Western PA Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare

Working for passage of the "United States National Health Insurance Act", also known as,

the "Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act" (H.R. 676)

	Western PA Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare For Immediate Release: December 14, 2007 Contacts: Sandy Fox 412-421-8233; Ed Grystar 412-215-4141, 412-370-9460 Grassroots activists join with Pa. State Senator Jim Ferlo and others at National Healthcare Day event to call for elected officials to support Single-Payer reform. PITTSBURGH—The Western PA Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare joined with State Senator Jim Ferlo in a National Healthcare Day event today in the lobby of the City-County Building. This free event highlighted the growing grassroots support for single-payer reform, as well as the mounting frustration of city and county government, organized labor, business, faith groups, healthcare providers, and consumers in managing the impact of spiraling healthcare costs under our present system. Activists in scrubs could be seen leafleting downtown and encouraging people to come to the event, where videographers were taping testimony of people’s healthcare stories, nurses and medical students were giving free blood pressure screenings, advocates staffed information tables on single-payer, and there was continuous showing of the documentary “SiCKO” and “H.R. 676: The Single-Payer Solution.” H.R. 676 is the national single-payer bill in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced by Congressman John Conyers, Jr., with 86 cosponsors, including U.S. Representative Mike Doyle of Pittsburgh. This legislation, called “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All,” would provide high quality, affordable healthcare coverage to all through a government financed, privately delivered system of care. Sandy Fox, Co-Chair of the Coalition, noted that “single-payer is the only solution that is both socially and fiscally responsible.” Senator Ferlo concurred, stating: “…we can expand health insurance coverage to all Americans by building on the cost effective and efficiently administered federal Medicare system and elminating, once and for all, the private and non-profit health insurance corporations. It’s time to support the single-payer system outlined in H.R. 676.” Pittsburgh City Council President Doug Shields, who presented a Resolution cosponsored by all members of Council in support of National Healthcare Day and single-payer reform, called on other elected officials to “embrace the single payer concept and cast their votes accordingly.” Rev. John Welch, President of the Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network, espoused his views on the immorality of the current healthcare system, noting: “The healthcare situation in our country…is one of the greatest atrocities in the world, yet so subtly destructive many seem equally anesthetized by it. In my mind it is a form of passive euthanasia.” Joining the event was the “SiCKO-Cure Roadshow”, sponsored by Healthcare-NOW, the national grassroots organization working for passage of H.R. 676. The Roadshow ended its 11 states tour in Pittsburgh, and included Donna Smith, who was featured in SiCKO. Ms. Smith stated: “My family’s story is featured in ‘SiCKO’ not because we are so unique, but because we are not. Millions of Americans like us suffer in spite of buying health insurance throughout our adult lives… Now we must speak with one voice to our leaders and demand they listen.” ### BACK TO HOME PAGE

Western PA Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare

For Immediate Release: December 14, 2007

Contacts: Sandy Fox 412-421-8233; Ed Grystar 412-215-4141, 412-370-9460

Grassroots activists join with Pa. State Senator Jim Ferlo and others at National Healthcare Day event to call for elected officials to support Single-Payer reform.

PITTSBURGH—The Western PA Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare joined with State Senator Jim Ferlo in a National Healthcare Day event today in the lobby of the City-County Building. This free event highlighted the growing grassroots support for single-payer reform, as well as the mounting frustration of city and county government, organized labor, business, faith groups, healthcare providers, and consumers in managing the impact of spiraling healthcare costs under our present system.

Activists in scrubs could be seen leafleting downtown and encouraging people to come to the event, where videographers were taping testimony of people’s healthcare stories, nurses and medical students were giving free blood pressure screenings, advocates staffed information tables on single-payer, and there was continuous showing of the documentary “SiCKO” and “H.R. 676: The Single-Payer Solution.”

H.R. 676 is the national single-payer bill in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced by Congressman John Conyers, Jr., with 86 cosponsors, including U.S. Representative Mike Doyle of Pittsburgh. This legislation, called “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All,” would provide high quality, affordable healthcare coverage to all through a government financed, privately delivered system of care. Sandy Fox, Co-Chair of the Coalition, noted that “single-payer is the only solution that is both socially and fiscally responsible.”

Senator Ferlo concurred, stating: “…we can expand health insurance coverage to all Americans by building on the cost effective and efficiently administered federal Medicare system and elminating, once and for all, the private and non-profit health insurance corporations. It’s time to support the single-payer system outlined in H.R. 676.”

Pittsburgh City Council President Doug Shields, who presented a Resolution cosponsored by all members of Council in support of National Healthcare Day and single-payer reform, called on other elected officials to “embrace the single payer concept and cast their votes accordingly.”

Rev. John Welch, President of the Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network, espoused his views on the immorality of the current healthcare system, noting: “The healthcare situation in our country…is one of the greatest atrocities in the world, yet so subtly destructive many seem equally anesthetized by it. In my mind it is a form of passive euthanasia.”

Joining the event was the “SiCKO-Cure Roadshow”, sponsored by Healthcare-NOW, the national grassroots organization working for passage of H.R. 676. The Roadshow ended its 11 states tour in Pittsburgh, and included Donna Smith, who was featured in SiCKO. Ms. Smith stated: “My family’s story is featured in ‘SiCKO’ not because we are so unique, but because we are not. Millions of Americans like us suffer in spite of buying health insurance throughout our adult lives… Now we must speak with one voice to our leaders and demand they listen.”

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