an expanded, universal form of Medicare-for-all."
That's basically the same as single payer. But once the same
poll actually used the words "single payer" to describe the program,
support dropped to 51 percent.
In 2003 before he became a U.S. senator from Illinois, Obama
actually called himself a single-payer "proponent." But now that he is
president, Obama has buckled to Republicans and conservative Blue Dog
Democrats in pursuit of consensus. My question is if Congress passes a
watered-down version of health care that doesn't truly cover everyone,
is the result worth it?
The president has given no hearing to the advocates of a
single-payer system and neither has the media.
He also had worked out a deal with the drug manufacturers not to
use the federal government's massive bargaining power to negotiate
lower drug prices - although now the White House appears to be having
second thoughts.
Single payer works; it is not code for substandard medical care.
Diana Beeson, an American friend from Ohio who now lives in
Canada, wrote me that three years ago she was diagnosed with ovarian
cancer and received treatment "unrivaled by anything I can imagine
even with my fairly decent coverage as a state employee in the U.S."
"I have had surgery, chemotherapy and closely followed my
oncologist and the family doctor of my own choosing. It has not cost
me a dime," she said.
Beeson said she wanted to share her "wonderful experience with
health care in Canada."
The systems in Canada, Britain and France, among others have
been much maligned and scapegoated by corporate medicine in the U.S.
It's understandable why the president has bent over backwards to
appease Congress, having studied Hillary Clinton's failure to touch
base with key lawmakers in selling the program she drafted in her
years as first lady. Her recommendations died on Capitol Hill, aided
by the phony "Harry and Louise" television distractions.
President Obama should lay down markers for real health care
reform - meaning we all kick in to a national program instead of
fattening the pocketbooks of the insurance financiers.
Instead, the president has given up on Medicare for all, calling
single payer "impractical."
He still has time to do the right thing and nothing to lose.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=45426
Physicians for a National Health Program
29 E Madison Suite 602, Chicago, IL 60602
Phone (312) 782-6006 | Fax: (312) 782-6007
www.pnhp.org | [email protected]
© PNHP 2009
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
