news
and past activities
The New Public Option: Medicare Buy-in
On March 10, Congressman Alan Grayson introduced H.R. 4789, a four-page bill that would allow any American or legal resident to buy into medicare by paying premiums for coverage. This simple plan is deficit-neutral and requires no tax money. Rates and enrollment procedures would be set by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The bill had 80 cosponsors within two weeks after it was filed, and it is endorsed by the San Antonio Healthcare-Now Coalition as a step toward achieving a national health program of improved Medicare for all Americans. Click here to read the bill.
The 2009 Struggle for Healthcare Reform
Read about how contributions from the healthcare and health insurance industries have corrupted the Senate Finance Committee, and particularly, Senator Baucus.
Read how much the highest-paid health insurance CEOs are raking in.
The healthcare and health insurance industry spent $1.4 million per day on lobbying.
See a Washington Post graphic showing how many former aides of each Senate Finance Committee member now work as lobbyists representing HMOs, pharmaceuticals and hospitals.
Many of us wondered whether a more achievable goal would be a "public option" under which citizens could choose to buy into national health insurance or to keep their employer-provided insurance. Former DNC chair Howard Dean joined President Obama in pushing for a public option that never materialized. But the co-founders of Physicians for a National Health Program argued vehemently against the public option. (Click here to read about myths and facts concerning the public option.) As many predicted, the healthcare reform that finally passed excluded a public option, leaving us instead with a Massachusetts-style mandate to purchase corporate health insurance. Dr. Flowers wrote in April:
Of course, the public option would have been more expensive than single-payer. Single-payer would save $363 billion per year compared to what Americans are already spending on healthcare. The public option would save only $47 billion per year. Consider how much it costs the average physician to deal with the health insurance companies: more than $68,000 per year! (reported in Health Affairs, May 14, 2009)
Even the public option was opposed by Republicans in Congress, some of them worrying that if too many people chose the public option, trusting government more than health insurance corporations when it comes to paying for their healthcare, this could be devastating for the health insurance industry. Among them is our own Senator Cornyn, who said "I believe that a new Washington-run, public plan 'option' will devastate private insurance markets by acting as a competitor." (Could someone please remind us why preserving the corporate health insurance industry should take priority over providing us the healthcare that we are already paying for but not getting?)
Watch as Bill Moyers talks with Dr. Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen and Dr. David Himmelstein of Physicians for a National Health Program about why the single-payer option isn't on the table. And read the article Bill Moyers wrote about it together with his program's senior writer. Watch Bill Moyers' interview with former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (author of Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life) on healthcare reform and other issues.
Many single-payer advocates were willing to go along with the public option so long as single-payer remains a possibility at the state level. Among them was Sheila Kuehl, who authored the single-payer bill passed by the California Assembly and vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger.
Of course, corporate campaign contributions are behind who supports what kind of healthcare reform. See which senators got the most money from HMOs and the pharmaceutical industry in 2008. The key players in Congress have taken single-payer off the table for one main reason: the HMOs and PhRMA have paid them off.
At a town hall in New Mexico, President Obama was asked about single-payer and about Senator Baucus' conflict of interest with all the money that he gets from pharmaceutical companies. Watch as Obama explains how single-payer would work (and the audience cheers) but argues for keeping employer-based health insurance while ignoring the question about Senator Baucus entirely.
Meanwhile, some of the "Baucus 13" who were arrested at the Senate Finance Committee hearings asked him why single-payer was excluded while he was on his way to a meeting at another HMO. Read how Senator Baucus fled from single-payer advocates. He finally did, however, agreet to meet with five proponents of single-payer, though meeting with them is not the same as allowing them to testify before his committee. Perhaps Senator Baucus is weakening because he is getting hammered by his constituents in Montana, where single-payer rallies have been held in six cities? (Read an editorial from a Montana newspaper calling for all viewpoints to be considered.)
In his meeting with single-payer proponents, Senator Baucus admitted that excluding single-payer was probably a mistake, but now claims that it's too late for single-payer. But clearly the real mistake was how a sneering Senator Baucus looked on camera as he called for the single-payer advocates who disrupted his hearing to be arrested. To date, the most effective tactic to promote single-payer has been the civil disobedience by those 13 who had the courage to get arrested at the Senate Finance Committee hearing.
The Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives held the first Congressional hearing on single-payer in decades. Witnesses included Congressman John Conyers (chief sponsor of HR 676), Dr. Marcia Angell (former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine), Walter Tsou (PNHP National Board advisor), Geri Jenkins (co-president of CNA/NNOC) and an opponent of single-payer, David Gratzner of the Manhattan Institute, who looked quite foolish when grilled by Congressman Dennis Kucinich. The entire video and transcript are available here (Conyers at 7:50, Jenkins at 22:37, Tsou at 29:15, Angell at 40:24, Congressman Phil Hare at 1:11:16, Kucinich at 1:19:32, total length 1:41:54).
The Congressional Progressive Caucus, which includes about a third of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, heard a presentation on why single-payer will work but the public option will not, but was hostile to the idea of a point-by-point comparison.
In June, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler gave testimony on single-payer to the House Ways and Means Committee. Also, the national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, Dr. Quentin Young gave testimony on single-payer to the Energy and Commerce Committee. Senator John Rockefeller released a report on how insurers are forcing their customers to pay billions of dollars in medical costs that the insurers should have paid.
In the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Wendell Potter, former head of corporate communications at CIGNA, gave testimony on how the insurance industry is contributing to the healthcare crisis. Read Potter's exposé on the health insurance industry practice of "dumping" or "purging" unprofitable corporate accounts, adding millions to the ranks of the uninsured. Watch the interview with Potter on Bill Moyers Journal. Read the essay that Moyers wrote after doing the interview: "America for Sale."
Dr. Bryon Tucker's Presentation on Healthcare Reform
SAHNC steering committee member and PNHP member Dr. Byron Tucker gave a presentation entitled "Healthcare Reform Designed by Physicians for Patients" at the meeting of the San Antonio Area Progressive Action Coalition on Saturday, August 1. The presentation was well attended and well received, as many people expressed their outrage at the actions of health insurance corporations.
Rally to Urge Congressman Gonzalez to Co-Sponsor HR 676
We have spoken with Congressman Charlie Gonzalez numerous times in an effort to persuade him to co-sponsor HR 676, the only viable solution to providing healthcare to all Americans at a price that we can afford. At one point he even told us that it wouldn't matter if we brought a thousand people to his office!
Because we can't fit such a large contingency in his office, we made a house call, "visiting" his home in the Monte Vista neighborhood on June 13. The Congressman was home but chose not to speak with us. (We didn't actually enter his property.) But it's worth pointing out that he received campaign contributions of more than $24,000 from HMOs and more than $21,000 from pharmaceutical companies in 2007-2008, for an election in which his campaign was barely visible, as he faced only nominal opposition. It's clear whose interests he's putting ahead of his constituents in Bexar County who need access to affordable healthcare.
Click here to view photos of the rally.
Medical Bankruptcies On the Rise
A new study shows that more than 3 out of 5 bankruptcies (62.1%) were caused by illness and medical bills in 2007. This is a dramatic increase since 2001, when half of all bankruptcies (49.6%) were for medical reasons. The study found that of those whose bankruptcies were caused by illness or medical bills, 3 out of 4 had health insurance at the time. Most were middle-class homeowners who were well educated.
Single-Payer Action at Austin City Hall
SAHNC joined Healthcare for All Texas in a rally at the City Hall in Austin at noon on May 30. This coincided with a national day of action for Healthcare-Now. Participants demanded to be heard in the national debate on healthcare, expressing a loud and clear message to Washington that Texans are not content to let Senator Baucus turn our healthcare over to the medical/industrial complex. Altogether about 150 people took part in the rally.
Read here for more from Progressive Democrats of America.
Click here to read coverage by News 8 Austin.
Click here to view photos.
Single-payer ads featuring Mike Farrell of MASH
Mike Farrell, the renowned MASH star, made five ads promoting single-payer as "Medicare for All" and urging viewers to click on the video to send a fax to Congress and the White House. SAHNC contributed $100 to the campaign to keep these ads on the air. More than 44,000 faxes have been sent as a result of these ads. View the ads here.
SAHNC members march on Washington
The next day, 1,000 activists marched from the Washington Court Hotel up New Jersey Avenue to the Capitol, led by a New Orleans jazz band. A single-payer solidarity rally in front of the Senate building lasted two hours. Among the speakers were actor Mike Farrell, Senator Bernie Sanders, Congressman John Conyers, Congressman Eric Massa, several doctors, nurses, and labor leaders, and the famous "Baucus 13" who had been arrested in the Senate Finance Committee hearings. (Amy Goodman calls this group the "raucous Baucus caucus.") The rally was sponsored by the California Nurses Association, Physicians for a National Health Program, Healthcare-Now, and Progressive Democrats of America.
SAHNC members Diana Pirzada, Vibeke Mendonca-Lee and Diane Kilby took part in the rally, and then headed into the lion's den, the office of our own Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, whom they saw walking into a hearing room just as they arrived. The senator's healthcare aide politely assured them that the senator is most concerned about the deplorable state of healthcare in Texas. Next they visited the office of Congressman Ciro Rodriguez, who was out of the office, but they spent a half hour educating a young policy aide on healthcare. They left packets of information, but doubt that the packets would be seen by anyone but the staffers. Yet the Capitol office buildings were swarmed with nurses in red scrubs and doctors in white labcoats.
Click here for more photos.
See Billl Moyers' outstanding report on the Washington rally and discussion of single-payer with Donna Smith of Progressive Democrats of America.
A Single-Payer Advocate's Open Letter to President Obama
Dear President Obama,
I campaigned for you and I voted for you, but I am starting to become impatient and slightly disillusioned. I want to underscore that I am not impatient because you haven't yet implemented healthcare reform (or education reform or any other kind of reform) in your first 100 days. The people who criticize you for not having already accomplished those things are ignorant and preposterous. I am impatient because of the disingenuous verbal tap-dancing of your responses when you're asked about single-payer healthcare. In plain English, your answers are lame. (And I thought that you were supposed to be a good dancer....)
I am a strong supporter of a single-payer healthcare program for the United States. Like you, I lived outside of the United States when I was growing up, and I experienced and learned from other cultures and other traditions: an invaluable upbringing, as you well know. I maintain my relationships with family and friends who live overseas, and I visit these people frequently. I have seen and continue to see first-hand the enormous benefits to a country that a universal, single-payer healthcare plan can bring.
In your Internet town hall you mention our current "legacy" of commercial, for-profit heatlthcare, which is managed by private insurance companies and acquired through employment. (Please don't forget that this malignant healthcare system of ours gobbles up $400 billion each year.) You say that the population of this country is too "used to" this system, and that the system therefore must not be changed. Are you kidding? I must tell you that this is the first time in all the times I've listened to you speak that I have heard you make a blatantly stupid statement.. Please don't tell me that you're about to go stupid on us.
I am outraged by your use of the word "legacy" in this context. Have you forgotten that this country has a legacy of slavery? Some "legacies" are really not so great. Some "legacies" need to disappear.
You talk about building on "what we already have." Well, here is what we have. We have a system of Medicare in place which has worked fairly well for the past 40+ years. To convert to universal single-payer healthcare, all we need to do is expand Medicare to everyone and make only some minor revisions. Most of the for-profit, healthcare-as-a-commodity medical insurance companies would simply have to find other, truly productive lines of work, work which would provide real, substantive services to the people of our country.
Please keep in mind that Medicare was signed into law in 1965 and was pretty much up and running a year later. Prior to 1965 we didn't have a system like Medicare "upon which to build." Puh-leeze! With these arguments you would never have gotten through college, let alone law school. (And then where would we all be?)
Another thing: I know a little about the medical profession. Please don't continue to wave "medical technology" before our noses and tout it as a meaningful answer to our healthcare crisis. I agree that we need to have medical records which are electronically accessible. But this is a long, expensive process, and there are patient confidentiality issues involved which will take a while to be properly addressed. The answer to our healthcare problem does not lie in electronic medical records.
Most of the people in this country who are knowledgeable about the workings of the U.S. healthcare system (physicians, nurses and other hospital workers) are largely supporters of a universal, single-payer healthcare program for the United States. Why won't you listen to these people and support them? Why won't you support us?
President Obama, this really is our time. If you don't fix healthcare in the United States and fix it well, it's unlikely that the chance will come again. And if healthcare isn't fixed, the United States will continue its moral, financial and social decline, never to have achieved the glory that so many of our ancestors dreamed of when they came here.
Please don't miss this moment because of a bunch of greedy insurance and pharmaceutical companies. That would really be too tragically absurd.
Alice D. Kisch
Emeryville, California
Single-Payer Healthcare May Become Reality in Colorado
In July the Colorado state legislature will vote on The Colorado Guaranteed Health Care Act, which would establish a statewide single-payer system and has a good chance of reaching the governor's desk. Read more about it here.
Sick Around America is No Sequel to Sick Around the World
PBS Frontline promoted its new documentary Sick Around America as a companion to Sick Around the World. It was researched by the same journalist, T. R. Reid, formerly of the Washington Post. But his point of view was as conspicuously absent as Reid himself, who literally was edited out of the picture.
Read about it in the article "Something is Rotten at PBS" and in the author's response to criticism of the article.
Hear about it in an interview with T. R. Reid on CounterSpin (you might skip forward to about a third of the way through the program).
Single-Payer Bill Introduced in the U.S. Senate
On March 25, Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent, Vermont) introduced a single-payer bill, the American Health Security Act of 2009. Single-payer is the most fiscally conservative option for reform, slashing the overhead and bureaucracy of private insurance, while covering all americans and saving an estimated $400 billion per year. Sanders's bill closely parallels HR 1200, which was introduced in the House by Congressman Jim McDermott (D, Washington). It is not, however, a companion bill to HR 676. Read about a comparison of the two bills here.
SAHNC is Represented in Healthcare Panel at St. Mary's University
St. Mary's University held a presidential forum on March 25 on policy issues, including healthcare. The healthcare panel included a doctor from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, a former drug company lobbyist who now owns a healthcare consulting service, and SAHNC co-chair Vibeke Mendonca-Lee. The doctor provided a lot of statistics about how money is being wasted in our healthcare system and how patients lack access to primary care because there is a shortage of family practitioners. The healthcare consultant stressed that students are responsible for their own health and should try yoga, that drug companies are good for the country because they help families get medications, and that non-profits are treating people badly and forcing them onto Medicaid. Vibeke spoke about the need for single-payer and about the irony of the derogatory term "socialized medicine." A talking point that resonated with the audience is that our public education system truly is run by the government, but we never speak about "socialized education."
In the evening, SAHNC presented a showing of Sick Around the World, followed by a discussion about our enormously expensive corporate health insurance system and the need for single-payer.
SAHNC Teams Up with San Antonio Central Labor Council
SAHNC members Diana Pirzada, Arthur Valdez and Dr. Byron Tucker addressed the San Antonio Labor Council about the need to push for single-payer. See pictures in our photo album.
HR 676 has been endorsed by 500 unions, 123 central labor councils (including San Antonio), and 39 state AFL-CIOs (including Texas). We need the help of unions in pushing for our legislators representing Bexar County to cosponsor HR 676. In the last Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would not bring HR 676 up for a vote. Meanwhile, AT&T is joining the long list of corporations that are considering cutting employee health benefits. Employer-provided health insurance is increasingly proving to be unviable in a recession economy.
December 14, 2008, Single-Payer Action at "Change is Coming" Healthcare House Parties
President-elect Obama's transition team has encouraged his supporters to participate in house parties to discuss policy issues including healthcare. SAHNC members Vibeke Mendonca and Terri Brito went to a healthcare house party and were delighted to meet two other people who came specifically to advocate the single-payer solution. Vibeke and Terri handed out a summary of HR 676 along with the SAHNC brochure, and invited everyone to join our group. The business standpoint of HR 676, which would reduce the burden on employers, was especially well received.
The house party included single-payer healthcare in its recommendations to the Obama administration. Two more house parties were attended by SAHNC members. One was sponsored by members of MoveOn.org who were very receptive to single-payer. At the other party, attendees were more interested in celebrating Obama's victory than in promoting specific policies.
November 22, 2008, Healthcare Forum at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church
The St. Francis Social Justice Core Team invited SAHNC to participate in a healthcare forum. The forum examined Catholic social teaching and statements of the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops on healthcare, along with how the state of healthcare has changed in Texas and throughout the country. The forum was sparsely attended, with most of those present being members of either the Social Justice Committee or SAHNC.
November 17, 2008, Sick Around the World showing and panel discussion at First Unitarian Universalist Church
More than 40 people watched Sick Around the World and attended a panel discussion on healthcare. It was an engaging discussion with questions and comments addressed to the panel, which included SAHNC representatives Dr. Byron Tucker, Terri Brito, Tom Bell, Jane Cantu, and Vibeke Mendonca. Other members of the panel did not advocate single-payer, one of them being a nurse who reviews claims for an insurance company. Our SAHNC delegation provided expert opinions, even nailing the opposition on several points.
October 19, 2008, COPS-METRO Alliance Legislative Forum
About 450 people attended a forum with Congressmen Charlie Gonzalez and Ciro Rodriguez, three state legislators (Joe Farias, Ruth Jones McClendon, and Joaquin Castro), and two candidates for the state legislature (Frances Carnot and John Garza). The elected officials and candidates were invited to state their positions on the COPS-METRO Alliance agenda concerning job training, immigration, education, taxes, healthcare and disclosure in real estate transactions.
COPS-METRO Alliance calls for expanding the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) from 200% to 300% of the poverty level. Congressmen Rodriguez and Gonzalez support this issue, as did all of the state legislators and candidates. Representatives McClendon and Castro were the most enthusiastic.
The meeting included many members of Protestant and Catholic clergy. SAHNC was represented by co-chair Jane Cantu.
Schwarzenegger vetoes bill on revoking health insurance
The California State Assembly passed AB 1845, a bill that would have required health insurance companies to seek approval from a third party before revoking a customer's policy. The bill was vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Listen to the report on National Public Radio.
SAHNC takes part in COPS Metro workshop in Helotes
The San Antonio Healthcare-Now Coalition joined forces with COPS Metro in a workshop to generate awareness and stimulate discussion and social action without advocating a specific plan for healthcare reform. The presentation was given at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Helotes on October 4, 2008. Other workshops are planned for churches around the city. See the Events page for details!
Healthcare Reform Rally at Houston City Hall
Health Care for All Texas, in conjunction with the Coalition of Working People and the Poor, Physicians for a National Health Program, the Houston Peace and Justice Center and more than 50 other organizations, held a rally for healthcare reform at the Houston City Hall on October 4, 2008. The rally specifically advocated the single-payer approach to solving America's healthcare crisis. See a news clip from the rally.
Die-in Vigil for Healthcare Justice at Milam Park
In solidarity with American Patients United, the San Antonio Healthcare Now Coalition held a vigil with a die-in at Milam Park on September 27, 2008 to honor the estimated 22,000 Americans who die each year because they lack health insurance. The vigil coincided with events across the country calling attention to the continuing struggle against America's fragmented, dysfunctional and unjust for-profit healthcare system that routinely cancels policies, denies claims, declares sick people "uninsurable," and creates barriers rather than avenues to health and life.
SAHNC co-chair Frank Valdez opened the program, speaking about our first co-chair, Dr. Cynthia Renee Donahue, who died last year as a result of losing her health insurance when she could no longer work.
Our distinguished guest speaker was Gail Beagle, former congressional aide to the legendary Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez. Gail spoke about her friend Bonnie Terry, who died of cancer last year after losing her job and health insurance. A long-time advocate for single-payer healthcare, Gail gave an inspiring speech as she expressed her anger at the system that failed her dear friend.
Rev. Bryant Livingston of Friendship Baptist Church spoke forcefully about our shattered healthcare system, and honored its victims through prayer.
Numerous participants shared their own health insurance horror stories of lack of coverage and denial of treatment. It is a familiar refrain in a country that pays far more than the rest of the world does for healthcare.
The speeches were underscored with activists lying on the ground to symbolize the casualties of the American health insurance system. None was more fitting than Dr. Byron Tucker, who lay shrouded with the image of a dagger stabbing through a dollar sign.
Co-chair Jane Cantu closed the program with a call to action as we face a ruthless insurance industry and indifferent elected officials.
Perhaps we should add the unresponsive media to that list. Although WOAI sent cameras to film the event, they decided not to run the story. There were more urgent matters in the news that day, such as a cat that looks like Yoda, and how to cover your cleavage with "Chickies." You can let WOAI know what you think about this by sending e-mail to GregDerkowski@woaitv.com.
Also check out our photo album.
Universal healthcare approved by California State Senate, vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger
Senate Bill 840, the California Universal Health Care Act, passed a final vote in the California State Senate, but was vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. SB 840 would guarantee comprehensive health insurance coverage (medical, dental, vision, hospitalization, and prescription drug coverage) to every California resident, preserves patients' right to choose their own doctors and hospitals, and save millions of dollars in health insurance costs that are paid by consumers, taxpayers, employers, and state and local governments.
As State Senator Sheila Kuehl explained, "California needs universal health care because the old health care system is falling apart. SB 840 takes the money we're already spending and uses it more efficiently to cover everyone and to invest in quality improvements. We're wasting a third of our health care dollars on bureaucracy because insurance companies make the system too complicated, premiums are skyrocketing and thousands of Californians are dying every year because of preventable medical errors."
August, September, October, 2008: SAHNC meets with San Antonio City Council members
In an effort to add San Antonio to the growing list of cities endorsing HR 676, SAHNC members are meeting with their city council members and encouraging them to vote for our single-payer resolution. After Jane Cantu spoke on single-payer, Councilwoman Diane Cibrian expressed her approval by nodding, while her constituents applauded.
August 9, 2008, Congressman Conyers and Progressive Democrats of America Call for Stronger Democratic Platform on Healthcare
Congressman John Conyers and Progressive Democrats of America committee members have put together an amendment that would strenghten the Democratic Party platform concerning healthcare. The amendment will be considered at the Democratic National Convention later this month.
While not referring specifically to single-payer healthcare, the amendment calls for "guaranteed health care" (rather than "universal coverage") and includes the phrase "everybody in and no one left out." Click here for further details.
August 7, 2008, Austin City Council endorses HR 676
Affirming that "every person deserves access to affordable, quality health care," the Austin City Council voted 6-0 (with one abstention) to endorse HR 676, the Unites States Health Insurance Act, which would expand and improve Medicare to cover all Americans. By advocating the single-payer approach, Austin joins at least 24 other cities that are calling for passage of HR 676, including Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Louisville, and San Francisco. SAHNC congratulates the Austin chapter of Health Care for All Texas for their work, which was crucial in getting the Austin City Council to support single-payer universal healthcare. SAHNC has set a goal to have the San Antonio City Council endorse HR 676 before December.
July 30, 2008, Medicare Birthday
We celebrated the 46th birthday of Medicare in the office of Congressman Charlie Gonzalez. Even though the Congressman was not there, it was a great meeting. We had a good conversation with his staff, who promised to inform the Congressman of our visit. Among those taking part was expert candle blower Paul McMillian. We had a few security guards who helped us celebrate. One even cut the cake for us!
As the Congressman and his staff are not allowed to accept gifts of any sort, we maintained that the birthday cake was not a gift, but was for the constituents in celebration of Medicare.
We also went to the Maury Maverick Library for the Congress on Your Corner event with Congressman Ciro Rodriguez, who unfortunately could not attend. We spent some time talking with his staff member Ginette Magana, who is willing to meet with us in a more private setting to get more information to take back to Congressman Rodriguez.
There were not many people attending Congress on Your Corner at the library, and as it was held inside the library rather than in the community room, we were limited in what we could do. The library staff set up a small table for our cake next to the Congressman's table, and a SAHNC member took the opportunity to talk about what Medicare is with a group of children of elementary school age and their parents, while serving them cake. We handed out our brochures and established a good relationship with Congressman Rodriguez's staff members, who read the brochures and asked questions.
Click here to view the photo album.
June 19, 2008, National Day of Protest
Activists in a dozen cities across the country led protests against the unconscionable practices of for-profit health insurance companies. On that day, 38,000 insurance executives and their political benefactors held their annual conference in San Francisco. We articulated our demand for emancipation from the profit-driven insurance companies on the same day as the annual celebration of emancipation from slavery.
We were joined by Reggie Cervantes, a 9/11 rescue worker who was featured in SiCKO and accompanied Michael Moore to Cuba. Having lost her health insurance, and dealing with multiple lung ailments, she struggles to provide for her family as well as her own medical needs. Other participants spoke of their own encounters with our for-profit insurance system: denied claims, cancelled policies, and the uniquely American phenomenon of being deemed "uninsurable."
We gathered in front of the Humana building during rush hour: 46 participants, including doctors, nurses, social workers, union officials, and concerned citizens of various occupations. All picketed, chanted, marched, and lent support to the growing movement for single-payer universal healthcare. People driving by on Fredericksburg and Wurzbach honked in support of our demonstration, and accepted our brochure through rolled-down windows. Twenty-five participants signed petitions, taking literature back to their organizations, friends and neighbors.
SAHNC is grateful to the National Nurses Organizing Committee and the California Nurses Association for sponsoring Reggie's visit. We also wish to thank the many nurses and other participants who endured the 101-degree heat.
Our protest received coverage by KENS 5, WOAI 4, Univision, and the San Antonio Current. The Humana security guards kept a watchful eye on our activities, while company spokesperson Russ McLerran issued a statement:
Click here to view the photo album.
Click here to watch Reggie's 11-year-old daughter Lia call for universal healthcare.
Read about the Louisville protest and a one-person protest in Detroit.
U.S. Conference of Mayors Advocates Single-Payer Healthcare
The single-payer movement received a huge endorsement on June 23 when the U.S. Conference of Mayors at their meeting in Miami unanimously approved a resolution introduced by Lois Frankel, Mayor of West Palm Beach (Click here to read Mayor Frankel's resolution).
The resolution calls upon Congress to approve H.R. 676, which would improve and expand Medicare to cover all Americans. It would protect the doctor-patient relationship, allowing patients complete freedom in choosing their healthcare providers, and would cut costs by eliminating bureaucracy.
H.R. 676 would save billions of dollars that local governments are currently spending on employee healthcare. It would free up resources so that cities and counties would not need to resort to cutting vital services (police and fire protection, street maintenance, etc.) or raising local taxes.
SAHNC Ballot Initiative and Texas Democratic Party conventions
The New Public Option: Medicare Buy-in
On March 10, Congressman Alan Grayson introduced H.R. 4789, a four-page bill that would allow any American or legal resident to buy into medicare by paying premiums for coverage. This simple plan is deficit-neutral and requires no tax money. Rates and enrollment procedures would be set by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The bill had 80 cosponsors within two weeks after it was filed, and it is endorsed by the San Antonio Healthcare-Now Coalition as a step toward achieving a national health program of improved Medicare for all Americans. Click here to read the bill.
The 2009 Struggle for Healthcare Reform
- Get Single-Payer Off the Table
- Compromise With Republicans Even Though
Though They Will All Vote No
- Freedom of Speech? Not in the Senate Finance Committee
- Public Option: a Step in the Right Direction?
Senator Baucus is
charging us with "disruption of Congress." We are charging
Senator Baucus with corruption of Congress. We believe we have a
stronger case.
Read about how contributions from the healthcare and health insurance industries have corrupted the Senate Finance Committee, and particularly, Senator Baucus.
Read how much the highest-paid health insurance CEOs are raking in.
The healthcare and health insurance industry spent $1.4 million per day on lobbying.
See a Washington Post graphic showing how many former aides of each Senate Finance Committee member now work as lobbyists representing HMOs, pharmaceuticals and hospitals.
Many of us wondered whether a more achievable goal would be a "public option" under which citizens could choose to buy into national health insurance or to keep their employer-provided insurance. Former DNC chair Howard Dean joined President Obama in pushing for a public option that never materialized. But the co-founders of Physicians for a National Health Program argued vehemently against the public option. (Click here to read about myths and facts concerning the public option.) As many predicted, the healthcare reform that finally passed excluded a public option, leaving us instead with a Massachusetts-style mandate to purchase corporate health insurance. Dr. Flowers wrote in April:
I do not oppose
the public option but I don't support it either. It
will not end the health disparities that are increasing in this
country. It will not make it easier for physicians to provide and
patients to receive care. It will not create significant health savings
or control health costs. In fact, creating a "Connector," mandating
purchase of insurance and trying to regulate insurers, will all add
significant cost.
It is important to support single payer strongly at this point because this leaves the compromise position of a public plan. Nobody begins their negotiations from the compromise position. It has been a mistake to do so, and now we see the result: the public option is being weakened and may be bargained away altogether. And where would that leave us?
I hope that we will all continue to push at this point in the game for a strong publicly-financed healthcare system. And remember that healthcare is a human right. This is a rights-based movement and will require a strong grassroots movement to move forward. The discussion needs to focus on care, not insurance.
It is important to support single payer strongly at this point because this leaves the compromise position of a public plan. Nobody begins their negotiations from the compromise position. It has been a mistake to do so, and now we see the result: the public option is being weakened and may be bargained away altogether. And where would that leave us?
I hope that we will all continue to push at this point in the game for a strong publicly-financed healthcare system. And remember that healthcare is a human right. This is a rights-based movement and will require a strong grassroots movement to move forward. The discussion needs to focus on care, not insurance.
Of course, the public option would have been more expensive than single-payer. Single-payer would save $363 billion per year compared to what Americans are already spending on healthcare. The public option would save only $47 billion per year. Consider how much it costs the average physician to deal with the health insurance companies: more than $68,000 per year! (reported in Health Affairs, May 14, 2009)
| M.D. physician time: | $15,767 |
| Nursing staff: | $21,796 |
| Senior administrator: | $3,522 |
| Clerical staff: |
$25,040 |
| Lawyer and accountant services: | $2,149 |
| Total: | $68,274 |
Even the public option was opposed by Republicans in Congress, some of them worrying that if too many people chose the public option, trusting government more than health insurance corporations when it comes to paying for their healthcare, this could be devastating for the health insurance industry. Among them is our own Senator Cornyn, who said "I believe that a new Washington-run, public plan 'option' will devastate private insurance markets by acting as a competitor." (Could someone please remind us why preserving the corporate health insurance industry should take priority over providing us the healthcare that we are already paying for but not getting?)
Watch as Bill Moyers talks with Dr. Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen and Dr. David Himmelstein of Physicians for a National Health Program about why the single-payer option isn't on the table. And read the article Bill Moyers wrote about it together with his program's senior writer. Watch Bill Moyers' interview with former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (author of Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life) on healthcare reform and other issues.
Many single-payer advocates were willing to go along with the public option so long as single-payer remains a possibility at the state level. Among them was Sheila Kuehl, who authored the single-payer bill passed by the California Assembly and vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger.
Of course, corporate campaign contributions are behind who supports what kind of healthcare reform. See which senators got the most money from HMOs and the pharmaceutical industry in 2008. The key players in Congress have taken single-payer off the table for one main reason: the HMOs and PhRMA have paid them off.
At a town hall in New Mexico, President Obama was asked about single-payer and about Senator Baucus' conflict of interest with all the money that he gets from pharmaceutical companies. Watch as Obama explains how single-payer would work (and the audience cheers) but argues for keeping employer-based health insurance while ignoring the question about Senator Baucus entirely.
Meanwhile, some of the "Baucus 13" who were arrested at the Senate Finance Committee hearings asked him why single-payer was excluded while he was on his way to a meeting at another HMO. Read how Senator Baucus fled from single-payer advocates. He finally did, however, agreet to meet with five proponents of single-payer, though meeting with them is not the same as allowing them to testify before his committee. Perhaps Senator Baucus is weakening because he is getting hammered by his constituents in Montana, where single-payer rallies have been held in six cities? (Read an editorial from a Montana newspaper calling for all viewpoints to be considered.)
In his meeting with single-payer proponents, Senator Baucus admitted that excluding single-payer was probably a mistake, but now claims that it's too late for single-payer. But clearly the real mistake was how a sneering Senator Baucus looked on camera as he called for the single-payer advocates who disrupted his hearing to be arrested. To date, the most effective tactic to promote single-payer has been the civil disobedience by those 13 who had the courage to get arrested at the Senate Finance Committee hearing.
The Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives held the first Congressional hearing on single-payer in decades. Witnesses included Congressman John Conyers (chief sponsor of HR 676), Dr. Marcia Angell (former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine), Walter Tsou (PNHP National Board advisor), Geri Jenkins (co-president of CNA/NNOC) and an opponent of single-payer, David Gratzner of the Manhattan Institute, who looked quite foolish when grilled by Congressman Dennis Kucinich. The entire video and transcript are available here (Conyers at 7:50, Jenkins at 22:37, Tsou at 29:15, Angell at 40:24, Congressman Phil Hare at 1:11:16, Kucinich at 1:19:32, total length 1:41:54).
The Congressional Progressive Caucus, which includes about a third of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, heard a presentation on why single-payer will work but the public option will not, but was hostile to the idea of a point-by-point comparison.
In June, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler gave testimony on single-payer to the House Ways and Means Committee. Also, the national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, Dr. Quentin Young gave testimony on single-payer to the Energy and Commerce Committee. Senator John Rockefeller released a report on how insurers are forcing their customers to pay billions of dollars in medical costs that the insurers should have paid.
In the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Wendell Potter, former head of corporate communications at CIGNA, gave testimony on how the insurance industry is contributing to the healthcare crisis. Read Potter's exposé on the health insurance industry practice of "dumping" or "purging" unprofitable corporate accounts, adding millions to the ranks of the uninsured. Watch the interview with Potter on Bill Moyers Journal. Read the essay that Moyers wrote after doing the interview: "America for Sale."
Dr. Bryon Tucker's Presentation on Healthcare Reform
SAHNC steering committee member and PNHP member Dr. Byron Tucker gave a presentation entitled "Healthcare Reform Designed by Physicians for Patients" at the meeting of the San Antonio Area Progressive Action Coalition on Saturday, August 1. The presentation was well attended and well received, as many people expressed their outrage at the actions of health insurance corporations.
Rally to Urge Congressman Gonzalez to Co-Sponsor HR 676
We have spoken with Congressman Charlie Gonzalez numerous times in an effort to persuade him to co-sponsor HR 676, the only viable solution to providing healthcare to all Americans at a price that we can afford. At one point he even told us that it wouldn't matter if we brought a thousand people to his office!
Because we can't fit such a large contingency in his office, we made a house call, "visiting" his home in the Monte Vista neighborhood on June 13. The Congressman was home but chose not to speak with us. (We didn't actually enter his property.) But it's worth pointing out that he received campaign contributions of more than $24,000 from HMOs and more than $21,000 from pharmaceutical companies in 2007-2008, for an election in which his campaign was barely visible, as he faced only nominal opposition. It's clear whose interests he's putting ahead of his constituents in Bexar County who need access to affordable healthcare.
Click here to view photos of the rally.
Medical Bankruptcies On the Rise
A new study shows that more than 3 out of 5 bankruptcies (62.1%) were caused by illness and medical bills in 2007. This is a dramatic increase since 2001, when half of all bankruptcies (49.6%) were for medical reasons. The study found that of those whose bankruptcies were caused by illness or medical bills, 3 out of 4 had health insurance at the time. Most were middle-class homeowners who were well educated.
Single-Payer Action at Austin City Hall
SAHNC joined Healthcare for All Texas in a rally at the City Hall in Austin at noon on May 30. This coincided with a national day of action for Healthcare-Now. Participants demanded to be heard in the national debate on healthcare, expressing a loud and clear message to Washington that Texans are not content to let Senator Baucus turn our healthcare over to the medical/industrial complex. Altogether about 150 people took part in the rally.
Read here for more from Progressive Democrats of America.
Click here to read coverage by News 8 Austin.
Click here to view photos.
Single-payer ads featuring Mike Farrell of MASH
Mike Farrell, the renowned MASH star, made five ads promoting single-payer as "Medicare for All" and urging viewers to click on the video to send a fax to Congress and the White House. SAHNC contributed $100 to the campaign to keep these ads on the air. More than 44,000 faxes have been sent as a result of these ads. View the ads here.
SAHNC members march on Washington
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On Tuesday, May 12, the Senate Finance Committee held its final roundtable on health reform. Once again, single-payer advocates were shut out of the discussion, and some were arrested. All future hearings will be closed to the public. A rally was held outside commemorating the birthday of healthcare activist Florence Nightingale. |
The next day, 1,000 activists marched from the Washington Court Hotel up New Jersey Avenue to the Capitol, led by a New Orleans jazz band. A single-payer solidarity rally in front of the Senate building lasted two hours. Among the speakers were actor Mike Farrell, Senator Bernie Sanders, Congressman John Conyers, Congressman Eric Massa, several doctors, nurses, and labor leaders, and the famous "Baucus 13" who had been arrested in the Senate Finance Committee hearings. (Amy Goodman calls this group the "raucous Baucus caucus.") The rally was sponsored by the California Nurses Association, Physicians for a National Health Program, Healthcare-Now, and Progressive Democrats of America.
SAHNC members Diana Pirzada, Vibeke Mendonca-Lee and Diane Kilby took part in the rally, and then headed into the lion's den, the office of our own Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, whom they saw walking into a hearing room just as they arrived. The senator's healthcare aide politely assured them that the senator is most concerned about the deplorable state of healthcare in Texas. Next they visited the office of Congressman Ciro Rodriguez, who was out of the office, but they spent a half hour educating a young policy aide on healthcare. They left packets of information, but doubt that the packets would be seen by anyone but the staffers. Yet the Capitol office buildings were swarmed with nurses in red scrubs and doctors in white labcoats.
Click here for more photos.
See Billl Moyers' outstanding report on the Washington rally and discussion of single-payer with Donna Smith of Progressive Democrats of America.
A Single-Payer Advocate's Open Letter to President Obama
Dear President Obama,
I campaigned for you and I voted for you, but I am starting to become impatient and slightly disillusioned. I want to underscore that I am not impatient because you haven't yet implemented healthcare reform (or education reform or any other kind of reform) in your first 100 days. The people who criticize you for not having already accomplished those things are ignorant and preposterous. I am impatient because of the disingenuous verbal tap-dancing of your responses when you're asked about single-payer healthcare. In plain English, your answers are lame. (And I thought that you were supposed to be a good dancer....)
I am a strong supporter of a single-payer healthcare program for the United States. Like you, I lived outside of the United States when I was growing up, and I experienced and learned from other cultures and other traditions: an invaluable upbringing, as you well know. I maintain my relationships with family and friends who live overseas, and I visit these people frequently. I have seen and continue to see first-hand the enormous benefits to a country that a universal, single-payer healthcare plan can bring.
In your Internet town hall you mention our current "legacy" of commercial, for-profit heatlthcare, which is managed by private insurance companies and acquired through employment. (Please don't forget that this malignant healthcare system of ours gobbles up $400 billion each year.) You say that the population of this country is too "used to" this system, and that the system therefore must not be changed. Are you kidding? I must tell you that this is the first time in all the times I've listened to you speak that I have heard you make a blatantly stupid statement.. Please don't tell me that you're about to go stupid on us.
I am outraged by your use of the word "legacy" in this context. Have you forgotten that this country has a legacy of slavery? Some "legacies" are really not so great. Some "legacies" need to disappear.
You talk about building on "what we already have." Well, here is what we have. We have a system of Medicare in place which has worked fairly well for the past 40+ years. To convert to universal single-payer healthcare, all we need to do is expand Medicare to everyone and make only some minor revisions. Most of the for-profit, healthcare-as-a-commodity medical insurance companies would simply have to find other, truly productive lines of work, work which would provide real, substantive services to the people of our country.
Please keep in mind that Medicare was signed into law in 1965 and was pretty much up and running a year later. Prior to 1965 we didn't have a system like Medicare "upon which to build." Puh-leeze! With these arguments you would never have gotten through college, let alone law school. (And then where would we all be?)
Another thing: I know a little about the medical profession. Please don't continue to wave "medical technology" before our noses and tout it as a meaningful answer to our healthcare crisis. I agree that we need to have medical records which are electronically accessible. But this is a long, expensive process, and there are patient confidentiality issues involved which will take a while to be properly addressed. The answer to our healthcare problem does not lie in electronic medical records.
Most of the people in this country who are knowledgeable about the workings of the U.S. healthcare system (physicians, nurses and other hospital workers) are largely supporters of a universal, single-payer healthcare program for the United States. Why won't you listen to these people and support them? Why won't you support us?
President Obama, this really is our time. If you don't fix healthcare in the United States and fix it well, it's unlikely that the chance will come again. And if healthcare isn't fixed, the United States will continue its moral, financial and social decline, never to have achieved the glory that so many of our ancestors dreamed of when they came here.
Please don't miss this moment because of a bunch of greedy insurance and pharmaceutical companies. That would really be too tragically absurd.
Alice D. Kisch
Emeryville, California
Single-Payer Healthcare May Become Reality in Colorado
In July the Colorado state legislature will vote on The Colorado Guaranteed Health Care Act, which would establish a statewide single-payer system and has a good chance of reaching the governor's desk. Read more about it here.
Sick Around America is No Sequel to Sick Around the World
PBS Frontline promoted its new documentary Sick Around America as a companion to Sick Around the World. It was researched by the same journalist, T. R. Reid, formerly of the Washington Post. But his point of view was as conspicuously absent as Reid himself, who literally was edited out of the picture.
Read about it in the article "Something is Rotten at PBS" and in the author's response to criticism of the article.
Hear about it in an interview with T. R. Reid on CounterSpin (you might skip forward to about a third of the way through the program).
Single-Payer Bill Introduced in the U.S. Senate
On March 25, Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent, Vermont) introduced a single-payer bill, the American Health Security Act of 2009. Single-payer is the most fiscally conservative option for reform, slashing the overhead and bureaucracy of private insurance, while covering all americans and saving an estimated $400 billion per year. Sanders's bill closely parallels HR 1200, which was introduced in the House by Congressman Jim McDermott (D, Washington). It is not, however, a companion bill to HR 676. Read about a comparison of the two bills here.
SAHNC is Represented in Healthcare Panel at St. Mary's University
St. Mary's University held a presidential forum on March 25 on policy issues, including healthcare. The healthcare panel included a doctor from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, a former drug company lobbyist who now owns a healthcare consulting service, and SAHNC co-chair Vibeke Mendonca-Lee. The doctor provided a lot of statistics about how money is being wasted in our healthcare system and how patients lack access to primary care because there is a shortage of family practitioners. The healthcare consultant stressed that students are responsible for their own health and should try yoga, that drug companies are good for the country because they help families get medications, and that non-profits are treating people badly and forcing them onto Medicaid. Vibeke spoke about the need for single-payer and about the irony of the derogatory term "socialized medicine." A talking point that resonated with the audience is that our public education system truly is run by the government, but we never speak about "socialized education."
In the evening, SAHNC presented a showing of Sick Around the World, followed by a discussion about our enormously expensive corporate health insurance system and the need for single-payer.
SAHNC Teams Up with San Antonio Central Labor Council
SAHNC members Diana Pirzada, Arthur Valdez and Dr. Byron Tucker addressed the San Antonio Labor Council about the need to push for single-payer. See pictures in our photo album.
HR 676 has been endorsed by 500 unions, 123 central labor councils (including San Antonio), and 39 state AFL-CIOs (including Texas). We need the help of unions in pushing for our legislators representing Bexar County to cosponsor HR 676. In the last Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would not bring HR 676 up for a vote. Meanwhile, AT&T is joining the long list of corporations that are considering cutting employee health benefits. Employer-provided health insurance is increasingly proving to be unviable in a recession economy.
As
Obama Mulls Healthcare Reform, Single-Payer Advocates Mobilize
President Obama in his speech to the joint session of Congress announced his intention to pass healthcare reform this year, and even the Republicans stood up and applauded. But there is no bipartisan consensus on what that reform should be. Whatever plan Obama pushes forward needs the approval of Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, who has said that single-payer is "off the table."
The White House held a healthcare summit, inviting key players from both parties along with representatives of the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry. The only single-payer supporters who were invited were Congressman John Conyers and Dr. Oliver Fein, president of Physicians for a National Health Program. They were invited only at the last minute, probably to stave off a planned protest at the White House, and were not allowed to speak at the summit.
President Obama held regional healthcare meetings in Dearborn, Michigan (March 12); Burlington, Vermont (March 17); Des Moines, Iowa (March 23); Greensboro, North Carolina (March 31); and Los Angeles, California (April 6). As the specific of Obama's healthcare reform package are worked out, single-payer needs to be at the table, not off the table. At the first forum, in Dearborn, single-payer advocates had a strong presencce, which is the likely reason why the single-payer perspective was excluded from all the subsequent forums, just as it had been at the White House forum, where Congressman Conyers and Dr. Fein of Physicians for a National Program were allowed to attend but not make a statement. Outside each regional healthcare forum, single-payer advocates held protest rallies.
Read Amy Goodman's article "Put Single-Payer on the Table."
Organize for Change (San Antonio Community Organizers)
Organize for Change is a group that meets on the second Thursday and fourth Sunday of each month at 6:30 pm at the office of the San Antonio Area Progressive Action Coalition (SAAPAC), 7122 San Pedro between Rampart and Sprucewood, across the street from Dollar Tree. Organize for Change is a continuation of the Obama house parties that began in December, and consists of three focus groups dedicated to reform of education, the environment, and healthcare. Several SAHNC members have been attending regularly and found it not difficult at all to get the entire group to support single-payer.
On February 28 and March 28 at the SAAPAC office we showed the PBS Frontline video Sick Around the World, followed by an engaging discussion of our nation's healthcare crisis, the political climate, and the possiblities for reform. We plan to show this video around the city in the next few months. Our goals are (1) to educate people about the real problems with the current system while providing information about single-payer as a rational, practical solution, and (2) to ask people to join us in a demonstration later this year to let our do-nothing legislators know that we demand action from them.
Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care
Several national organizations including Healthcare-Now, the California Nurses Association / National Nurses Organizing Committee, Progressive Democrats of America, and Physicians for a National Health Program have teamed up with dozens of local and statewide organizations to form a nationwide alliance to promote single-payer healthcare and advocate for HR 676. This alliance, the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care, is holding briefings that target members of Congress and their staff. The briefing in January that promoted HR 676 was attended by a representative of Congressman Charlie Gonzalez's office.
As Congress is starting to view the ill-conceived Massachusetts plan as a model for national reform, the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care presented the forum "National Lessons from State Health Reform: The Massachusetts Case Study" on February 25. The only Congressional offices representing Texas who sent staff members to attend this forum were the offices of Congressman Charlie Gonzalez (D-San Antonio), Congressman Ted Poe (R-Beaumont) and Congresswoman Kay Granger (R-Fort Worth). Click here to watch the video of this forum online.
January 19, MLK March
In this year's MLK Commemoration, SAHNC marched alongside the National Nurses Organizing Committee, carrying signs advocating healthcare reform and specifically advocating the single-payer approach of Medicare for All. This was a fitting way both to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., while increasing awareness of health insurance reform in the present day.
See photos from this year's march.
President Obama in his speech to the joint session of Congress announced his intention to pass healthcare reform this year, and even the Republicans stood up and applauded. But there is no bipartisan consensus on what that reform should be. Whatever plan Obama pushes forward needs the approval of Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, who has said that single-payer is "off the table."
The White House held a healthcare summit, inviting key players from both parties along with representatives of the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry. The only single-payer supporters who were invited were Congressman John Conyers and Dr. Oliver Fein, president of Physicians for a National Health Program. They were invited only at the last minute, probably to stave off a planned protest at the White House, and were not allowed to speak at the summit.
President Obama held regional healthcare meetings in Dearborn, Michigan (March 12); Burlington, Vermont (March 17); Des Moines, Iowa (March 23); Greensboro, North Carolina (March 31); and Los Angeles, California (April 6). As the specific of Obama's healthcare reform package are worked out, single-payer needs to be at the table, not off the table. At the first forum, in Dearborn, single-payer advocates had a strong presencce, which is the likely reason why the single-payer perspective was excluded from all the subsequent forums, just as it had been at the White House forum, where Congressman Conyers and Dr. Fein of Physicians for a National Program were allowed to attend but not make a statement. Outside each regional healthcare forum, single-payer advocates held protest rallies.
Read Amy Goodman's article "Put Single-Payer on the Table."
Organize for Change (San Antonio Community Organizers)
Organize for Change is a group that meets on the second Thursday and fourth Sunday of each month at 6:30 pm at the office of the San Antonio Area Progressive Action Coalition (SAAPAC), 7122 San Pedro between Rampart and Sprucewood, across the street from Dollar Tree. Organize for Change is a continuation of the Obama house parties that began in December, and consists of three focus groups dedicated to reform of education, the environment, and healthcare. Several SAHNC members have been attending regularly and found it not difficult at all to get the entire group to support single-payer.
On February 28 and March 28 at the SAAPAC office we showed the PBS Frontline video Sick Around the World, followed by an engaging discussion of our nation's healthcare crisis, the political climate, and the possiblities for reform. We plan to show this video around the city in the next few months. Our goals are (1) to educate people about the real problems with the current system while providing information about single-payer as a rational, practical solution, and (2) to ask people to join us in a demonstration later this year to let our do-nothing legislators know that we demand action from them.
Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care
Several national organizations including Healthcare-Now, the California Nurses Association / National Nurses Organizing Committee, Progressive Democrats of America, and Physicians for a National Health Program have teamed up with dozens of local and statewide organizations to form a nationwide alliance to promote single-payer healthcare and advocate for HR 676. This alliance, the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care, is holding briefings that target members of Congress and their staff. The briefing in January that promoted HR 676 was attended by a representative of Congressman Charlie Gonzalez's office.
As Congress is starting to view the ill-conceived Massachusetts plan as a model for national reform, the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care presented the forum "National Lessons from State Health Reform: The Massachusetts Case Study" on February 25. The only Congressional offices representing Texas who sent staff members to attend this forum were the offices of Congressman Charlie Gonzalez (D-San Antonio), Congressman Ted Poe (R-Beaumont) and Congresswoman Kay Granger (R-Fort Worth). Click here to watch the video of this forum online.
January 19, MLK March
In this year's MLK Commemoration, SAHNC marched alongside the National Nurses Organizing Committee, carrying signs advocating healthcare reform and specifically advocating the single-payer approach of Medicare for All. This was a fitting way both to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., while increasing awareness of health insurance reform in the present day.
See photos from this year's march.
December 14, 2008, Single-Payer Action at "Change is Coming" Healthcare House Parties
President-elect Obama's transition team has encouraged his supporters to participate in house parties to discuss policy issues including healthcare. SAHNC members Vibeke Mendonca and Terri Brito went to a healthcare house party and were delighted to meet two other people who came specifically to advocate the single-payer solution. Vibeke and Terri handed out a summary of HR 676 along with the SAHNC brochure, and invited everyone to join our group. The business standpoint of HR 676, which would reduce the burden on employers, was especially well received.
The house party included single-payer healthcare in its recommendations to the Obama administration. Two more house parties were attended by SAHNC members. One was sponsored by members of MoveOn.org who were very receptive to single-payer. At the other party, attendees were more interested in celebrating Obama's victory than in promoting specific policies.
November 22, 2008, Healthcare Forum at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church
The St. Francis Social Justice Core Team invited SAHNC to participate in a healthcare forum. The forum examined Catholic social teaching and statements of the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops on healthcare, along with how the state of healthcare has changed in Texas and throughout the country. The forum was sparsely attended, with most of those present being members of either the Social Justice Committee or SAHNC.
November 17, 2008, Sick Around the World showing and panel discussion at First Unitarian Universalist Church
More than 40 people watched Sick Around the World and attended a panel discussion on healthcare. It was an engaging discussion with questions and comments addressed to the panel, which included SAHNC representatives Dr. Byron Tucker, Terri Brito, Tom Bell, Jane Cantu, and Vibeke Mendonca. Other members of the panel did not advocate single-payer, one of them being a nurse who reviews claims for an insurance company. Our SAHNC delegation provided expert opinions, even nailing the opposition on several points.
October 19, 2008, COPS-METRO Alliance Legislative Forum
About 450 people attended a forum with Congressmen Charlie Gonzalez and Ciro Rodriguez, three state legislators (Joe Farias, Ruth Jones McClendon, and Joaquin Castro), and two candidates for the state legislature (Frances Carnot and John Garza). The elected officials and candidates were invited to state their positions on the COPS-METRO Alliance agenda concerning job training, immigration, education, taxes, healthcare and disclosure in real estate transactions.
COPS-METRO Alliance calls for expanding the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) from 200% to 300% of the poverty level. Congressmen Rodriguez and Gonzalez support this issue, as did all of the state legislators and candidates. Representatives McClendon and Castro were the most enthusiastic.
The meeting included many members of Protestant and Catholic clergy. SAHNC was represented by co-chair Jane Cantu.
Schwarzenegger vetoes bill on revoking health insurance
The California State Assembly passed AB 1845, a bill that would have required health insurance companies to seek approval from a third party before revoking a customer's policy. The bill was vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Listen to the report on National Public Radio.
SAHNC takes part in COPS Metro workshop in Helotes
The San Antonio Healthcare-Now Coalition joined forces with COPS Metro in a workshop to generate awareness and stimulate discussion and social action without advocating a specific plan for healthcare reform. The presentation was given at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Helotes on October 4, 2008. Other workshops are planned for churches around the city. See the Events page for details!
Healthcare Reform Rally at Houston City Hall
Health Care for All Texas, in conjunction with the Coalition of Working People and the Poor, Physicians for a National Health Program, the Houston Peace and Justice Center and more than 50 other organizations, held a rally for healthcare reform at the Houston City Hall on October 4, 2008. The rally specifically advocated the single-payer approach to solving America's healthcare crisis. See a news clip from the rally.
Die-in Vigil for Healthcare Justice at Milam Park
In solidarity with American Patients United, the San Antonio Healthcare Now Coalition held a vigil with a die-in at Milam Park on September 27, 2008 to honor the estimated 22,000 Americans who die each year because they lack health insurance. The vigil coincided with events across the country calling attention to the continuing struggle against America's fragmented, dysfunctional and unjust for-profit healthcare system that routinely cancels policies, denies claims, declares sick people "uninsurable," and creates barriers rather than avenues to health and life.
SAHNC co-chair Frank Valdez opened the program, speaking about our first co-chair, Dr. Cynthia Renee Donahue, who died last year as a result of losing her health insurance when she could no longer work.
Our distinguished guest speaker was Gail Beagle, former congressional aide to the legendary Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez. Gail spoke about her friend Bonnie Terry, who died of cancer last year after losing her job and health insurance. A long-time advocate for single-payer healthcare, Gail gave an inspiring speech as she expressed her anger at the system that failed her dear friend.
Rev. Bryant Livingston of Friendship Baptist Church spoke forcefully about our shattered healthcare system, and honored its victims through prayer.
Numerous participants shared their own health insurance horror stories of lack of coverage and denial of treatment. It is a familiar refrain in a country that pays far more than the rest of the world does for healthcare.
The speeches were underscored with activists lying on the ground to symbolize the casualties of the American health insurance system. None was more fitting than Dr. Byron Tucker, who lay shrouded with the image of a dagger stabbing through a dollar sign.
Co-chair Jane Cantu closed the program with a call to action as we face a ruthless insurance industry and indifferent elected officials.
Perhaps we should add the unresponsive media to that list. Although WOAI sent cameras to film the event, they decided not to run the story. There were more urgent matters in the news that day, such as a cat that looks like Yoda, and how to cover your cleavage with "Chickies." You can let WOAI know what you think about this by sending e-mail to GregDerkowski@woaitv.com.
Also check out our photo album.
Universal healthcare approved by California State Senate, vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger
Senate Bill 840, the California Universal Health Care Act, passed a final vote in the California State Senate, but was vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. SB 840 would guarantee comprehensive health insurance coverage (medical, dental, vision, hospitalization, and prescription drug coverage) to every California resident, preserves patients' right to choose their own doctors and hospitals, and save millions of dollars in health insurance costs that are paid by consumers, taxpayers, employers, and state and local governments.
As State Senator Sheila Kuehl explained, "California needs universal health care because the old health care system is falling apart. SB 840 takes the money we're already spending and uses it more efficiently to cover everyone and to invest in quality improvements. We're wasting a third of our health care dollars on bureaucracy because insurance companies make the system too complicated, premiums are skyrocketing and thousands of Californians are dying every year because of preventable medical errors."
August, September, October, 2008: SAHNC meets with San Antonio City Council members
In an effort to add San Antonio to the growing list of cities endorsing HR 676, SAHNC members are meeting with their city council members and encouraging them to vote for our single-payer resolution. After Jane Cantu spoke on single-payer, Councilwoman Diane Cibrian expressed her approval by nodding, while her constituents applauded.
August 9, 2008, Congressman Conyers and Progressive Democrats of America Call for Stronger Democratic Platform on Healthcare
Congressman John Conyers and Progressive Democrats of America committee members have put together an amendment that would strenghten the Democratic Party platform concerning healthcare. The amendment will be considered at the Democratic National Convention later this month.
While not referring specifically to single-payer healthcare, the amendment calls for "guaranteed health care" (rather than "universal coverage") and includes the phrase "everybody in and no one left out." Click here for further details.
August 7, 2008, Austin City Council endorses HR 676
Affirming that "every person deserves access to affordable, quality health care," the Austin City Council voted 6-0 (with one abstention) to endorse HR 676, the Unites States Health Insurance Act, which would expand and improve Medicare to cover all Americans. By advocating the single-payer approach, Austin joins at least 24 other cities that are calling for passage of HR 676, including Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Louisville, and San Francisco. SAHNC congratulates the Austin chapter of Health Care for All Texas for their work, which was crucial in getting the Austin City Council to support single-payer universal healthcare. SAHNC has set a goal to have the San Antonio City Council endorse HR 676 before December.
July 30, 2008, Medicare Birthday
We celebrated the 46th birthday of Medicare in the office of Congressman Charlie Gonzalez. Even though the Congressman was not there, it was a great meeting. We had a good conversation with his staff, who promised to inform the Congressman of our visit. Among those taking part was expert candle blower Paul McMillian. We had a few security guards who helped us celebrate. One even cut the cake for us!
As the Congressman and his staff are not allowed to accept gifts of any sort, we maintained that the birthday cake was not a gift, but was for the constituents in celebration of Medicare.
We also went to the Maury Maverick Library for the Congress on Your Corner event with Congressman Ciro Rodriguez, who unfortunately could not attend. We spent some time talking with his staff member Ginette Magana, who is willing to meet with us in a more private setting to get more information to take back to Congressman Rodriguez.
There were not many people attending Congress on Your Corner at the library, and as it was held inside the library rather than in the community room, we were limited in what we could do. The library staff set up a small table for our cake next to the Congressman's table, and a SAHNC member took the opportunity to talk about what Medicare is with a group of children of elementary school age and their parents, while serving them cake. We handed out our brochures and established a good relationship with Congressman Rodriguez's staff members, who read the brochures and asked questions.
Click here to view the photo album.
June 19, 2008, National Day of Protest
Activists in a dozen cities across the country led protests against the unconscionable practices of for-profit health insurance companies. On that day, 38,000 insurance executives and their political benefactors held their annual conference in San Francisco. We articulated our demand for emancipation from the profit-driven insurance companies on the same day as the annual celebration of emancipation from slavery.
We were joined by Reggie Cervantes, a 9/11 rescue worker who was featured in SiCKO and accompanied Michael Moore to Cuba. Having lost her health insurance, and dealing with multiple lung ailments, she struggles to provide for her family as well as her own medical needs. Other participants spoke of their own encounters with our for-profit insurance system: denied claims, cancelled policies, and the uniquely American phenomenon of being deemed "uninsurable."
We gathered in front of the Humana building during rush hour: 46 participants, including doctors, nurses, social workers, union officials, and concerned citizens of various occupations. All picketed, chanted, marched, and lent support to the growing movement for single-payer universal healthcare. People driving by on Fredericksburg and Wurzbach honked in support of our demonstration, and accepted our brochure through rolled-down windows. Twenty-five participants signed petitions, taking literature back to their organizations, friends and neighbors.
SAHNC is grateful to the National Nurses Organizing Committee and the California Nurses Association for sponsoring Reggie's visit. We also wish to thank the many nurses and other participants who endured the 101-degree heat.
Our protest received coverage by KENS 5, WOAI 4, Univision, and the San Antonio Current. The Humana security guards kept a watchful eye on our activities, while company spokesperson Russ McLerran issued a statement:
We believe that all of us—insurers, medical
professionals, our members and patients, elected officials—should work together to find
the best solutions.
It is
encouraging that Humana is calling for dialogue and collaboration, and
we will hold them to their word. But we recognize that talk
is not a substitute for action. We will sit down and talk, but we
will also continue to stand up and protest on behalf of our 9/11 heroes
and for all Americans. This is our patriotic duty.
Click here
to
read the story in the San Antonio Current.
Click here to view the photo album.
Click here to watch Reggie's 11-year-old daughter Lia call for universal healthcare.
Read about the Louisville protest and a one-person protest in Detroit.
U.S. Conference of Mayors Advocates Single-Payer Healthcare
The single-payer movement received a huge endorsement on June 23 when the U.S. Conference of Mayors at their meeting in Miami unanimously approved a resolution introduced by Lois Frankel, Mayor of West Palm Beach (Click here to read Mayor Frankel's resolution).
The resolution calls upon Congress to approve H.R. 676, which would improve and expand Medicare to cover all Americans. It would protect the doctor-patient relationship, allowing patients complete freedom in choosing their healthcare providers, and would cut costs by eliminating bureaucracy.
H.R. 676 would save billions of dollars that local governments are currently spending on employee healthcare. It would free up resources so that cities and counties would not need to resort to cutting vital services (police and fire protection, street maintenance, etc.) or raising local taxes.
SAHNC Ballot Initiative and Texas Democratic Party conventions
In 2007 we worked to get a
non-binding single-payer healthcare referendum on the Democratic
primary ballot throughout Texas. This ballot initiative was
tabled by the party leadership in January 2008 at a meeting of the
State
Democratic Executive Committee without a discussion or vote, despite
our having secured the needed 33 votes for passage. We did not
give up, but instead asked voters to introduce the resolution in
precinct conventions on March 4 so that it would make its way to the
state convention.
Our resolution was approved at county and senatorial district conventions across the state on March 29, and rose to the level of the state convention, where it was approved unanimously by both the temporary resolutions committee and the permanent resolutions committee. While it did not come up for a vote on the convention floor before the convention adjourned, it will be referred to the State Democratic Executive Committee. If approved there, it will be presented to the Texas Democratic Congressional delegation. At the March 29 senatorial district convention in San Antonio, delegates showed strong support by applauding multiple times during the reading of the resolution from the floor.
Click here to read our resolution.
Also at the Texas Democratic Party state convention, Health Care for All Texas sponsored a caucus on single-payer universal healthcare and the Texas Health Insurance Plan. The caucus reviewed the PBS documentary Sick Around the World and made a plea for everyone to get involved in the healthcare reform movement. We were glad to see that Brian Ruiz, Congressional candidate for District 31, an advocate for universal healthcare who had not previously taken a position on the single-payer approach, attended the caucus.
Your support is still needed. Please call or write your Congressional representatives and ask them to endorse H.R. 676 to provide healthcare coverage for all Americans. Let them know that healthcare reform is a priority for you and your family. It is time to strip away the exorbitant insurance and drug company profits and their unconscionable business practices and return healthcare decision-making power back to physicians and patients, not insurance executives.
Our resolution was approved at county and senatorial district conventions across the state on March 29, and rose to the level of the state convention, where it was approved unanimously by both the temporary resolutions committee and the permanent resolutions committee. While it did not come up for a vote on the convention floor before the convention adjourned, it will be referred to the State Democratic Executive Committee. If approved there, it will be presented to the Texas Democratic Congressional delegation. At the March 29 senatorial district convention in San Antonio, delegates showed strong support by applauding multiple times during the reading of the resolution from the floor.
Click here to read our resolution.
Also at the Texas Democratic Party state convention, Health Care for All Texas sponsored a caucus on single-payer universal healthcare and the Texas Health Insurance Plan. The caucus reviewed the PBS documentary Sick Around the World and made a plea for everyone to get involved in the healthcare reform movement. We were glad to see that Brian Ruiz, Congressional candidate for District 31, an advocate for universal healthcare who had not previously taken a position on the single-payer approach, attended the caucus.
Your support is still needed. Please call or write your Congressional representatives and ask them to endorse H.R. 676 to provide healthcare coverage for all Americans. Let them know that healthcare reform is a priority for you and your family. It is time to strip away the exorbitant insurance and drug company profits and their unconscionable business practices and return healthcare decision-making power back to physicians and patients, not insurance executives.