Single Payer Healthcare Action Alert!

[pauljpoposky]

http://www.healthcare-now.org/listimages/header.jpg (http://e2ma.net/go/1977810055/1809601/67492532/goto:http://www.healthcare-now.org) http://www.calnurses.org/assets/images/misc-370-width-photos/dc_whitehouse_arrests_050409.gifFriends of Single Payer Healthcare:
We need your help getting in the news today.
A series of protesters demanding single-payer health care coverage disrupted a Senate Finance Committee roundtable on health care reform today.
At the beginning of the hearing this morning, a man stood and yelled, "So let me get this straight -- you have 15 seats at the table and not one for single payer? Why is that?"
The protest was organized by a coalition of groups, including Physicians for a National Health Program (http://e2ma.net/go/1977810055/1809601/67492530/goto:http://www.pnhp.org), Single Payer Action (http://e2ma.net/go/1977810055/1809601/67492528/goto:http://www.singlepayeraction.org), and Healthcare-NOW! (http://e2ma.net/go/1977810055/1809601/67492526/goto:http://www.healthcare-now.org)
"Other methods of communication with elected officials have failed in delivering the demand for single-payer national health care as evidenced by the exclusion of single-payer advocates from official hearings on health reform," said a release about the event (http://e2ma.net/go/1977810055/1809601/67492524/goto:http://www.healthcare-now.org/2009/05/doctors-challenge-exclusion-of-single-payer-from-health-care-debate/).
See a video of the protest here (http://e2ma.net/go/1977810055/1809601/67492523/goto:http://www.healthcare-now.org/2009/05/doctors-challenge-exclusion-of-single-payer-from-health-care-debate/) and here (http://e2ma.net/go/1977810055/1809601/67492522/goto:http://www.healthcare-now.org/2009/05/video-of-disruption-by-single-payer-advocates-at-senate-roundatable-on-health-reform/). All eight protesters were arrested.
Please, contact some of the following news outlets to help get this story covered.
ABC News - 212-456-7777 - [email protected]
CBS News - 212-975-4321 - [email protected]
CNBC - (201) 735-2622 - [email protected]
CNN - 404-827-1500 - email (http://e2ma.net/go/1977810055/1809601/67492521/goto:http://www.cnn.com/feedback/)
MSNBC/NBC - (212) 664-4444 - [email protected] - [email protected] - [email protected]
PBS - 703-739-5000 - [email protected]
Here's some press we already got: here (http://e2ma.net/go/1977810055/1809601/67492520/goto:http://www.healthcare-now.org/2009/05/doctors-single-payer-activists-arrested-make-history-at-senate-finance-roundtable/), here (http://e2ma.net/go/1977810055/1809601/67492519/goto:http://online.wsj.com/article_email/BT-CO-20090505-711710-kIyVDAtMEM5TzAtNTIwMDUwWj.html), and here (http://e2ma.net/go/1977810055/1809601/67492518/goto:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/05/protesters-disrupt-health_n_196873.html).
http://www.healthcare-now.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/actionalert.gif (http://e2ma.net/go/1977810055/1809601/67492517/goto:http://www.healthcare-now.org)Thanks for all that you do,
Healthcare-NOW! National Staff

[STJ]

I am all for single payer health care. Our health system is a joke and we need to change it.

[Q]

"Single payer"? How does that work? And how does it differ from the current system in the US?

[pauljpoposky]

"Single payer"? How does that work? And how does it differ from the current system in the US?

single payer is a system wherein the govn't establishes a national healthcare system that provides all necessary care, from emergency to primary to elective to prescription drugs and preventative care and counselling, free of charge to each and every US citizen and resident regardless of age, sex, employment, health, pre-existing conditions or economic class. All health services are hereby paid for out of one common fund seeded by existing funding sources for "healthcare subsidies" and programs like medicare or medicaid and S-chip, which would become redundant and be gradually phased out under a single payer system (because the single payer system is free at source and free of charge to the patient and covers absolutely everyone without exception). Additional funds would become available through increased progressive taxation of the richest 2%, taxes on stock and bond trades, and closing tax loopholes. a focus on preventative care would also save the entire system a whole lotta cash. when everyone is covered and has free and equal access to healthcare as a HUMAN RIGHT, everyone benefits.

meanwhile, private insurance companies would be banned from selling any coverage that in any way duplicates the coverage provided by single payer.

because the profit motive is eliminated by this kind of single payer system and single payer has to cover everyone for everything, that prettywell spells the end of private insurance companies, which would save the single payer system money and allow it to provide even higher quality services as it would have no private companies to compete with and costs would no longer be driven up by competition or the multitudinous redundant bureaucracies and billing departments inherent to private pay insurance (the system we have right now).

for more information on this kind of healthcare system, I would suggest renting Michael Moore's documentary "SICKO!" on DVD, reading my blog on single payer here: http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=264 or visiting any of these webpages:

http://www.pnhp.org/

http://www.healthcare-now.org/

http://unionsforsinglepayerhr676.org/

[pauljpoposky]

also, check out websites:

http://www.laborforsinglepayer.org/

http://guaranteedhealthcare4all.org/


and articles:

http://www.socialistappeal.org/content/view/706/73/

http://www.counterpunch.org/mokhiber04022009.html

http://boston.indymedia.org/feature/display/206995/index.php

http://www.socialistappeal.org/content/view/684/73/

http://socialistworker.org/2009/04/14/speaking-out-for-single-payer

[Sarah Palin]

single payer is a system wherein the govn't establishes a national healthcare system that provides all necessary care, from emergency to primary to elective to prescription drugs and preventative care and counselling, free of charge to each and every US citizen and resident regardless of age, sex, employment, health, pre-existing conditions or economic class. All health services are hereby paid for out of one common fund seeded by existing funding sources for "healthcare subsidies" and programs like medicare or medicaid and S-chip, which would become redundant and be gradually phased out under a single payer system (because the single payer system is free at source and free of charge to the patient and covers absolutely everyone without exception). Additional funds would become available through increased progressive taxation of the richest 2%, taxes on stock and bond trades, and closing tax loopholes. a focus on preventative care would also save the entire system a whole lotta cash. when everyone is covered and has free and equal access to healthcare as a HUMAN RIGHT, everyone benefits.

meanwhile, private insurance companies would be banned from selling any coverage that in any way duplicates the coverage provided by single payer.

because the profit motive is eliminated by this kind of single payer system and single payer has to cover everyone for everything, that prettywell spells the end of private insurance companies, which would save the single payer system money and allow it to provide even higher quality services as it would have no private companies to compete with and costs would no longer be driven up by competition or the multitudinous redundant bureaucracies and billing departments inherent to private pay insurance (the system we have right now).

for more information on this kind of healthcare system, I would suggest renting Michael Moore's documentary "SICKO!" on DVD, reading my blog on single payer here: http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=264 or visiting any of these webpages:

http://www.pnhp.org/

http://www.healthcare-now.org/

http://unionsforsinglepayerhr676.org/

If I may add, it's also the system used by Canada, Australia, and Finland. The wikipedia article is very helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_health_care

[KurtFF8]

Australia does not have single payer. Their medicare system itself is an example, but the overall system is a "National Health Insurance" system but they don't have a nationalized single payer system like the UK for example.

[Sendo]

hopefully they could at least get what Korea has, which is heavily usbsidized natinal health care with some public and private hospitals. Is that what Australia's like, KurtFF8?

[YKTMX]

Good luck to the American comrades getting reforms like this through. It is absolutely the central question for the class in America at the moment.

Healthcare is a right, not a privelige!

[Pawn Power]

Good luck to the American comrades getting reforms like this through. It is absolutely the central question for the class in America at the moment.

Healthcare is a right, not a privelige!

Seriously. I need a tetanus shot.