As we go into Denver, here’s a look at where we are in the fight for Guaranteed Healthcare, courtesy of America’s RN Union—the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee—which is working closely with the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) to unify party support for HR 676, the bill to end our healthcare crisis through an expanded and improved "Medicare for All."
I’ll sum it up: among Democrats at least, there now seems to be a common vision of guaranteed healthcare, as memorialized in the platform.
At the same time, the movement has to deal with lobbyist-driven fake reform groups undermining the national desire for genuine reform, and with a healthcare crisis that is worse than ever. On a national stage, Conyers’ bill HR 676 continues to gather support, while Obama repeats that he would support single-payer, if he were starting from scratch.
What do you think about the landscape? PDA and CNA/NNOC will be in Denver all week advocating for better healthcare--come say hi, or, heck, contact your member of Congress and tell them to get onboard with HR 676!
- Common vision: Guaranteed Healthcare in the Democratic platform
The Democratic party platform drafters were faced with hundreds of delegate signatures gathered by PDA in support of guaranteed healthcare in the Dem platform.
They did what any political body has to do: gave in to activist demands. There in lies a lesson for the single-payer movement, actually two lessons--healthcare reform won’t come thanks to politicians, it will come because the American people make their voice louder than the insurance lobby’s. But, secondly, the conversation has changed. Everyone now agrees we need guaranteed healthcare. The debate is just over how to get there; it's a question of tactics not strategy. That is a great advance for progressive health reformers, because our as dozens of others industrialized democracies have proven, the way to quality healthcare is through universal, non-profit health coverage, also known as the single-payer system.
Norman Solomon of PDA writes:
Locally and nationally, it's worth noting, the momentum grew among Obama and Clinton delegates alike. This was in keeping with the vast majority of views on health-care policy that emerged at platform-related forums held this summer here.
Yet, at the national Platform Drafting Committee meeting in Cleveland at the start of August, the official reception was a bit frosty. When I arrived there early one morning and renewed a longstanding request for a minute or two to make a verbal presentation on behalf of the statement for guaranteed health care, the party's national platform director informed me candidly: "It's not going to happen."
But grassroots organizing continued.
By the time the full Platform Committee met in Pittsburgh on Aug. 9, nearly 500 delegates had signed our statement. And suddenly the logjam broke. Before the end of the day, AP reported that the official platform draft "commits the party to guaranteed health care for all."
And the day when we implement health care as a human right in the United States came a little closer.
And, shoot, even Republicans support single-payer reforms now. (I can also tell you that Republican RNs have long supported single-payer healthcare, no matter how conservative they are on other issues.)
- Fake Reform Threatens Patients
Everybody and their cousin is joining a healthcare coalition—good, bad, or indifferent. This seems like evidence . Here’s a particularly scary one: The National Federation of Small Businesses, the American Hospital Association, and Families USA have released new Harry & Louise ads, that were wildly cheered by AHIP, the health insurer lobbyist. That’s calling selling fake reform—and, as one nurse recently put it, this kind of placebo hurts patients.
One blogger explains:
The sponsors of the new Harry and Louise ads are promoting not only less regulation of the health insurance industry, they want the government to subsidize it by paying the premiums for the high-risk persons that the industry would otherwise either not insure or charge unbearable rates. They are trying desperately to maintain their throttlehold on health care financing. As one ad sponsor, the National Federation of Independent Business, states, "To the greatest extent possible, Americans should receive their health insurance and healthcare through the private sector. Care must be taken to minimize the extent to which government safety nets crowd out private insurance and care."
Obviously, Families USA and AHIP and the "surrender first" crowd should all be ashamed. But this will at least serve as a wake-up call for progressive health reformers to get their messages sharper.
The good news is that AHIP was too ashamed to actually show up in Denver—they were just there virtually. They are pariahs!
- It’s getting worse, quickly
Per the Commonwealth Fund via the Washington Post: "Two-thirds of the working-age population was uninsured, underinsured, reported a medical bill problem or did not get needed health care because of cost in 2007."
And the Las Vegas Sun states the obvious: the healthcare crisis contributes to our current recession, and threatens our recovery.
- HR 676, John Conyers’ bill for the United States Health Insurance Act still has more co-sponsors than any other health reform bill (91, at last count), and has the support of the healthcare grassroots (including over 450 different labor organizations—most recently, the New York State AFL-CIO.)
- And of course Obama realizes –payer solutions are the best.:
'If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system," Barack Obama told an audience in Albuquerque on Monday.
Our job as health advocates is to both convince him that we are starting from scratch—and to give him political cover he needs to overcome the forces of inertia he cites.