Coalition Urges Rep. Weiner to Introduce Single Payer on House Floor
August 24, 2009
Honorable Anthony Weiner
2104 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Representative Weiner:
On behalf of our hundreds of thousands of constituents in labor, faith groups, physicians and nurses associations, patient groups, and healthcare activist organizations throughout New York state and the nation, we thank you for standing up for single-payer health care, and applaud your passionate rhetoric in support of Medicare for all as displayed in recent interviews with Joe Scarborough and others. At a time when the majority of Democratic lawmakers are making increasing concessions to the private health insurance industry, your courage to introduce this substitute amendment to HR 3200 keeps real healthcare reform alive.
We urge you to remain committed to modeling your amendment on HR 676—the US National Health Care Act of Rep. John Conyers--the most popular House bill (86 co-sponsors) that guarantees a just and financially sound healthcare system for this country, and the House bill that has won the support of a nationwide grassroots movement. Other bills, such as Rep. Dingell’s “Medicare for All Act,” do not end the wasteful spending in our healthcare system and lack of access to needed care experienced by tens of millions of Americans. Private health insurance harms individual patients, who are either unable to obtain coverage or lose coverage due to the egregious tactics of the private insurance companies that rescind coverage when most needed or deny claims for needed care. More insidiously, our multi-payer system harms the entire public, by generating $400 billion annually in excess administrative spending.
Only about a fourth of this wasted spending comes from the bloated overhead of private insurance companies; the rest results from the administrative burden foisted onto hospitals and physicians who must deal with numerous insurance plans. Therefore, we cannot support any reform that leaves in place private health insurance, even with a so-called robust public insurance plan, because it will neither guarantee universal access to needed care nor will it result in the elimination of wasteful spending necessary to pay for care for the 50 millions Americans who are currently uninsured.
Your impassioned speech in the House Energy and Commerce Committee restored clarity to a debate that has become mired in halfway solutions to peripheral problems: you identified the core of the problem and you named the solution. This solution, HR 676, already has a movement built around it. We are mobilizing support for a real single-payer amendment, and we urge you to take advantage of this grassroots energy to introduce an amendment based on HR 676, the most credible solution to our healthcare crisis. We would appreciate your pledge to introduce an amendment for HR 676/Medicare for all in writing, so that we can appropriately message your efforts to this vibrant and growing grassroots community.
If you have any questions or would like to speak with us, please contact Katie Robbins at 330-618-6379 or katie@healthcare-now.org.
In concern for our nation’s health,
cc: Congresspersons Engel, Welch, Rush, Schakowsky, Baldwin and Doyle
Ida Hellander, Executive Director
Physicians for a National Health Program
Katie Robbins, Assistant National Coordinator
Healthcare-NOW!
California Nurses Association, National Nurses Organizing Committee
Tim Carpenter, Executive Director
Progressive Democrats of America
Mark Dudzic, National Coordinator
Labor Campaign for Single Payer
Adrienne Breidenstine, Health Policy Organizer National Health Care for the Homeless Council
Michael J. Wilson, National Director
Americans for Democratic Action
Jaime Torres, Director
Latinos for National Health Insurance
Nancy T. Price, Co-Chair
Alliance for Democracy
Allan D. Clark, President
California School Employees Association
Kay Tillow, Coordinator
All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care--HR 676
Priscilla Bassettt
Senior Legislative Action Committee of Sullivan County, NY
Rob Stone MD, Director
Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan
American Patients United
Kevin Zeese, Executive Director
ProsperityAgenda.US
Margaret Flowers, Co-Chair
Maryland PNHP and Healthcare-now of Maryland
David Dixon, Co-Coordinator
Action Center for Justice
Rebecca Elgie, Coordinator
Tompkins County Health Care Task Force
Karen D. Freed, Colorado Springs, CO
Luci Murphy, Convener
Gray Panthers of Metropolitan Washington
Joan Drake
Mikuak Rai, Organizer
Coalition of the Uninsured & Underinsured for Single-Payer
Sandy Eaton, RN
Vice-Chair, Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care (Mass-Care)
Board member, Massachusetts Nurses Association
Sandra Fox
President, Western PA Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare
Kristin M. Abrams
New York State Nurses Association
Richard Propp, MD
Capital District Alliance for Universal Healthcare, Inc.
Executive Director Mark A. Dunlea, Esq.
Hunger Action Network of NYS
John Dennis Chasse, Professor emeritus of economics
SUNY Brockport
Doreen Wohl, Executive Director
West Side Campaign Against Hunger, NY
Gloria Sundaresen
Coalition of Asian Pacific American Democrats - MD
Laura McClure
Healthcare Work Group, Coalition for Democracy of Central New York
Ed Fowler, Executive Director
Neighbors Together in Brooklyn, NY
Dr. S. H. George Allen, Professor Emeritus
Albany Medical College
Maury Hirschkorn - Healthcare-Now, Suffolk Chapter
Art Richter,
Citizens for Universal Healthcare Kingston, NY
Coalition of Concerned Citizens for New Paltz, NY
Rochester Interfaith Health Care Coalition
Joel Tyner,
Real Majority Project
Terri Scofield
NY Universal Living Wage Warriors
Single Payer New York
Gardner Soule
415 Cline Road
Victor, NY 14564
Rev. Cass L. Shaw, General Presbyter
Albany Presbytery
Rochester for HR 676
Dr. Leon Zoghlin, MD, Chair
Finger Lakes Area Chapter of PNHP
Karen Hussein, Medical Student,
George Washington University
ACT UP New York
Single Payer Action Network (of Madison, Wisconsin)
Mary Dewar, Program Chair
Long Island Coalition for a National Health Care Plan
Comments
Single Payer option
This is the only way the country can be saved from the vultures who are sucking out the nation's life away in their greedy stupor.