Our Nation Needs This Balm as Single-Payer Action Surges Forward

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/11/02/our-nation-needs-balm-single-payer-action-surges-forward

Over the past few days, more than 700 people from all over the country came together for the annual single-payer strategy conference. This year, we were in Chicago, my hometown, Of course we shared ideas, successes, concerns, and knowledge about the kind of healthcare reform that might truly give us the best healthcare system in the world through an improved Medicare for all for life model.

The convening groups represented Healthcare-NOW, the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer Health Care, One Payer States, and Physicians for a National Health Program.Leaders from this movement get precious little time to gather face-to-face during the year. There were scores of nurses from all over the country -- New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Texas, California, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and beyond. There were doctors from all over the place. And there were those of us who are patients who have been injured (or might be injured) by our aggressively greedy healthcare system. Labor leaders brought the hopes of their rank and file membership that someday we will actually allow contract bargaining to surround much more than healthcare benefits and costs that have squeezed out other issues like wages, vacation and other leave benefits and so on.

The conference opened with a joint protest at the Blue Cross/Blue Shield building in Chicago. One of the great moments for me was seeing the medical students passionately calling for changes to their chosen profession. It gave me hope for the future and the potential for real change.

But the highlight of the conference for me came in something much less quantifiable but much more powerful -- the balm of knowing that this wonderful nation is filled with compassionate, decent people who believe in the promise of our Declaration of Independence in which we read that all men are endowed by their creator of certain unalienable rights, and that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There can be none of those dearly held rights for Americans when our healthcare system snuffs out any chance for equality and the opportunity to live life to its fullest extent.


A special shout out to National Nurses United for their support of the conference and continued support of the movement to advance single-payer in our states.

We missed those of you who were not with us.

If you would like to check out the conference materials, there is a wiki page at: http://singlepayer2015.wikidot.com/

Ben and Stephanie at Healthcare-NOW will be adding PowerPoints and other documents over the next few days, so even if you missed being with us this time, you will be able to take advantage of a great deal of our work.

If you would like to get a feel for the conference, I have written a blog that you may wish to read and/or share. And if others have photos or other writings, I urge you to share them on the Wiki page or send them to Ben and Stephanie (emails above) so that they may post them

http://donnasicko.blogspot.com/2015/11/our-nation-needs-this-balm-as-single.html

or if you wish to read this on Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/11/02/our-nation-needs-balm-single-payer-action-surges-forward

Finally, we screened the terrific new documentary film, Fix It: Healthcare at the Tipping Point (.
http://fixithealthcare.com/) Most of those who attended left with a DVD and/or thumb drive with a trailer, a shortened 38-minute version of the film, and the full 58-minute film ready to be used to do outreach to your business community. The demand for the film was so high that all of the copies the Fix It team brought (more than 500) were handed out in Chicago, and we took down the names and contact information for many, many more to be sent along.

If you did not get a copy, you did not leave your information with us or if you need assistance with your outreach plan, please let us know. We will also be spending some time on the November OPS call with strategies and suggestions for connecting with the business community using this great new tool.

Thank you to all who attended and all who continue to make OPS a great way to connect with other state single-payer activists.

[Recursion]

1. Of course providers support single-payer. It locks in their absurdly high prices

We can't even get Congress to limit Medicare payment rates to what has actually been written into law for 20 years now.

Providers love single payer because it makes them a lot of money. But providers are the problem. They are charging too much. Costs have to come down first.

Physicians in France earn on average half of what physicians in the US do. Physicians in Germany are quite literally maxed out at about $86,000 per year.

[eridani]

2. It most assuredly does not. Capital and operating budgets will be set yearly by negotiation

BTW, what if people going to free clinics need to go to the hospital?