Senator Sanders to Push for Single-Payer Vote in Senate

[Better Believe It]

Sanders to Push for Single-Payer Vote in Senate
By Daniel Barlow
CommonDreams.org
October 29, 2009

MONTPELIER - U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders will likely make history this year when - for the first time ever - he brings a bill creating a national single-payer health care system to the floor of the Senate for a vote.

As a compromise on a public-option plan that would allow states to opt out gains steam in the U.S. Senate, Sanders, a Vermont independent, continues to focus his attention on a single-payer bill, although he acknowledges that there are not enough votes to pass it.

Introduced in the early spring, Sanders' American Health Security Act of 2009 would eliminate the role of private insurance companies in health care and create a public fund that would insure all residents of the United States.

Sanders said his bill would insure the 46 million Americans without coverage and could save upwards of $400 million annually by eliminating insurance overhead and medical bureaucracy.

Sanders' bill has received little attention in Washington political circles as this summer's health-care debate focused more on discredited fears of government death panels and the cost of a public health insurance option, which President Obama favors.

There has never been a vote on a single-payer health care system in either the U.S. Senate or the House, according to Mark Almberg, communications director for the organization Physicians for a National Health Program, a national advocacy organization that supports a single-payer system.

"We do believe that this could be the first time a single-payer bill gets a vote in Congress," said Almberg, whose organization supports Sanders' bill.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/in-the-news/2009/october/sanders-to-push-for-single-payer-vote-in-senate.html

[kestrel91316]

1. Go Bernie!!! It won't pass, of course, but we have to keep the pressure on.

I hope I live to see the day when medical care is truly a birthright in the US.

[Tesha]

2. I wish Bernie (instead of Jeannie) was my Senator! (NT)

[Rambis]

3. This is the only thing I will support in the "health care debate"

until we get the money out and the cost off the backs of employers I don't want to speak about it.