Congress Agrees To Hold Hearing On Single Payer Health Care Insurance Option

Daily Kos----

The official silence on Capitol Hill on Single Payer -- at least in the House -- is ending.

Thanks to the ongoing pressure and dedication of Single Payer activists across the country, who the Washington Post noted this past weekend, "have spent months hounding Democratic lawmakers and organizing demonstrations, including one that resulted in 13 arrests at a Senate hearing last month," a Congressional committee will for the first time in the current proceedings on Healthcare reform, hold a public hearing on Single Payer Wednesday.

The hearing, "Exploring the Single Payer Option," will be held on Wednesday, June 10 at 10:30 a.m. in Room 2175 in the Rayburn House Office Building by the Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions.

National Nurses Movement's diary:

That's a subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee, which is chaired by Rep. George Miller, one of the most influential members of the House and one of 75 co-sponsors of the House single payer bill, HR 676.

Geri Jenkins, RN, a co-president of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, and Dr. Marcia Angell and Dr. Walter Tsou of Physicians for a National Health Program are among the expected witnesses.

While one hearing is not cause for breaking out the champagne, it's an important step forward, giving single payer advocates an opportunity to make the case for the most cost effective, comprehensive reform, and against the wasteful, inefficient and cruel for-profit health insurance industry.

With the timetable on a reform bill shrinking every day, it's apparent we have no time to lose. With that in mind, single payer proponents have been stepping it up to break through what CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro last week called, "a conspiracy of silence within the Congress."

Or as DeMoro told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now today:

"All the institutional players have been at the table" while excluding "the majority of Americans who have either no healthcare or inadequate healthcare. The nurses and physicians across the nation are outraged and they see what is happening with this disgraceful healthcare industry" and other proposals in Congress that keep the insurance companies "at the apex of power."

Sen. Bernie Sanders, author of a Senate single payer bill, S 703, and a single payer champion in the Senate, also speaking on Democracy Now, cited a central problem that single payer proponents face, one familiar to nurses and doctors,

"The drug companies, insurance companies, and medical equipment suppliers who today make huge amounts, billions and billions of dollars, off health care who fight us in an unrelenting way through lobbying, campaign contributions, and advertising to make sure the system functions to make more profits for the private insurance companies rather than provide quality health care to all the people."

What more and more people understand, Sanders noted, is that we need a "fundamental overhaul," not just "tweaking the system" to "help some people get insurance but not get to the basic reason why our system is so costly and wasteful."

Ironically, DeMoro noted, the insurance industry and the Republican minority are fighting just as hard against a public option provision within many of the proposals as they would against single payer.

Most of the arguments made against single payer are not on policy grounds, but on political viability. If that were the case, we would not have Medicare, or Social Security, or disability insurance, or unemployment insurance, or many other reforms that the that are now a third rail of American politics.

What our history proves is that with courageous and bold political leadership any reform that benefits the American people as a whole is politically viable.

Dare we squander this rare opportunity for limited legislation that will not adequately control costs, be truly universal, improve quality, and guarantee choice of doctor and provider? Or will we leave the American people feeling the moment has been wasted and that once again they can not trust our government to genuinely act in their interests.

Please redouble your efforts, and fax the Congressional committee chairs again, and tell them that they need to include the proven efficiency of single-payer in their debate and discussion over any healthcare reform.


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Sources: Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Washington Post, SFgate.com, The Chronicle, Google Maps