Single-payer health reform bill introduced in Senate

[biopowertoday]

WE need to make LOTS of Noise--get your congresscritters attention.



<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=OG6ZVhPXoexKL2oqnIKL6SyvNoBYpxRN>


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contacts:

March 26, 2009 Quentin Young, M.D., [phone]
Mark Almberg, [phone],
cell: [phone], [e-mail]

Single-payer health reform bill introduced in Senate

Would save $400 billion on bureaucracy, enough to cover all 46 million uninsured Americans

Challenging head-on the powerful private insurance and pharmaceutical industries, Vermont's Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a single-payer health reform bill, the American Health Security Act of 2009, in the U.S. Senate Wednesday. The bill is the first to directly take on the powerful lobbies blocking universal health reform in the Senate since Sen. Paul Wellstone's tragic death.

The single-payer approach embodied in Sanders' new bill stands in sharp contrast to the reform models being offered by the White House and by key lawmakers like Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). Their plans would preserve a central role for the private insurance industry, sacrificing both universal coverage and cost containment during the worst economic crisis since the Depression.

In contrast, Sanders' new legislation would cover all of the 46 million Americans who currently lack coverage and improve benefits for all Americans by eliminating co-pays and deductibles and restoring free choice of physician. The most fiscally conservative option for reform, single payer slashes private insurance overhead and bureaucracy in medical settings, saving over $400 billion annually that can be redirected into clinical care.

"This is excellent news for the nation's health," said Dr. Quentin Young, national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program and a past president of the American Public Health Association. "There is now an affordable cure for our dysfunctional health care system. In the face of our present economic calamity, this is an urgent necessity."

Highlights of the bill include the following:


* Patients go to any doctor or hospital of their choice..................

[avaistheone1]

1. I like this bill and particularly the highligh that patients can go to any

doctor or hospital of their choice. Very convenient and patient friendly approach that many plans did not address.

Thank you, Senator Sanders.

Please go viral with this and share.

:kick:

[Hieronymus]

3. Single payer is the only way to go... this plan sounds great....

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/08/11/frances_model_healthcare_system/

[Thrill]

5. People will finally see the reality. Which is there isn't much support for it in the Senate

Which is why Obama isn't even going to try that route.

[Hieronymus]

9. Yes, our senators are getting huge contributions from the insurance

and pharmaceutical industries.

[Cleita]

2. K&R

[biopowertoday]

4. Now the work begins for all of us (we have one in the

House and the Senate now). It is not a wait and see game like so many here have said. We have to be verbal about this and push for it.

[mvd]

6. K&R

I must say I'm a little disappointed with Ted on this issue. I only see a couple people in all of Congress that are ideologically like me.

[Faryn Balyncd]

10. Does it look to you like our Senators are acting like corporate lobbyists?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5348785

[Exilednight]

7. This bill is reform, but it's not a true single payer system. Single payer is when .........

when everyone pays into the same system and receives the same medical coverage.

On the flip side, I'll take what we can get and this a good first step in that direction.

[lunatica]

8. Call me nitpicky but since when is 47 million and universal one and the same

I'd like to not have to pay to keep my mother covered for health care except indirectly through taxes. And I'm sure a family of four would like to know everyone of them can go to a doctor and get good health care without having to pay out thousands of dollars a month because, well, just in case.

Universal should be for everyone. Every single human being in the country.

[Hieronymus]

11. I called Boxer and left a message. Pelosi's message box is full .. I hope with

requests for single payer health care.