Street roots
Nov. 23, 2012
The health care debate isn’t over: Let your voice be heard
BY SAM M ETZ
Can you help Congress create a
single payer system?
C O N T R IB U T IN G C O L U M N IS T
oes the specter of your family going
Let’s review three bill being considered
bankrupt from a disease not covered
right now in Washington.
by your health insurance keep you
HR 676, the Expanded & Improved
staring sleeplessly at the ceiling? Have you
Medicare for All Act, introduced in the
lost hope that our country will ever get the
House by Rep. John Conyers, would create
health care system we need?
America’s first nationwide single-payer
There is a solution, and you can make it
system. Unfortunately, none of its 76
happen.
co-sponsors are Oregonians. Let’s correct
It is single-payer health care. Single payer that oversight with vigorous letters from
applies the common characteristics of every
readers urging them to sign on now. For
successful health care system: (1) It
more information, please visit www.
includes everyone without discrimination
healthcare-now. org/ whats-single-payer/
against the sick, (2) it encourages patients
hr-676.
to seek health care at the first suspicion of
Our own Sen. Ron Wyden plus Republican
trouble, andj(3) it finances health care with
Sen. Scott Brown introduced the
publicly accountable, transparent, not-for-
“Empowering States to Innovate Act.” The
profit agencies.
Affordable Care Act prevents states from
D
Samuel Metz is a
Portland
anesthesiologist active
in health carfreform.
He is also a member
o f two organizations
advocating publicly
funded universal
health care: M ad As
Hell Doctors and
Physicians for a
National Health
Plan. He is the local
chapter representative
o f Health Care for All
Oregon, an umbrella
organization o f over
50 groups working
for better health care
in Oregon. He can be
reached at 3Q9A@
samuelmetz.com.
Will single-payer health care
really work?
It already works. Around the world and in
our own country, single-payer systems
provide better care to more people for less
money than our American insurance
industry.
Example: Our Veterans Affairs system
cares for America’s sickest patients with the
best outcomes at the lowest cost with the
highest patient satisfaction in the country.
The VA is a single payer'system.
Example: Almost every large American
corporation abandons private health
insurance and adopts their own single payer
system (called “self-funding”).
Example: Nearly 40 percent of Americans
already receive great health care through
private and public single payer systems
(through corporate self-funded plans, the
VA, Medicare, etc.).
For those still skeptical, there are over 25
economic studies of statewide and
nationwide single-payer proposals. All
conclude single-payer will provide better
care to its patients with better results at
lower cost than any other proposal. There
are no studies concluding single-payer
cannot work.
Many free market advocates still cling to
the desperate hope that the American
private insurance industry will save us by
doing more of what it has done for the past
60 years. This hope is misplaced. Never in
recorded history has an American-style
private insurance system reduced costs or
improved health. Perhaps Neanderthals did
so and simply forgot to write it down - but I
doubt it.
creating any plan other than health
exchanges without a waiver. Currently,
states must wait until 2017 to receive one.
The Wyden-Brown bill moves that date to
2014. For more information, please see the
fact sheet on the Affordable Care Act in the
press section of www.whitehouse.gov.
This is a great time to remind our Sen.
Jeff Merkley to sign as a co-sponsor.
Sen. Bernie Saunders and Rep. Jim
McDermott introduced more powerful
legislation. The American Health Security
Act of 2011 requires every state to create its
own single-payer program. To sweeten the
deal, the bill turns over all federal health
care dollars in the state to the single payer
agency. Every resident then receives
publicly funded health care, prepaid with
both federal and state tax dollars.
This legislation has no co-sponsors in the
Senate and only nine in the House — again,
none from Oregon. Every Oregon senator
and representative should receive letters
from readers encouraging them to sign. To
learn more, please visit the Physicians for
National Health Program website at www.
pnhp.org.
As can be seen, we may have an All-
Chicago World Series before Washington
produces useful legislation.
Does single payer stand a better
chance 3,000 miles away in Oregon?
Yes. In March of 2011, the Oregon House
Health Committee held a hearing on House
Bill 3510, the “Affordable Health Care for
All Oregon Plan” submitted by State Rep.
Michael Dembrow. This hearing attracted
statewide testimony and attention. Although
the bill did not move out of committee, it
gained widespread exposure and was
endorsed by more than 40 organizations.
Rep. Dembrow will resubmit his bill again in
the 2013 legislative session. Wouldn’t it be
great if your state representative knew how
you feel about this bill?
To find out how I feel about the bill,
please see my written testimony at www.
samuelmetz. com/
reference/ 110311testimony.htm.
What can readers do right now? A lot. It’s
time to get fired up.
Step 1: Write!
Write your tate senators and
representatives a simple, three sentence
letter. First - this is how our current health
care system is destroying my life, my family,
my business, or my clients. Second — I want
Oregon to have publicly funded health care.
Last - I want you to make it happen. Then
sign it, “Sincerely, your constituent. PS. If
you want my vote in the next election, you’ll
tell me what you’ll do about it.”
Don’t be shy about writing again in a few
months.
Imagine every legislator in Salem getting
10 letters like that in a week. And every
week after that for the rest of their term. It
certainly gets the message across that
health care reform cannot be ignored.
Step 2: Join!
Join groups working for single-payer
health care. Fortunately, Oregon is blessed
with an exemplary organization: Health
Care for All Oregon (visit www.HCAO.org).
HCAO represents more than 60 Oregon
groups who advocate publicly funded
universal care. I highly recommend readers
visit the site and discover what they can do
personally to make universal care a reality
in Oregon,
Full disclosure: I represent the Portland
Chapter of Physicians for a National Health
Program to HCAO.
Step 3: Don’t accept “No”!
If your state legislator complains they are
helpless, tell them to contact Health Care
for All Oregon. We’ll tell them what they
need to do, and in no uncertain terms.
Oregon legislators cannot ignore their
constituents. Every reader is someone’s
constituent. If you think single-payer health
care in Oregon is vitally urgent, make sure
your state legislator understands this
clearly. Oregon is riding a crest of activism
and we want the waves to wash across the
Capitol floors.
We can make a difference.
We can leave our children a better world.
And we can bring to our families the
health care we need and deserve.
This article is the
last of four to
appear in Street
Roots. If you have
questions about
this essay, you
may find the
previous three to
be helpful. Please
visit streetroots.
wordpress.com.
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A special thanks to all of our volunteers who are helping us tnrougn a Dusy
holiday season. Thank you everyone - you make a world of difference.
Catch up on Dr. Samuel Metz’s series on progressive
moves in health care at www.streetroots.wordpress.com