Single-Payer Advocates Win Seats at White House Health Summit: Dr. Oliver Fein's Prepared Remarks

[Better Believe It]

Physicians For National Health Program
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 5, 2009
3:10 PM

Single-Payer Advocates Win Seats at White House Health Summit
Dr. Oliver Fein releases prepared remarks

WASHINGTON - March 5 - Two leading advocates of single-payer health reform, sometimes characterized as an improved Medicare for All, received last-minute invitations to attend the White House health care summit being held today. The invitations were greeted as a victory by single-payer supporters.

Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), chief sponsor of the single-payer U.S. National Health Care Act, H.R. 676, was invited to attend the meeting late in the day on Tuesday, and Dr. Oliver Fein, president of Physicians for a National Health Program, was invited on Wednesday afternoon.

The White House invitations were extended to the two leaders after intense grassroots lobbying efforts by single-payer supporters, who were concerned that no single-payer voices would be present at the meeting. The efforts included an outpouring phone calls and e-mail messages to the White House, along with a threatened demonstration outside the White House gates by doctors and other health professionals wearing their white coats. The demonstration was called off when word arrived that Rep. Conyers and Dr. Fein had been invited.

In his prepared remarks, the full text of which follows, Dr. Fein says, "We are pleased to be here today and appreciate the implicit recognition of the majority support for single payer in our country. We hope this is the beginning of a serious dialogue on how to enact single-payer health reform and we look forward to working with and the Congress toward this end."

Dr. Fein's prepared remarks for the summit follow.

Prepared remarks by Dr. Oliver Fein
Mr. President, Physicians for a National Health Program agrees with your statement during your presidential campaign: health care should be a basic human right.

Physicians recommend an improved and expanded Medicare-for-All - that is, a single-payer national health insurance program, providing care that is publicly financed but largely privately delivered. This fundamental health reform - which enjoys solid majority support among physicians and the public - has become even more urgently needed in view of our severe economic recession.

Millions of people are losing their employer-sponsored health insurance, joining the 46 million who already lack coverage. Millions more, including those with insurance, are finding it harder to pay their co-pays and deductibles and are scrimping on their medications and doctor visits. Many go without care, risking their health and often their very lives.

Physicians find that private, for-profit health insurance companies add cost but no value to the health care system. The administrative waste associated with the private-insurance-based industry - enormous paperwork, marketing costs, and other costs that have nothing to do with delivering care - consumes 31 cents of every health care dollar.

As long as we rely on private health insurers, universal coverage will be unaffordable.

Mandates to buy private insurance are not the answer. Experience with mandate plans in Washington state (1993), Oregon (1992) and Massachusetts (1988 and today), shows they simply don't work, achieving neither universal health care nor cost containment.

Some of these plans offer a Medicare-like, public option that people could buy into, but experience with Medicare shows that the private plans refuse to compete on a level playing field. They cherry-pick healthier patients and insist on more than their share of payment.

In contrast, single payer guarantees everyone access to comprehensive, quality health care and choice of their own doctor and hospital.

Single-payer health reform, an improved Medicare for All, is the only reform model that offers $400 billion in annual savings in administrative costs. It is the only approach that contains effective cost-containment provisions such as bulk purchasing and global budgeting.

Such economies would allow for expanding health coverage to everyone - with no co-pays or deductibles - with no overall increase in health care spending. In other words, it's the only health reform proposal that pays for itself.

The single-payer model is the only fiscally prudent proposal available, an especially important consideration at a time of economic distress. And we know from our experience with Medicare and other single-payer systems that it will work.

With a single-payer national health insurance program we can assure lifelong, high quality, comprehensive and affordable coverage for everyone. Such a program will lift the heavy burden of crushing medical expenses off the shoulders of our population, expenses that often lead to personal bankruptcy. And we can save lives: the Institute of Medicine estimated in 2002 that more than 18,000 Americans die each year from lack of health insurance. That number is certainly higher today.

From the standpoint of what benefits our patients, single payer is the health policy model that best reflects their needs and values.

Support for single payer is extensive. In a peer-reviewed statistical study in the Annals of Internal Medicine, 59 percent of U.S. physicians said they would support government action to establish national health insurance. In a recent Associated Press poll, 65 percent of the respondents said, "The United State should adopt a universal health insurance program in which everyone is covered under a program like Medicare that is run by the government and financed by taxes."

Single-payer health reform is embodied in the U.S. National Health Care Act, H.R. 676, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). It had 93 co-sponsors in the 110th Congress, the most of any health reform legislation.

We are pleased to be here today and appreciate the implicit recognition of the majority support for single payer in our country. We hope this is the beginning of a serious dialogue on how to enact single-payer health reform and we look forward to working with you and the Congress toward this end.

- The above article is a public news release and is not copyrighted material -



Physicians for a National Health Program is a single issue organization advocating a universal, comprehensive single-payer national health program. PNHP has more than 15,000 members and chapters across the United States.

http://www.pnhp.org/

Dr. Oliver Fein is president of PNHP. A general internist who is active in clinical practice, he is also professor of clinical medicine and clinical public health at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, where he serves as associate dean responsible for the Office of Affiliations and the Office of Global Health Education. Dr. Fein has advocated for an expanded role for primary care, for academic health centers in urban health care delivery systems, and for national health system reform. He was Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow during 1993-1994, when he worked in the office of Senate Democratic Majority Leader George Mitchell. He spent 17 years at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center developing community-based ambulatory care practices and the Division of General Medicine. He is chair of the NY Chapter of PNHP and immediate past vice president of the American Public Health Association.

Dr. Oliver Fein


http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/03/05-0

[Cleita]

1. Wonderful presentation but there will be stubborn resistance. We, who

advocate for a viable national health care program must keep up the grass roots pressure so that they can't ignore us after this initial effort.

[bluethruandthru]

2. I'd like to think that it was my email to the White House

that resulted in Fein's and Conyer's invitations. :evilgrin:

[dflprincess]

3. No, it was the one I sent

In reality, it was probably all the emails we all sent. I will give Obama credit for at least listening well enough to include the single payer advocates. I just hope he listened to them. Maybe they can make him understand that health insurance is not a synonym for health care (personally, I think it is an antonym).

[provis99]

5. I count both of you as among the grassroots supporters

they were talking about in the article, who were responsible for getting single-payer advocates on the circuit. Good work to both of you, and to other DUers who also did their bit.

[Better Believe It]

7. Right on! I guess that's showing my age. :)

[dflprincess]

17. As Linc would say

"Solid!"

And if you get that reference, then I'll know we're about the same age. :)

[Better Believe It]

6. That and the threat of a picket-line by doctors, nurses, patients in front of the building!

protesting the exclusion of single payer advocates

[Cleita]

15. No it was mine.

:rofl: Sure it was!

I'm sending him another email tonight thanking him for including the single payer advocates in the meeting, and also some facts and figures that are personal for me as to how Medicare worked for my husband and me but how insurance didn't before that.

[eridani]

24. Noooooo! It was memememememememeeeee!

Well, not really. It was all of us, and thank you ALL each and every one!

[biopowertoday]

28. I sent mine. It was a combined effert by so many advocates of single payer

that at least got them a belated invite.

[Better Believe It]

4. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Signals Single-Payer Is Off The Table

Teddy Shines At Health Summit; Single-Payer Off The Table
New York Daily News
March 5, 2009

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) shrugged off his bout with brain cancer and received a standing ovation when he made an appearance Thursday afternoon at the White House health care summit. “Since he got such a weak reception when he walked in, I think that it’s only fitting that we give Ted Kennedy the first question,” Obama joked.

Meanwhile, even though Obama invited Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the chief sponsor of single-payer health insurance legislation, the White House signaled that adopting the single-payer system is off the table — and that is a blow to Obama’s left-leaning supporters.

“The President doesn’t believe that’s the best way to achieve the goal of cutting costs and increasing access,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Single-payer health care pays medical costs from a single fund, usually run by the government. Australia and Canada have single-payer universal health care systems.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2009/03/teddy-shines-at-health-summit.html

[annabanana]

9. That just means that the President has not considered that it is becoming

more and more politically feasible every day.

[Better Believe It]

10. A mass movement for single payer can make it happen

[Cleita]

16. We have to keep up the pressure, but more importantly medical professionals

have to be a big part of it. Great men will listen to their doctor when they don't pay attention to the ordinary person on the street.

[biopowertoday]

31. Yes, getting the late invite was just the first step.

[vaberella]

13. Did Obama ever say it was during his political run...

He's said we have to follow a political process in which they have the public finance of health on the table to drive down the prices of health insurance which will lead to the eventual crowding out of people from the private health insurance.

He said if he could do the whole thing over he'd have gone single payer. But he's just looking to put down the frameworks of single payer---ie somethign that will eventually lead to single payer but still provides a public health insurance alternative.

[Cleita]

14. Obama is at least listening. Maybe we can convince him that he works for

the people and when they express their will he should do as they wish. If Bush had listened to the people when we had mass protests against the invasion of Iraq, imagine the the suffering averted and the shame on our nation from the torture and other scandals wouldn't have happened.

[vaberella]

18. Actually there are quite as many people who want private health care for many reasons

There are people on this board who support single payer choice but want their private health insurance no matter what. That's them and that's for a variety of reasons, we're looking at the stigma associated with government run plans, uncertainty in the transition and so forth.

I think it's a bit disingenous to think that single payer is easy 1,2,3...which is the impression I'm given by many people. Did you listen to Obama speaking at the summit? He didnt' say he was against single payer but he's saying that he's looking at the numbers and there are valid concerns of how to implement single payer as the plan is stated. It would have to be a slow progression and he even said a process. So before they could go all out with single payer that he's proposing amongst his colleagues something more along the lines of public financed health care as an optional project along with the private insurers which would increase competition.

Why is that so hard to take as a concession? AS even a possible concession? Economically and when one looks at the long run affect of public financed optional care it would win out which would lead to a single payer. Even in england there are private insurers alongside public. I just think that he's trying to do the best he can within the conditions he's been dealt and most "progressives" don't want to respect that or consider alternatives which is unfair.

This is not Bush and he's tried time and again to prove otherwise...give the man a bit of time to work things out and I'm sure people will be pleased in the long run and further more he's opened the door for lots of talks.

Added to that...he had invited---which that article didn't even mention, many many people who were single payer advocates and it wasn't because of the actions of progressives. I saw the first part of the summit and Conyers and Feingold weren't even in that room and majority of the advocates those who were representatives of physicians and major associations like the Cancer ASsociation along with key Dems in government were pushing single payer (or public finance) program at the talk. But it's a process.

[Cleita]

19. He's looking at the wrong numbers. Just the 30% administrative costs

that could be diverted to health care from the privatized plans and insurance makes it more cost effective. Now something that no one is taking into consideration is that the insurers are pocketing a lot of money in deductibles from a healthy younger crowd. First they get the premiums, but the insured still has to pay for their health care up to the limit of the deductible. Most healthy people never meet that so the insurance companies are just pocketing that money. It's designed that way. It makes their bottom lines look good but as soon as that healthy person gets sick, it creates a pre-existing condition, they will have to pay out of pocket in the future. As they get older their premiums go up or they are no longer acceptable as insured and have to look elsewhere. So the whole time a young healthy person has been paying into health care, by the time they need it, it's no longer there for them. In about ten or fifteen years they will qualify for Medicare, but because they probably have become uninsured by then medical conditions go untreated until Medicare kicks in making them more expensive than they would have been.

With single payer those healthy young people help the Medicare fund because they won't be getting sick for awhile. Still they will be able to get health care with no deductibles or co-pays hopefully because the lesser administrative costs should be able to cover that. That would be routine physicals and screening tests and the occasional illness requirement treatment or surgery. Still you are talking about younger, healthier people so it wouldn't be extreme.

Medicare today pays for the sickest people in the country, the elderly, the disabled and those suffering from diseases insurers won't cover. No wonder the numbers look bad, but you can see that they are cooked. I hope he demands more thorough accounting in the future.

[vaberella]

23. People dont' need to talk about it, it's understood.

But on a side note it was talked about in the video at the summit. In any event, you're still disregarding one thing..the culture of the nation. You think because you think a certain way it's rational and most everyone will agree. Not to seem disrespectful but you need to get over yourself. We wouldn't have the republican party if people thought about the common man and what would be feasible to help "everyone" rather than themselves. That being said...Obama and his team are making the movement a process and again I still see you not respecting that in your post.

Don't think pushing something as the best thing is going to be taken in with open arms. Obama was the best thing and 30%+ of population voted against him. Once again it's a process and I'm willing to follow and advocate the first steps that will later turn into something long term and nationally free when that happens. However, it won't happen right now and I'll take the crumbs and then advocate and work with activists groups for more.

I'm just seeing people unsatisfied and not willing to concede. Well we've just gotten into office and we'll have to make some amends. So far the O Admin is doing something unlike the last 16 years when nothing was done to reform health care.

[Cleita]

26. Well I want Obama to succeed and if he listens to the profit side of the

health care industry, this one mistake will be a big one because there are already petri dishes out there of experiments that have either succeeded or failed. Any time the insurers, HMOs and PhRMA are involved, the plans fail. When they are not in the equation the system is successful like in Canada, Australia and the European Scandinavian countries. I'm not putting up links because the internet is full of them if you want to look them up and Obama should too. There are prestigious organizations who have crunched numbers, not only the PNHP but the Institute of Health And Socio-Economic Policy and they have come out on the side of single payer health care when they thoroughly study the issue.

Now for saying that I disrespect him because I'm sounding an alarm about those who are advising him on this issue, is simply really not true. I know after surfing the internet for over a decade that more than 30% of the population actually needs to be in therapy and will not see the truth. Yet, for years and years, any poll I have seen that was taken before the insurance industry could propagandize the population were 70% in favor of doing this. When the naysayers and spinners arrived on the scene they could convince 20% of those in the seventy percent with a lot of slick scare tactics. It's war and I'm in the infantry on this issue, so please don't try to say I'm ass for doing so because I haven't got any respect. Do we really want 30% of the population who have oatmeal for brains to be calling the shots because they easily drink the Kool-Aid the insurance industry passes out?

I'm afraid if you accept this primrose path he is down, you won't get even any crumbs down the road. Like Howard Dean said, if he doesn't get this right and it fails, it will be twenty years before this issue can be brought up again because it will be considered toxic.

[biopowertoday]

32. you probably believe in unicorns also if you believe these

"first steps" are going to be affordable or transform into single payer!!

[biopowertoday]

30. Getting invited at the last minute looks bad for the WH.

[eridani]

25. Jeebus!! What would increase access more than allowing everybody into Medicare??? n/t

[biopowertoday]

33. So, one day the WH invites Conyers, then the next the WH tells him take a hike!!

[annabanana]

8. He gave an excellent summary of the overwhelming case for

a single-payer system. It really is the only option that really makes sense. The opposition will be fierce and the media coverage will be negligible (vested interests being what they are).. but the voice of the people is solidly with the program.

[Better Believe It]

12. How about some mass meetings for Medicare for All that would feature

Canadian doctors and patients speaking on how much they like their system (and answering lies spread by the U.S.drug industry and
insurance companies) and American physicians/nurses and big names like Michael Moore, Sean Penn, etc.,

Let's rev it up!

Also big campus teach-ins featuring local single payer experts.

Any other ideas?

And I like using the term Medicare for All. People understand what that means more than single payer.

[Cleita]

20. I wish we could drum up money for commercials like Humana and

Cialis and all the other medicine for profit companies have on all the time. The commercials should be short but informative, explaining that national health care is not the government running health care. You still see your own doctor when you want to etc.. All the government does is pay the doctor. We have some talented people at DU who could produce commercials. It would be a matter of paying them for costs and time spent and the biggest cost would be air time. We should run them as often as we can and in as many markets as we can.

The only problem is everyone is suffering from the economy and frankly are tapped out from donating to the elections. We need some dedicated sugar daddies and mommies with deep pockets.

[Better Believe It]

21. Hundreds of millions could be raised to TV, etc., from Obama campaign supporters via ....

the labor movement, progressive and liberal organizations .... and hey .... why not the Democratic Party?

[slipslidingaway]

11. K&R thanks n/t

[madfloridian]

22. Thank you for posting this.

I have been told I was wrong. Apparently I was not wrong.

Thanks so much.

[Fireweed247]

27. Excellent

:applause:

[biopowertoday]

29. K and R