Our healthcare system is the most expensive in the world and it is badly broken. Most of the current proposals for fixing it include maintaining a large role for the health insurance industry. Including the insurance industry guarantees that these proposals will not provide affordable, high-quality healthcare for all Americans.

The insurance industry is in the business of making money, in part, by avoiding coverage for the people most likely to need it, by avoiding payment of claims and by passing along ever-increasing healthcare costs to patients and employers. Healthcare dollars spent on the insurance industry go to people who are neither preventing nor curing illness.

A different solution is necessary: a universal, single-payer healthcare system.

It's called "single-payer" healthcare because one organization makes all the payments to the private healthcare professionals and institutions that you, the patient, choose to use.

It's "universal" because it covers everyone.

By eliminating the duplication, paperwork, overhead, advertising, profits and excessive executive salaries of the insurance industry, and by negotiating lower drug prices with the drug industry, we can eliminate 15 to 30% of current healthcare spending.

Traditional Medicare, itself a single-payer system, spends only about 3% on these overhead costs. H.R. 676, the single-payer healthcare bill now before Congress, is also known as "Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act ".

H.R. 676 provides for single-payer health insurance for all U.S. residents. It covers all medically necessary care, including:  primary care and prevention; inpatient, outpatient, and emergency care; prescription drugs; durable medical equipment; long term care; dental, vision, and hearing care; mental health services; substance abuse treatment; and chiropractic services. 

In addition to covering all US residents, this bill seeks to improve the current Medicare program by closing the infamous "donut hole," negotiating lower drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies, and replacing all premiums, deductibles, and co-pays with a with a 3.3% payroll tax on employees and a 4.5% payroll tax on employers, a modest (one quarter of one percent) tax on stock and bond transactions, and a supplemental tax on our wealthiest Americans.

The Western PA Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare is working to educate the public about H.R. 676 and to encourage our elected officials in Washington, Harrisburg and locally to support single-payer.

To learn more about single-payer watch the videos or read the articles listed to the left or read this brief summary of the legislation.

To get active for change, come to our next general meeting or to our next study group. Or contact us to arrange to have us make a presentation to your group or to talk about how you can get active for change in your community. And add your name to our e-mail list.

Endorsers

PENNSYLVANIA UNIONS ENDORSE H.R. 676 (LIST)

DOYLE CO-SPONSORS HR 676

	Congressman Mike Doyle Issues Strong Statement in Favor of H.R. 676 DETAILS

ALLEGHENY COUNTY COUNCIL PASSES RESOLUTION SUPPORTING HR 676 (DETAILS)

PITTSBURGH CITY COUNCIL EMBRACES
SINGLE-PAYER (DETAILS [PDF])

Your Financial Contribution

Please review the letter we recently sent to supporters asking for contributions. While we have no staff or offices, our continuous growth and ever-widening activities are producing expenses beyond what can be paid for out of our pockets or by passing the basket at our meetings. Read the letter here.

Articles

"Rendell's Remedy" by Sandra Fox
"Media Miss Bigger Picture in Healthcare Debate", by FAIR
"Doctors Give Massachusetts Health Reform a Failing Grade" from Physicians for a National Health Program
"Forty Percent of Americans Lack Adequate Health Insurance, Survey Finds - Doctors and Nurses Call for Cure: National Health Insurance Act" from the California Nurses Association
"Fix the system with Medicare for All" by Dr. Marcia Angell
"Single-Payer Myths; Single-Payer Facts" from Physicians for a National Health Program
"Business Sense, Common Sense and Healthcare" by Morton Mintz
"Reclaim and Strengthen Medicare" from Rekindling Reform
"The press needs to tell us more about Canada’s single-payer health-care system" by Morton Mintz

HR 676 Text, Summary, Co-Sponsors and other information.

HEALTHCARE for America NOW ???

A new coalition called Health Care for America Now (HCAN) has been in the news lately.  Although the name is similar to the group with which our Coalition is associated, Healthcare-NOW, HCAN is not promoting single-payer, universal healthcare.  Here  is a letter outlining some of important differences between the HCAN proposal and single-payer.  For a lively debate highlighting the differences, listen to Dr. David Himmelstein, associate professor of medicine at Harvard University and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, and Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager for HCAN.

Press Conference at Democratic Party Platform Committee Meeting
Congressman John Conyers, sponsor of H.R. 676, addresses the press conference.

State Senator Jim Ferlo

Single-Payer Supporters "Lobby" the Delegates Prior to Platform Committee Meeting

Many thanks to the single-payer advocates who came to the Convention Center to leaflet (text of leaflet) and talk to members of the Platform Committee as they waited in the lobby of the Convention Center prior to their meeting Saturday, August 9th.

Seventy very enthusiastic single-payer supporters attended the Press Conference. Here is the Post-Gazette story about that Press Conference, the Platform Committee meeting, and the healthcare amendment to the platform that was passed on Saturday. This story from The Nation details the changes to the platform.
GREAT JOB EVERYBODY ! ! !

The speakers at the Press Conference included:
U. S. Representative John Conyers, Jr.,
Pennsylvania State Senator Jim Ferlo,
Fred Redmond, International Vice President, United Steelworkers,
Donna Smith, Founder of American Patients United, National Co-Chair of Progressive Democrats of America's "Healthcare Not Warfare" campaign, star of the movie, "SiCKO",
Steve O'Donnell, Candidate for Congress in the Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District,
Ron Codario, MD, Western PA Coalition for Single- Payer Healthcare; Member, Physicians for a National Healthcare Plan and Healthcare-NOW!
Chuck Pennachio, Executive Director, Healthcare for All Pennsylvania.

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Medicare Birthday Party A Success

President Johnson signs up President Truman
as Medicare's first beneficiary.
- Hundreds Attend Party, BUT....
Constituents denied entry to Congressman’s Office following Medicare Birthday Party

PITTSBURGH—Over 400 people filled the Teamster’s Social Hall in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh on Wednesday, July 30th, for a lunchtime celebration of the 43rd anniversary of the passage of the Federal Medicare Act.  The event, sponsored by State Senator Jim Ferlo and co-sponsored by the Western PA Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare, Healthcare4allPA, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, and SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, was free and open to the public.

Elected officials—local, state, and national—had also been invited to the event.  While members of Congress were in D.C., representatives were sent from the offices of Senator Bob Casey, and Congressmen Mike Doyle and Jason Altmire.  Senator Arlen Specter and Congressman Tim Murphy did not send a representative nor return follow-up calls requesting attendance, although Murphy’s Democratic opponent this November, Steve O’Donnell, did attend and called for “universal, not-for-profit, single-payer healthcare.”

MORE

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Big Day of Protest Against
Health Insurance Companies !!!
RALLIES in PITTSBURGH and NATIONWIDE (MORE )

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Where do the candidates stand on Single-Payer Healthcare and HR 676?
Here are two candidates who have clearly stated their support for Single-Payer Healthcare!
Candidate Steve O'Donnell 18th Congressional District SUPPORTS SINGLE-PAYER	Congressman Mike Doyle 14th Congressional District CO-SPONSOR OF HR 676
Steve O’Donnell won the Democratic party nomination for Congress in the 18th Congressional District over Beth Hafer and Brien Wall.  By the end of the campaign, all three candidates had come out in favor of universal, single-payer healthcare (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).  O'Donnell has made the commitment to co-sponsor HR 676 if he is elected to the new Congress. He will face incumbent Congressman Tim Murphy in the November election. Incumbent Congressman Mike Doyle won the Democratic party nomination in the 14th Congressional District. He has co-sponsored HR 676 in the last two Congresses.

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What's Congressman Tim Murphy doing on the $400,000 bill?
And who DOES he work for anyway?
FIND OUT!

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"Sick Around the World"

This Frontline program from PBS visits 5 modern capitalist democracies where everyone has healthcare.  Each country spends much less on healthcare than we do in the United States. Watch the full program online.  

How crazy is our healthcare system?
FIND OUT!