Pro-Single-Payer Physicians Call for Defeat of Senate Health Bill

[StarfarerBill]

by Physicians for National Health Program

WASHINGTON - A national organization of 17,000 physicians who favor a single-payer health care system called on the U.S. Senate today to defeat the health care legislation presently before it and to immediately consider the adoption of an expanded and improved Medicare-for-All program.

While noting that the Senate bill includes some "salutary provisions" like an expansion of Medicaid, increased funding for community clinics and the curbing of some of the worst practices of the private insurance industry, the group says the negatives in the bill outweigh the positives.

The negatives, the group says, include the individual mandate requiring that people buy private insurance policies, large government subsidies to private insurers, new restrictions on abortion, the unfair taxing of high-cost health plans, and cuts of $43 billion in Medicare payments to safety-net hospitals. Moreover, at least 23 million people will remain uninsured when the plan finally takes effect, they said.

"We have concluded that the Senate bill's passage would bring more harm than good," the group said in a statement signed by its president, Dr. Oliver Fein, and two co-founders, Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/22-8

[ima_sinnic]

1. oh, what do THEY know? sheesh stfu you haters, you don't know how the Senate works!

rec'd in honor of the people whose "place at the table" ended up being in a jail cell.

[still_one]

2. As long as the filibuster is in place, can someone tell me how single payer for everyone could have

passed in the current HCR?

[HuckleB]

3. It's what I want.

But I can't see how we can get it through right now.

[still_one]

4. I want it also. I agree Obama it appears that Obama did not try to influence Senators adequately

on the public option or single payer, but I am very skeptical that it would have helped.

Absolutely, he should have tried, but we don't have that much of a majority, and we definitely don't have a progressive majority to even assume that it had a chance

[ima_sinnic]

6. it's a moot point, since it was never even allowed to be discussed

Yes We Can became No We Can't without even the option of considering what it could mean. The "all voices will be heard" BULLSHIT actually meant "all insurance company voices, each insurer, will be heard, and those voices ONLY."

the one-dimensional thinking around here is to be expected, considering the way one-note unoriginal thinkers have kind of taken over. If anybody had been given the opportunity to make a viable case for it, and a platform for answering the distortions, propaganda, misconceptions, and so on--well, we'll never know what might have happened, eh? Let's not even try, b/c those mean old repukes and the fake "democrats" who are licking their asses might not like it!

Defeatism, it's working very well for them.

[still_one]

7. That is really the issue, why weren't all parties allowed at the table? /nt

[ima_sinnic]

9. that is when my confidence & good feeling about Obama started evaporating

when I saw he was going to do NOTHING to make his empty-suit "promise" a reality. His attitude toward single-payer--did he even have an attitude toward it? It was as though he dismissed it without a second thought, the exact same way he did marijuana legalization. He just shrugged it off, without even pretending to be "apologetic" or considering it.

[rateyes]

8. Reconciliation.

And, spine in a majority leader.

[Uncle Joe]

25. I'm looking at it from the opposite point of view, as long as the filibuster is in place how could

government mandated purchasing of private for profit "health" insurance have passed?

This tells me the Republicans; in spite of their "crocodile tears" and protestations to the contrary, consider it a good bill for them and their primary constituents; that being corporations, not the people.

[bvar22]

12. And...and...and....and....

Jane Hampshire is a RACIST!!!1!!
Im SERIES!!!11!!!

[FLAprogressive]

5. But wait a minute, according to toadies we're getting "VERMONT STYLE SINGLE PAYER" in this bill. lol

[bvar22]

15. I saw that.

Hilarious.

They really have run out of material.

And...and...and..and...sputter...spit....
Jane Hampshire is a Racist!!11!!1!!
Im SERIES!!1!!!!

[FLAprogressive]

21. Jane Hampshire once ran around naked screaming the N Word!!1one!!1one! Look it up its a FACT!!!

[Cleita]

10. In the future, the PNHP will be proved to be right, however, I

believe that the only way we will get single payer today is state by state.

[rollingrock]

16. Pelosi killed the Kucinich state single-payer amendment.

at the request of the White House....so that won't be possible either.

so much for change.

[Cleita]

17. There still is a back door in the bill through the Medicaid

improvements that the states can build on.

[rollingrock]

19. Yeah, right

it sounds like wishful thinking to me.

[Cleita]

20. Maybe...but it was being discussed this morning by pundits

who know more about it than me.

[suffragette]

24. I agree and think that's what Sanders was trying

They didn't let him at the moment, but I hope he keeps up the effort.

I think he could be our Tommy Douglas.

I just wish I knew how to help him get there.

[Karmadillo]

11. Wait until the media hear about this. 17000 physicians. Wow! We'll have this story 24/7.

One cannot help but love the marketplace of ideas at work. Go Truth!

[fascisthunter]

13. what do physicians know anyways

it's like climatologists telling us Global Warming was caused by man....:sarcasm:

[Echo In Light]

14. You no-good-nik conspiracy theorist, you!

ha

[fascisthunter]

18. .

:evilgrin:

[FLAprogressive]

22. These physicians don't know anything, because according to a DKos Diarist -- we're getting

VERMONT STYLE SINGLE PAYER.

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

23. Kick

[Vidar]

26. K&R.