Faith Groups Say the Health Care for All is A Moral Right

Forum Shows Support for a national single payer, Medicare for All health care system

For Photos: picasaweb.google.com/jonflan/SinglePayerTownHallWithJohnConyers#

300 people jammed into the Westminster Presbyterian church in Albany on Sunday to hear Cong. Conyers and Paul Tonko speak about the need for single payer health care. The lead sponsor of the event was the Presbyerian Church USA and the event featured a panel of faith representatives speaking to the moral right for health care for all. After the event, the speaker receiving was the most praise was Dr. Andy Coates of PHNP, who explained single payer and its importance at the moment. Particpants wrote several hundred letters to their elected officials after the event.

Conyers also spoke about single payer care to 100 people at a fundraiser for Cong. Tonko and had a meeting after his talk at the church with 15 local African-American faith leaders, who ask him to come back in a few months for an event they will organize.

Conyers (D-Michigan) is the lead sponsor of HR 676, the US National Health Care Act, Single Payer Medicare. The bill, which would replace private health insurance with a single public financing system to provide comprehensive coverage for everyone in the nation, has the most support of any universal health care proposal now in Congress. It also is the plan that is most favored by the American public, doctors, nurses and researchers.

Congressman Conyers participated in the recent White House Forum on Health Care to advocate for Single Payer Health Care. He stated, "serious reform of the health care system is the first step towards economic recovery. I am pleased to take part in this critical discussion on health care reform with the President, medical professionals, healthcare scholars, patients' advocates, and labor leaders. Those who have been working so tenaciously for single-payer reform to our health care system will finally have their voices heard. Our goal: quality health care for all."

Single payer legislation is also pending in both houses of the NYS Legislature and a state study on various universal health care options is due shortly after the budget is released. A majority of Assembly members and a majority of Democratic Senators have sponsored single payer legislation; Gov. Paterson was a sponsor as a member of the State Senate. A state funded study on various universal health care options is due shortly after the budget is released.

The Town Hall Meeting, sponsored by the Albany Presbytery, is one of ten nationwide meetings funded by the Presbyterian Church USA to open discussion of Single Payer Health Care for the United States. A major focus of the event was the moral right of all Americans to have health care. Faith representatives include Rev. Cass Shaw, the General Presbyter of the Albany Presbytery; Chandlee Gill of the Albany Presbytery, Dr. Richard Propp of the B'nai Sholom Reform Congregation (Albany) and Yussouf Mir of the Islamic Center of the Capital District.

Co Sponsors of the event included: Albany Presbytery, Capital Area Council of Churches, Interdenominational Ministers Conference, Fifth Avenue AME Zion Church of Troy, Labor Religion Coalition of NY State, Single Payer New York, Capital District Area Labor Federation, Capital District Alliance for Universal Health Care, Solidarity Committee of Program (PNHP) Capital District Chapter, Albany Medical College Student PNHP Chapter, Hunger Action Network of NYS and Faith and Hunger Network

The groups urged President Obama and Congress to reject a Massachusetts style plan that mandates that individuals purchase health insurance.

"America deserves the health benefits offered to the people of every other country in the industrialized world, all medically necessary care and freedom from the fear of economic ruin due to illness. The bottom line is that single payer is the one proposal that guarantees quality, affordable health care to every American. This would also be a great benefit to our economy in our time of crisis, helping to control costs for taxpayers, consumers and employers," said Mike Keenan, President of the Troy Area Labor Council.

Single payer merely means that one program pays all bills, like Medicare does for senior citizens. It eliminates the paperwork, high administrative costs and profits of the for profit private insurance system. An article in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded the single payer approach would save $350 billion a year in costs; somewhat smaller savings estimates have been made by the Congressional Budget Office. A study done for the State of California estimated that a state single payer plan would reduce health costs by $38 billion annually over a ten-year period.

President-elect Obama has also been a supporter of single payer health care in the past and touted its benefits during his election campaign. While he said recently that he would enact single payer if he were "starting from scratch," he has so far failed to put the issue on the table as part of his forums on health care.

The federal single payer bill (HR 676) has gained the support of 94 representatives in the last session of the US House, 480 union bodies, 39 state AFL-CIO's (including NY's), 117 Central Labor Councils, 20 international unions, the US Conference of Mayors, the Houses of Representatives in Kentucky, New Hampshire and NY (State Assembly), and hundreds more cities, counties, faith groups and organizations. Cong. Tonko is a sponsor in the new session. (72 sponsors have re-signed in Congress this session, with more being added every week. NY sponsors so far include Clarke, Engel, Hinchey, Maloney, Massa, Meeks, Nadler, Tonko, Velazquez).

A recent national survey by Indiana University of 2,193 doctors found almost 60% in favor of national health insurance (NHI) -- a 10 percent increase in support since 2002. A March 2007 poll by CBS/ NY Times found that 64 percent of respondents said the government should guarantee health insurance for all; 27 percent said it should not. An overwhelming majority in the poll said the health care system needed fundamental change or total reorganization.

"America's health care system is in deep trouble. Nearly 50 million Americans are currently without health insurance, more than 75 million went without insurance for some length of time within the past two years, and tens of millions more have inadequate coverage. More than 18,000 Americans die annually due to a lack of insurance," stated Mark Dunlea, Executive Director of the Hunger Action Network of NYS. A 2008 study published in the journal Health Affairs concluded that as many as 101,000 deaths a year could be prevented by ensuring that all patients receive quality care in a timely manner.

The U. S. spends 16% of gross domestic product (GDP) on health care ($7,129 per capita), twice what any other industrialized nation spends, yet ranks 37th in performance according to the World Health Organization. We lag behind other industrialized countries in life expectancy and infant mortality. Health care bills cause over 50% of bankruptcies and three out of four of those bankrupted by medical bills had health insurance.

The reason the US spends more and gets less than the rest of the world is because we have a patchwork system of for-profit payers. Private insurers necessarily waste health dollars on things that have nothing to do with care: overhead, underwriting, billing, sales and marketing departments as well as huge profits and exorbitant executive pay. Doctors and hospitals must maintain costly administrative staffs to deal with the bureaucracy. Combined, this needless administration consumes one-third (31 percent) of Americans' health dollars.

The groups urged President-elect Obama to reject the idea of mandating that individuals purchase insurance. The recent insurance mandate in Massachusetts is already running into problems due to higher taxpayer costs than anticipated; inadequate coverage being offered; and many residents deciding to pay the penalty rather than buying insurance they can't afford.

"We've done many experiments tweaking private health insurance. It doesn't work. Two decades of state level reform efforts have demonstrated that mandate plans don't reduce costs or the number of uninsured. They add bureaucracy and regulation, not healthcare value. We've done an experiment with national health insurance. It works. Medicare is not perfect, but Americans with Medicare are happier with their insurance than those with private insurance. Doctors have less hassle getting paid by Medicare than by private insurers," added Dr. Paul Sorum, Chairperson of the Capital District chapter of the Physicians for a National Health Program.

Variants of the mandate model, first proposed by Richard Nixon, were passed with great fanfare in Massachusetts (1988), Oregon (1989) and Washington State (1993). All failed. As costs soared, legislators backed off from enforcing the mandates or funding new coverage for the poor. Massachusetts' recent reform, which largely excuses employers from the mandate but imposes steep fines on the uninsured, appears poised to follow a similar path. Of the middle-income uninsured that are required to pay the full premium for coverage, few have signed up. Meanwhile, the state has already announced a $147 million shortfall in funding for subsidies for the poor.

"We can't afford to include bloated administrative overhead and profit in universal coverage. Administrative costs in the for-profit health insurance system consume nearly one-third of our health care spending. We will never have enough money to provide everyone with decent care until we eliminate private insurance, the main source of waste and inadequate coverage," said Dr. Richard Propp, Chair of the Capital District Alliance for Universal Health Care. "Single payer reduces administrative costs and provides an infrastructure to supports chronic disease management, an emphasis on primary care and the use of electronic medical records. The fragmented private insurance system created the perverse incentives that have set us so far behind other countries in these areas. Mandate proposals preserve the fragmentation," Propp concluded.

Under a single-payer system, all Americans would be covered for all medically necessary services, including: doctor, hospital, long-term care, mental health, dental, vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs. Patients would regain free choice of doctor and hospital, and doctors would regain autonomy over patient care.

Physicians would be paid fee-for-service according to a negotiated formulary or receive salary from a hospital or nonprofit HMO / group practice. Hospitals would receive a global budget for operating expenses. Health facilities and expensive equipment purchases would be managed by regional health planning boards.

A single-payer system would be financed by eliminating private insurers and recapturing their administrative waste. Modest new taxes would replace premiums and out-of-pocket payments currently paid by individuals and business. Costs would be controlled through negotiated fees, global budgeting and bulk purchasing.

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from www.albanyweblog.com/index.php

Single Payer Health Comes To Albany

Congressional representative John Conyers and HR 676 pack the Westminster sanctuary on a Sunday afternoon

Anyone with a lick of sense is painfully aware that health care is one of the most critical problems facing America today. The stupid privatized insurance scheme that is currently in place is steadily dragging the middle class into poverty, and the poor into early graves. All this unnecessary misery created so that a handful of parasitic corporate insurance scammers can get richer than they already are.

On Sunday I walked with The Wife over to Westminster Presbyterian Church over on State Street for a public meeting about Single Payer Health Care. I was feeling a bit under the weather so I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. Well, I certainly learned a few things at the meeting, and I got to chat with one of the most powerful politicians in the country, a guy most people in Albany have barely heard of.

I’m talking about John Conyers of Dearborn, Michigan, the second longest serving member of the House of Representatives. He is the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, a committee which has extraordinary power over a wide variety of federal departments, including federal courts and federal law enforcement. He is also the senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, which this year has finally come unto its own as an influential body.

Most people don’t know any more about Single Payer Health Care than they know about John Conyers, it’s just words. What it means is that we would have one and only one health insurance provider for every American citizen. Since this one provider is a government agency, the behavior of this agency would be ultimately subject to scrutiny by the voters and taxpayers.

This is in sharp contrast to the current scheme, where a pack of hungry corporate insurance companies supposedly, allegedly, compete with each other for the American citizen’s money. In practice, these insurance corporations have formed virtual cartels that take advantage of sick Americans by driving up the cost of all services, from the hospital to the doctor visits to the pharmaceuticals.

In addition, these corporate insurers pointedly refuse to insure all Americans. They say in their own defense that they can’t afford to provide insurance for people who are ... sick. They only want to insure people who are healthy, because that way they can keep their corporate “bottom line” healthy by not paying out premiums to those who need them.

It’s a savage, stupid and idiotic method of exploitation one might find in a miserable run down third world country. This privatized insurance scheme is a national boondoggle, a parasitic method of extracting wealth from people who work for a living. It should go without saying that America can no longer afford such boondoggles, we taxpayers can no longer nurture thieves and robbers.

Will Single Payer solve the debilitating societal problems caused by privatized health insurance? Mr. Conyers put it this way:

You have to first of all decide that getting healthcare when you need it is a right and not a privilege. So when people talk about “affordable health care,” you’ve just left a hundred million Americans outside the door because they can’t afford anything. What do you do if you don’t have the money to afford affordable health care?

. . . Do we really need to have profit taking in health care? ...And now they’re all marketing ...everybody’s hustling health care. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we want to put you into a full employment full reaching program, because you need one organization insuring health care, a single payer. One, only one.

We can start to see why the corporate media rarely mentions Single Payer Health Care, and never explains the concept in understandable terms. And we can also see why they don’t often say anything positive about Mr. Conyers.
In fact, the only corporate media content providers present that I observed at the event were two TV stations, Time Warner Capital News 9 and the bottom feeding nasty scumbags at Channel 13. Both of these camera crews packed up their equipment and fled when Mr. Conyers climbed up into the ornate pulpit to speak.

Unless I’m not punching in the right keywords into Google, it appears that neither TV station aired a segment on the event. I guess they couldn’t find a way to give the story a negative spin without outright lying. Which they can’t do too blatantly anymore, not with so many bloggers nosing about these days.
Dr. Andy Coates Of Physicians For A National Health Program Spoke Before The TV Media Fled

That careful lack of coverage answers the question why Mr. Conyers was willing to fly from Michigan to Albany NY simply to address a church full of local citizens. It’s a sad shame that at this late date we the people still have to make an end run around the corporate media to hear important relevant information that the corporate media owners consider contrary to the corporate political agenda.

It is precisely because of this media blackout of Single Payer that the majority of our so-called Democratic Congress has not yet found the courage to do what’s best for the American people. Even President Obama has said that Single Payer is “off the table.” Instead, our elected officials continue to waste everyone’s time and patience floating unworkable schemes that involve continuing to funnel cash to the useless health insurance corporations. Again, Mr. Conyers:

This is not complicated. I love these people who always want to talk about legislation. The first thing they say is that “this is a very complex piece of legislation, you probably won’t understand it.” Well, I’ll make it real simple for all those folks in Congress who are resisting. We want a universal single payer health care plan that every industrial country on the planet Earth already has. That’s what we want.

I managed to record Mr. Conyers’ speech, but I placed The Wife’s iPod a little too far away from the speaker’s pulpit. And the man speaks in a fairly soft wavering voice, actually pretty well for an 80 year old, but not loud. So the recording isn’t good enough to post, but here are some interesting quotes, in the order that they were spoken:

It’s too important, it’s a national security matter, it’s in the national interest to keep 320 million people covered.

If everybody who’s been forced into bankruptcy, or had to suffer, or have to cut their prescriptions in half because they didn’t have the money or had to lose their home, or had to make incredible sacrifices or just worry, you’re sick and you’re worried about how you’re gonna pay the bills and what are you doing to your family, that’s a part of sickness that no one should have to bear the burden of.
It doesn’t have to be employer connected... when your employer skips town or moves overseas or decides to call it quits guess what happens to your health insurance? Well, we’re finding out now.

I don’t believe in this “too big to fail” business anymore. You do what everybody else does. You go into some sort of bankruptcy reorganization.

We don’t want to copy Canada’s plan, or France’s plan... we want to do it ourselves. That’s why we’re studying every health plan on Earth. Everywhere, the ups and downs, the ins and outs, the strengths and weaknesses.

Our freshman congressional representative Paul Tonko also spoke, he arrived late and left early. He did not have a lot to say, but he made it clear that he enthusiastically supported Mr. Conyer’s initiative, HR 676, “The US National Health Insurance Act, which Mr. Conyers introduced back in 2003.

Mr. Tonko is one of 93 current cosponsors of HR 676, it needs 218 to pass. And then there is the Senate, which tends to represent corporations against the voters even more than the House does. And finally there’s the president, who seems to be clinging to some rather bizarre and outmoded ideas that he picked up at Uncle Miltie’s Chicago Clown School of Economics.

And yet, despite the media blackout, despite the blatant corporatism practiced by the majority of our elected officials, poll after poll has found that a majority of Americans favor Single Payer Health. That is, if the poll in question explains what Single Payer is. It really comes down to common sense.

Dr. Andy Coates of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) was the first speaker. His enthusiasm for the subject and general knowledge was a welcome addition to the event, he stepped up to clarify some important points during the discussions. Indeed, his attitude is typical of medical professionals these days who are fed up with neglecting their practices to please the cruel corporate bureaucracies that are forcing them to short change and even neglect their patients.

It has occurred to me perhaps medical providers are also concerned with the erosion of their self respect. In the not so distant past the medical profession was composed mostly of medical professionals, with doctors at the summit. Administrative jobs were usually held by persons with a working medical background.

Nowadays doctors are turning into corporate cogs, as expendable as fast food workers. It takes a lot of time, work and investment to become a doctor or a nurse, it is only reasonable that health providers expect to be respected by the community. I wonder if this erosion of respect for doctors imposed from above has already begun to degrade the overall quality and effectiveness of health care in this country.

The event was sponsored by a variety of interested groups, but was mainly the work of Single Payer New York and Westminster Presbyterian Church. Mr. Conyers thanked the church by saying, “We’re sitting in a church that put its money where its prayers are.”

There was a panel discussion on the role of the faith community in the adoption of Single Payer Health Care, all three major sky-god religions were represented. We heard from Dr. Richard Propp of B’Nai Sholom Reform Congregation in Albany, Yussouf Mir of the Islamic Center of the Capital District, and from Elder Chandlee Gill of the Albany Presbytery. Each spoke of the obligation of their respective faiths to care for the sick and provide for healing.
Mr. Conyers, Mr. Tonko And Dr. Coates Listen To The Faithful

Single Payer New York is headed by Mark Dunlea, who is a long time knowledgeable advocate of single payer as the only solution. This week he is supposed to go down to Washington DC at the request of Mr. Conyers to make a presentation. Looks like Mark is hitting the big time.
Present in the audience were Albany mayoral candidates Corey Ellis and Shawn Morris. Mr. Ellis was fresh from an incident on Friday where he personally stopped a mugging in front of Trinity Institute. Most decidedly not present was the current mayor of Albany, or for that matter any of his obedient minions. No surprise there.

There was a reception down in the basement hall afterwards, where Mr. Conyers was very much in attendance. I had a chance to ask the congressman about something that he’d mentioned, that his first job out of high school was at a Ford assembly line. You see, I too worked at a Ford plant in New Jersey when I was 19. (The plant closed the next year never to reopen.)

To my astonishment (and to my delight, I confess) Mr. Conyers took my query as an opportunity to talk about his early career before he entered Congress. I think he also wanted to take a break from the questioners around him, I noticed them all fidgeting as he talked on. And on.

Very interesting. After working the line at the Lincoln (Ford) plant in Dearborn, he entered “the service” and became an officer during the Korean War, where he served with distinction. After he left the military he went to college, got a law degree and went into practice. He found a job in the office of his predecessor in congress, Dennis Hertel.

He said he had no trouble getting elected the first time because “I walked the district door to door so many times for Hertel. How could I not get elected?” He took his seat in January 1965, during the administration of Lyndon Johnson. (He told me it was 1964.)

A Younger John Conyers With Rosa Parks

Of course you don’t spend 22 terms in congress without making mistakes or getting into trouble. His worst error was the close sponsorship of the obnoxious Help America Vote Act (HAVA) which excreted all these fraudulent electronic machines into our voting booths and has done so much to undermine our right to fair elections. From what I’ve read, he seems to think that HAVA can be modified and saved, at any rate he is one of the few elected officials who has called for the end of proprietary software in the machines.

A few years back he was caught assigning personal duties to his staff on the taxpayer’s dime, this naturally is the only time I can recall that he made national headlines. Much more distressing were his repeated attempts to introduce legislation that would ban public access to the reports of the National Institute of Health, a strange lapse that can only be explained by corporate influence via campaign contributions.
But a politician, any politician should be judged by weighing the bad against the good, and it is clear that John Conyers comes out strongly on the positive side. Compare him to a typical Republican. He had an interesting thing to say about those jabbering nitwits:
I like hearing some of this nutty neo-conservative conversation... The more you let them talk, the more they talk. If you are interested in what they are talking about, the more you realize it is IRRATIONAL. (Much sustained applause.)

After our little conversation, a fellow asked him what could be done to bring George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to justice. I rolled my eyes, expecting Mr. Conyers to blow off the question. To my astonishment, he proceeded to outline exactly how such a thing would be done.
You need two things, the chair of the Judiciary Committee explained. You need a special prosecutor, and you need a blue ribbon panel to gather facts. But it is essential that no congressional representative be allowed to sit on the panel.

And in answer to the next question, yes, he believed that such a thing was likely to happen. I wonder if he knows a few things about the former administration that have not been made public yet.

John Conyers Explaining How To Nail Bush And Cheney

In the end, John Conyers told us that he enjoys his job, that it’s very easy for him and that he is still going strong. I noted his odd sense of humor and even a penchant for silliness when the opportunity arrives. He ended his main presentation with this extraordinary statement, “Join me in the sheer enjoyment of making this a better country.”
Now, how do you beat that?

To find out about The US National Health Insurance Act (HR 676) here is a comprehensive faq from the Albany based Physicians for a National Health Program (PHNP.)