Thursday
Jun112009
Single Payer Health Care Plan On The Table
Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 9:42AM
Single payer health care supporters held a hearing yesterday at the Committee of Education and Labor to testify on the need for health care reform. Those who testified to the committee was U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Geri Jenkins R.N., Walter Tsou M.D., David Gratzer M.D., and Marcia Angell M.D.
"The United States is spending more of our wealth, more of our business firms income, more of our family and individual income on healthcare than any of our industrial competitors anywhere in the world,” said subcommittee chair, Robert Andrews (D-NJ).
Conyers is proposing a bill entitled “The United States Health Care Act” that would “establish a non-profit, publicly-financed, privately-delivered health care system that would ensure that all Americans have meaningful access to the medical provider of their choice,” he said. The legislation would ensure that 3.5 percent of an individual's income would go towards a single payer fund and that the system would not be government-run, meaning that individuals would still be able to choose their own physicians, Conyers said.
But, “creating a new one-size-fits-all health care system modeled on Medicare is a recipe for disaster,” said Rep. John Kline (R-MN), senior Republican for the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions.
Panelist Dr. David Gratzer, opposes single payer healthcare in the U.S. “I was born and raised in Canada...I grew up under socialized medicine and I understand why people would believe in the single-payer system...I changed my mind because I saw the reality [of a single payer system]. Cancer outcomes are better in the United States than they are in Canada, survival rates are better for low birth rate children, even the income in equity health gradient is better than in the United States. ”
Canada currently has a publicly funded health care system with most services provided by the private sector.
When the panel was asked how a single-payer health care system would stimulate the economy, Jenkins described a recent economic study that was done by her and her colleagues: “We not only found that a single-payer system would create a net gain of 2.6 million jobs, it would increase business and public revenues by $317 billion. An additional employee compensation would be another $100 billion which would generate an another $44 billion in tax revenues.”
"The United States is spending more of our wealth, more of our business firms income, more of our family and individual income on healthcare than any of our industrial competitors anywhere in the world,” said subcommittee chair, Robert Andrews (D-NJ).
Conyers is proposing a bill entitled “The United States Health Care Act” that would “establish a non-profit, publicly-financed, privately-delivered health care system that would ensure that all Americans have meaningful access to the medical provider of their choice,” he said. The legislation would ensure that 3.5 percent of an individual's income would go towards a single payer fund and that the system would not be government-run, meaning that individuals would still be able to choose their own physicians, Conyers said.
But, “creating a new one-size-fits-all health care system modeled on Medicare is a recipe for disaster,” said Rep. John Kline (R-MN), senior Republican for the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions.
Panelist Dr. David Gratzer, opposes single payer healthcare in the U.S. “I was born and raised in Canada...I grew up under socialized medicine and I understand why people would believe in the single-payer system...I changed my mind because I saw the reality [of a single payer system]. Cancer outcomes are better in the United States than they are in Canada, survival rates are better for low birth rate children, even the income in equity health gradient is better than in the United States. ”
Canada currently has a publicly funded health care system with most services provided by the private sector.
When the panel was asked how a single-payer health care system would stimulate the economy, Jenkins described a recent economic study that was done by her and her colleagues: “We not only found that a single-payer system would create a net gain of 2.6 million jobs, it would increase business and public revenues by $317 billion. An additional employee compensation would be another $100 billion which would generate an another $44 billion in tax revenues.”
Reader Comments (5)
http://www3.capwiz.com/c-span/home/
Go here... enter your zip code and send on email to all of you federal and state representatives.
Tell them you support HR 676 (single payer health care for all) and that anyone who does not will not get your vote in the next election. Then tell everyone you know to do the same and to pass this information along.
This takes 30 seconds to do, so please don't pass on this.
This is an interesting article. The debate about healthcare reform needs to begin incorporating facts about the different options (including single-payer models), rather than knee-jerk, hair-on-fire reactions to anything but the current, badly-broken system. Though this is only one voice, it does at least attempt to bring some rationality into the discussion of the Canadian system:
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_12523427
give us single payer health rerorm, take profits out of OUR HEALTH, why do we the citizens pay for congress to have health care so they can turn around give our money to private heath insurance companys????
Thank you for the link that makes it so easy to send a message to all my elected officials. I was looking for something just like that.
[...] Single Payer Health Care Plan On The Table - Talk Radio News Service - Single payer health care supporters held a hearing yesterday at the Committee of Education and Labor to testify on the need for health care reform. Those who testified to the committee was U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Geri Jenkins … [...]