Debate on Rep. Weiner's single-payer amendment will not happen.

By GottaLaff

I just got this e-mail (emphasis mine):

Dear Healthcare-NOW! Supporter:

On the eve of what could have been the first vote on single-payer legislation in our nation's history, we have just learned that because of last minute developments, the vote and debate on Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment will not happen.

Speaker Pelosi received a statement from Rep. Kucinich and Rep. Conyers, the co-authors of HR 676, that they do not think that this is the right time for a vote on national single-payer legislation. They made this statement despite the extensive mobilization in support of this vote across the country. In addition, Speaker Pelosi felt that offering a single-payer amendment would open the floodgates to amendments proposed to limit abortion funds, restrict immigrant access to healthcare, and other regressive legislation.

Let us remember that the potential vote on Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment resulted from holding fast to our principles of universal, comprehensive healthcare with no financial barriers. These efforts have brought truth and clarity to a national debate on healthcare reform that has been polluted by the corporate influence over Congress. While the private insurance industry has sent 3,000 lobbyists to Capitol Hill this year, spending 1.4 million dollars a day to shape reform that protects their profits, our calls, faxes, and demonstrations have created the momentum to bring legislation based on HR 676 to the floor of the House and Senate.

The vote for Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment would have allowed advocates to have their representatives on record as single-payer supporters.

But this legislative battle is not yet over. Our focus can now turn to two remaining efforts for single-payer in this Congress. Sen. Bernie Sanders will introduce S 703 in coming weeks, and we understand that he is considering editing it to be more like HR 676. We will have the opportunity again to see the first ever vote on single-payer in this Congress. In addition, Rep. Kucinich's amendment to allow states to more easily implement a single-payer system may be reinserted into the bill during the conference committee between the House and Senate.

All of these efforts are crucial to building the movement for the only solution to our healthcare crisis - single-payer national healthcare.

If this Congress passes inadequate legislation, there will no doubt be emboldened state movements in the coming years. We welcome them. But let us not forget the movement to push our federal legislators to meet the demands of the people, not roll that responsibility onto the states. Healthcare-NOW! and the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care remains committed to a national, single-payer solution to the healthcare crisis. Comprehensive, quality healthcare is a right that should be extended to every U.S. resident.

At this important time, let us not forget how far we have come. Either now or later, a single-payer national healthcare system must come to the table. We will keep building the movement to make that happen.

For healthcare justice,
Healthcare-NOW!
Physicians for a National Health Program
Progressive Democrats of America
Public Citizen
Healthcare for All Texas
Western PA Coalition for Single Payer
Alliance for Democracy

P.S. We need your support. Please donate today.

Maybe now is not the time, but I can't help yearning for a single payer debate to make its way in.

I just called. Your turn.

By GottaLaff

It took all of 3 minutes to call. I used the local numbers and got right through:

Dear Healthcare-NOW! Supporter:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is breaking her promise to allow House votes on two single-payer amendments to the House healthcare bill.

One, by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, will allow states to implement single-payer systems. The other, by Rep. Anthony Weiner, would create a national single-payer system.

We need your voice to get these amendments back on the table.

Let's get calls into the democratic leadership that is calling the shots and make sure they know that we expect the vote on single-payer this fall.

-Speaker Nancy Pelosi: DC (202) 225.4965 - SF (415) 556.4862
-Rep. George Miller: DC (202) 225.2095 - Concord (925) 602.1880
-Rep. Henry Waxman: DC (202) 225.3976 - LA (323) 651.1040

The message is simple: Keep the Kucinich Amendment to allow states to pass single-payer, and to allow Rep. Anthony Weiner introduce his single-payer amendment!

Thanks for all that you do,
Healthcare-NOW! National Staff

P.S. We need your support. Please donate today.

They need to know we support single payer. Now.

Call. And please be polite and brief.

Dems backtrack on single-payer bill

By GottaLaff

It would have helped to have started with single payer and negotiated from there. But no-o-o. So those with the right idea, like Anthony Weiner, become a dwindling minority:

Some House members who have previously backed a single-payer healthcare reform bill say they will not vote for a similar measure when it hits the floor this fall.

Of the 12 serving House members who co-sponsored Rep. John Conyers’s (D-Mich.) single-payer bill (H.R. 676) in the last Congress but not in this Congress, four have indicated they will vote no on a single-payer bill to be offered by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.).

The four members are Reps. Joe Baca (D-Calif.), Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), David Scott (D-Ga.), and Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.).

While the public option is still in play, single payer waves bye-bye to many of its sponsors.

In an interview with The Hill, Scott said, “I support a public option. It’s an excellent compromise and the best vehicle to garner enough votes to pass….Single-payer isn’t going to get the votes. A public option is the best shot we have to lower costs and provide coverage to most Americans.”

Sigh. I'm already missing something we never had to begin with. Double sigh.

America’s Affordable Health Choices Act is the lead healthcare reform bill moving in the House.

Reps. Andre Carson (D-Ind.), Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), Betty Sutton (D-Ohio), and James Moran (D-Va.), all previous co-sponsors of a single-payer bill, but not co-sponsors this year, did not comment for this article. [...]

Reps. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) and Laura Richardson (D-Calif.), also past supporters, remain open to Weiner’s amendment but have not made a final decision about whether to vote for it.

The retreat by some Democrats has caught the attention of single-payer advocacy groups.

“It doesn’t represent lack of confidence in single-payer, but more of what kind of assault will come from the extreme right wing,” said Quentin Young, national coordinator for Physicians For A National Health Program.

In late July, Weiner offered a single-payer amendment during the Energy and Commerce Committee markup but withdrew it after both panel chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) promised that his amendment would get a floor vote. [...]

It is unclear how Waxman will vote on the single-payer amendment, but hinted he would vote no.

“I will support the bill with the best chance of passing and reaching the president’s desk,” Waxman said when he was asked on Aug. 1 how he would vote on the Weiner amendment.

Democratic leadership is expected to split on the vote. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) is not a cosponsor and neither is Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.).

Van Hollen has never co-sponsored a single-payer bill but said in a letter to Progressive Neighbors in 2008, “I will continue to fight for universal health care and support a single payer approach.” [...]

A single-payer amendment offered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), which would allow states to set up single-payer systems, passed 27-19 with 13 Republican votes last month during the Education and Labor Committee markup of healthcare reform.

One Democratic aide close to the healthcare debate said, “It would be interesting to know whether the 13 Republicans who voted to pass a single-payer amendment during the House Education and Labor Committee markup plan on supporting Rep. Weiner’s amendment ... Either these 13 Republicans had a serious change of heart or this vote is just further proof that House Republicans are more interested in political gimmicks than working to fix our broken health insurance system.”

Triple sigh.

Dueling Obama Quotes on Single Payer Health Care

By GottaLaff

I'll preface this post with something I heard Thom Hartmann say today... and that was that if President Obama were to support single payer care at this point, health care reform would be D.O.A.

That said:

"I have not said that I was a single payer supporter."

-- President Obama, at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire this afternoon.

"I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care plan."

-- Obama, at a Senate campaign rally in 2003.

VIDEO- Obama's former doctor wants single payer: "Private health insurance interfered"

By GottaLaff

Yesterday, I posted about President Obama's former doctor coming out very much in favor of single payer health care reform. Now here's the video:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman talks with Dr. David Scheiner who was President Obama’s doctor for 22 years before he moved into the White House.

Obama's longtime doctor: Health care reform plan falls short, "The government never gets in my way"

By GottaLaff

The only people who don't think we need (at minimum) a public option are members of the Party of No Idea:

The Chicago doctor who treated President Obama for more than two decades has a prescription for healthcare reform: a British- or Canadian-style single-payer system.

Dr. David Scheiner, 70, will advocate such a plan at a rally Thursday on the National Mall. [...]

In an interview, he described the president as a "beloved" patient in "superb" health.

But he criticized Obama's healthcare plan as too timid, arguing that the White House plan reflected politics more than the president's ideals.

"It's a bad program. I don't think it's what he feels in his heart is necessary. I think it's what he feels politically is the best way," said Scheiner, who acknowledged that he had not discussed the subject with Obama directly.

Scheiner argued that the "public option" Obama favors, in which a government-run insurance program would compete with private insurers, does not go far enough. [...]

Scheiner said a single-payer government-run system would cut costs by reducing the administrative overhead that doctors and other health providers must maintain to meet complex reimbursement rules from different insurance companies. A government program also would have greater leverage in negotiating lower drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, he said.

He argued that such a system would lead to better care for lower-income people and end what he said was a pernicious insurance-industry practice: discouraging patients from getting necessary treatment by setting up obstacles, and boosting profits in the process. [...]

"The government never gets in my way," he said. "Forty years I've been working [with] Medicare, never. Who gets in my way all the time? Private insurance companies. Somehow that message is not getting across."

This is what we hear over and over again, yet the message repeated by the corporate media is that of the Rushpublics coupled with the manufactured drama of the "horse race".

Putting America first seems to be a thing of the past.

House Lets States Do Single-Payer Healthcare

By GottaLaff

Dennis Kucinich rocks:

[T]he House Committee on Education and Labor, the committee members voted 25 to 19 to pass Congressman Dennis Kucinich's amendment to the healthcare reform bill. This amendment, if it survives the full House, the Senate, the conference, and the President, will not alter the federal legislation except to allow states to create single-payer healthcare systems if they choose to. If this change to the bill makes news, it will pass the Senate, because there is no legitimate argument against it, and the support for it is bipartisan. [...]

There are major campaigns with a good chance of passing single-payer healthcare if Congress permits it in the following states: Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, Ohio, Colorado, and Massachusetts.

ROLL CALL ON VOTE TO ALLOW STATES TO CREATE SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE
9:40 a.m. ET, July 17, 2009
House Committee on Education and Labor
Y=Allow states to provide their citizens healthcare if they choose
N=Ban states
PASS= Pass
--= Not present or no response

25 to 19 to 2

Democrats
* George Miller, Chairman (CA-07) N
* Dale E. Kildee (MI-05) N
* Donald M. Payne (NJ-10) PASS, Y
* Robert E. Andrews (NJ-01) N
* Robert C. Scott (VA-03) --, Y
* Lynn C. Woolsey (CA-06) Y
* Rubén Hinojosa (TX-15) N
* Carolyn McCarthy (NY-04) N
* John F. Tierney (MA-06) --, --, Y
* Dennis J. Kucinich (OH-10) Y
* David Wu (OR-01) PASS, PASS
* Rush D. Holt (NJ-12) Y
* Susan A. Davis (CA-53) PASS, N
* Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-07) Y
* Timothy H. Bishop (NY-01) N
* Joe Sestak (PA-07) N
* Dave Loebsack (IA-02) Y
* Mazie Hirono (HI-02) PASS, N
* Jason Altmire (PA-04) N
* Phil Hare (IL-17) N
* Yvette Clarke (NY-11) --, --
* Joe Courtney (CT-02) N
* Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01) --, Y
* Marcia Fudge (OH-11) Y
* Jared Polis (CO-2) PASS, Y
* Paul Tonko (NY-21) --, --, Y
* Pedro Pierluisi (PR) --, --
* Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (Northern Mariana Islands) N
* Dina Titus (NV-3) N
* Judy Chu PASS, PASS,

Republicans
* John Kline, Ranking Member (MN-02) Y
* Thomas E. Petri (WI-06) Y
* Howard "Buck" McKeon (CA-25) Y
* Peter Hoekstra (MI-02) PASS, Y
* Michael N. Castle (DE-At Large) PASS, Y
* Mark E. Souder (IN-03) Y
* Vernon J. Ehlers (MI-03) Y
* Judy Biggert (IL-13) Y
* Todd Russell Platts (PA-19) Y
* Joe Wilson (SC-02) Y
* Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05) Y
* Tom Price (GA-06) Y
* Rob Bishop (UT-01) --, --
* Brett Guthrie (KY-2) Y
* Bill Cassidy (LA-6) PASS, N
* Tom McClintock (CA-4) N
* Duncan D. Hunter (CA-52) N
* Phil Roe (TN-1) N
* Glenn "GT" Thompson (PA-05) N

California may be in the toidy, but at least there's a possibility that we could pass this. My family spends $20,000 a year on health insurance... so, yes to this, please.

H/t: Chris

Bill Moyers on Single Payer Healthcare

Well worth watching the whole thing here and here.

VIDEO: Single-payer advocates protest Senate hearing

By GottaLaff


How frustrating is this:

May 5 - Doctors and other advocates of a national single-payer health system – also known as an improved Medicare for All – directly confronted senators at a Senate Finance Committee “roundtable” on health reform today.

One-by-one, eight single-payer advocates in the audience stood up during the opening comments of the hearing and asked why single-payer experts were being excluded from the proceedings. They each spoke out in turn until they were removed from the committee hearing room, one-by-one, by U.S. Capitol police.

The doctors and others said that a publicly funded, privately delivered single-payer system is the only solution to the crisis plaguing our nation’s non-system of health care, noting that single-payer national health insurance would guarantee coverage for everyone and contains costs.

Despite polling that shows a clear majority of public and physician support for a single-payer system, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, has stated on multiple occasions that single payer is “off the table” of health reform.

H/t: Anon, who I suspect is one of my fellow Tweeters