Baucus to Meet with Single Payer Advocates

Senator Max Baucus and the Finance Committee are feeling the pressure

This Wednesday Sen. Baucus will meet with a delegation of leading single payer national health plan advocates.

The delegation includes: Dr. David Himmelstein, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), Dr. Marcia Angell, Senior Lecturer, Harvard Medical School and former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Oliver Fein, Associate Dean, Cornell Weill Medical School, and President of PNHP, Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association, and Geri Jenkins, president of California Nurses Association.

This step would not have occurred without the consistent and growing pressure being put on Senator Baucus and the Finance Committee.  This is a victory for single payer advocates.

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But we know that a private meeting with single payer advocates does not mean that single payer is on the table or that will get a fair hearing.

We are pleased Sen. Baucus is feeling the pressure and reacting but an off-the-record meeting is not enough.  We want single payer on the table and really being considered.  We know that on every measure: cost, patient choice, improved health care and covering all people -- single payer wins every argument.  It isn't even a close question which is why a super majority of Americans support single payer -- improved Medicare for all.

Please take action and write Senator Baucus and the Senate Finance Committee today.(You can take action at www.ProsperityAgenda.US.)  Tell them that while we appreciate a private meeting for single payer -- that is not good enough.  Single payer needs to be on the table because with fair consideration single payer will be the health care plan adopted by the nation. 

The multi-payer system that Sen. Baucus is pushing will be a gift to the insurance industry that has so generously supported him throughout his political career.  Indeed, it only makes sense from the perspective of the insurance industry.  It makes no sense as real health care reform.

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