“Oregon’s current health care system is neither humane nor cost-effective.”

(PORTLAND, Ore.) – Delegates from 28 unions, nonprofits and grassroots organizations gathered in Portland on Friday, January 27, to form a new coalition that will advocate for universal health care in Oregon and the U.S. Seven labor unions joined with 21 community organizations to sign the membership agreement, approve bylaws, and elect an interim executive committee.

The coalition grew out of a partnership between four organizations–Health Care for All–Oregon, Portland Jobs With Justice, Mad As Hell Doctors (MAHD) and Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). Two years ago these organizations formed the Oregon Single Payer Campaign (OSPC), which last year organized a conference at the First Unitarian Church in Portland attended by 500 people. OSPC also spearheaded the introduction of HB 3510 last year in the Oregon legislature by Rep. Michael Dembrow (D-HD 45). HB 3510 would create a single-payer financing system that guaranteed universal access to health care for all Oregonians, including the more than 600,000 Oregonians who do not have health insurance. Rep. Dembrow was in attendance at the founding meeting of the coalition.

The goal of OSPC was to get the issue of universal access health care on the table, since its advocates had been shut out of the federal health care reform debate,” said Michael Moore, delegate from Sisters of the Road and newly elected interim president of the coalition. “The goal of the new coalition is to engage all communities across Oregon in a conversation about what we can and should expect from our health care system. We think providing universal access, as almost all other industrialized nations do, is the only truly humane and cost-effective system available. We need a broad and diverse coalition of organizations to help us understand how to take that message to all the constituencies we need to reach.

Oregon’s current health care system is neither humane nor cost-effective. The only health care resources available to many uninsured adults are hospital emergency rooms and pay-for-service options at some clinics. Even in communities such as Scappoose, only 21 miles from Portland, the Oregon Health Sciences University clinic does not accept uninsured patients. In Oregon, it is estimated that the cost of uncompensated care for uninsured and under-insured adults and children will exceed $1.1 billion in 2012.

Rosalie Pedroza, delegate from the Rural Organizing Project, said, “In rural communities, many areas don’t have insurance options, and facilities are limited. Current cost increases are unsustainable; we need affordable health care for all.”

The unions signing on to the coalition’s founding are: American Federation of Government Employees Local 2157, Communication Workers of America Local 7901, Laborers Local 483, National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 82, National Association of Social Workers ­ Oregon, Oregon Nurses’ Association and Service Employees International Union Local 49. The nonprofits joining them are: Alliance for Democracy, Center for Inter-cultural Organizing, Community Alliance of Tenants, Elders in Action, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Health Care for All Oregon, Health Care for All Oregon–Eugene, Jobs with Justice-Central Oregon, Jobs with Justice–Portland, Jobs with Justice–Southern Oregon, Mad as Hell Doctors, Mid-Valley Health Care Advocates, Oregon Action, Oregon Latino Health Coalition, OSPC-Florence Organizing Committee, Physicians for a National Health Program–Eugene, Mid Valley and Portland, Rural Organizing Project, Sisters of the Road. The Tree Institute, and Universal Health Care for Oregon. Six affiliated or pledged organizations were unable to attend, and ten organizations sent delegates as observers.

The coalition does not plan to introduce legislation this year. In the near term, it will focus on grassroots community organizing and outreach. It plans to meet again in six to eight weeks to elect a full board of directors, develop a strategic plan and finalize the selection of a name.

The 2,000 member Local 83761, IUE-CWA, in Louisville, Kentucky, has endorsed HR 676, the national single payer legislation, Expanded and Improved Medicare for All, introduced into the House of Representatives by Democratic Congressman John Conyers of Michigan.

Local 83761 members make General Electric refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, and other major appliances. The local is growing and expects to add another 460 members by the end of February.

Steven Wimsatt, Chairman of the Local’s COPE committee and State Political and Legislative Director of the Kentucky IUE-CWA, introduced the resolution to endorse HR 676.

“Health care is important to our members and one of the biggest benefits that you can get from a company,” said Wimsatt, “but it’s getting harder and harder to negotiate a contract with health care in it.”

Explaining why the local took this step, Wimsatt said, “So, very simply, if we had a national health care plan that all members could be in, then we wouldn’t have to be in a confrontational position over health care with GE during the contract negotiations.”

Wimsatt added, “There is an excise tax that will come in a few years under the health reform that passed that will make it almost impossible to afford a plan, and it would be a penalty for having a good health care plan. Because of this it’s even more important that we win single payer health care.”

The endorsement of HR 676 was passed unanimously at the December Executive Board and membership meetings.

In the current Congress, HR 676 has 74 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.

HR 676 has been endorsed by 587 union organizations including 139 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 40 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI, MT, NE, NJ, NY, NV & MA).

SACRAMENTO – The Senate Appropriations Committee today approved the California Universal Health Care Act, authored by Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco). Senate Bill 810 guarantees all Californians comprehensive, universal health care while reducing the state’s ballooning health care costs and improving the quality of care and delivery of health services statewide. The legislation passed with a 6-2 vote.

California currently spends about $200 billion annually on a fragmented, inefficient health care system that wastes 30% of every dollar on administration. Under Senate Bill 810, that wasteful spending is eliminated. The bill redirects the funds Californians already spend on health care to allow comprehensive coverage. In fact, studies show that the state would save $8 billion in the first year under this single-payer plan.

“California is being overrun by out-of-control health care costs, which have a significant impact on families, businesses and the state budget,” said Senator Leno, D-San Francisco. “Health care premiums in the last few years have grown five times faster than our economy. Consequently, fewer employers are providing health benefits to their employees, and those workers who are fortunate enough to receive coverage are paying higher premiums for diminishing services. By guaranteeing universal access for all Californians, our single-payer plan will reduce the health care burdens that are hurting families and our state’s economy.”

SB 810 creates a private-public partnership to provide every California resident medical, dental, vision, hospitalization and prescription drug benefits and allows patients to choose their own doctors and hospitals. This single payer, “Medicare for All,” type of program works by pooling together the money that government, employers and individuals already spend on health care and putting it to better use by cutting out the for-profit middle man.

“SB 810 is the only proposed solution to the continuing patient care crisis that guarantees healthcare for all Californians and controls costs while eliminating the denials of care and restrictions of provider choice imposed by private insurance companies,” said DeAnn McEwen, a registered nurse at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and co-president of the California Nurses Association. CNA is one of the co-sponsors of SB 810.

“Health is a right, not a privilege,” said Maria Lemus, executive director of Vision y Compromiso, a co-sponsor of SB 810. “All Californians, without exception, need access to quality medical services. Senator Leno’s single-payer proposal would provide California residents access to health services with an opportunity to prevent illness, the right to choose their doctor and control inflation without increasing health care costs in California.”

SB 810 is sponsored and supported by a broad coalition of patients, nurses, doctors, teachers and school employees, small businesses, faith community members, retirees, local governments and school districts. These groups represent more than 2 million Californians. The bill is co-sponsored by the California Nurses Association, Health Care for All California, California One Care, California School Employees Association, Physicians for a National Health Program-California, Single Payer Now, Campaign for a Healthy California, California Federation of Teachers, California Alliance of Retired Americans, Amnesty International, League of Women Voters, California Council of Churches, Progressive Democrats of America, California Consumer Federation, National Organization for Women-California, Vision y Compromiso, Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, Dolores Huerta Foundation, California Health Professional Student Alliance and Courage Campaign.

To the Editor:

The Athens City Schools and many Ohio school districts are sorely in need of revenues. We see talented and dedicated teachers and teacher aides’ positions eliminated or threatened in Athens County. We read of the recommended closing a gem of a school and community, Chauncey Elementary.

There is a way that this school system and every school system in Ohio could save enough money to avoid such deep budget cuts. The new budgeting would take at least four years to fully institute, but would then save around $3 million every year for the Athens City Schools. The strategy: elect reform-minded legislators to the Ohio Assembly who would support single-payer health care in Ohio.

The present “sick care system” is dominated by for-profit insurance companies whose purpose is to keep the returns on investment high so that their shareholders and top executives can maximize their gains. The health of customers who directly or indirectly acquire insurance is secondary and too often unethical. Insurance companies have their place — but not in health care. The thousands of Ohio people currently employed in health-care billing deserve legislated transitional monetary supports. With a fair payroll and income tax, we can reap enormous savings for schools and government while improving the physical and financial health of families.

The purpose of single-payer health care is to keep people healthy. It is possible to have such a system without any co-pays, deductibles or health-related bankruptcies.

Over 100,000 people in Ohio have signed petitions for the enactment of single-payer health care, the Health Care For All Ohioans Act. Information is available at the Single-Payer Action Network web site, www.spanohio.org. An average of 14 people die every week in Ohio because they have no health-care coverage.

There is a way that every medical provider can be paid for every person receiving services. There is a way to create fairness, freedom from medical bankruptcy, and everyone in, nobody out. We can keep our private doctors, hospitals and medical providers, and create a “Medicare for all” type of system that will be sustainable.

Join the local advocates of Democracy Over Corporations and SPAN Ohio for a free screening of “The Health Care Movie,” a documentary film narrated by Keifer Sutherland, at United Campus Ministry, 18 N. College St., 7:30 pm on Wednesday, Jan. 11. This is a summary of the Canadian people’s struggles to obtain single-payer health care and the uphill challenges facing Americans today. This is a film about the reasons that ordinary and office-holding Canadians are grateful for their universal health-care system. It points to the role that corporate influence in politics has played in this country, keeping us locked into our present, entirely inadequate “system” and preventing movement toward real health-care reform.

Arlene Sheak, volunteer coordinator
SE Ohio SPAN
Athens

On a recent shift at a Chicago emergency department, Dr. William Sullivan treated a newly homeless patient who was threatening to kill himself.

“He had been homeless for about two weeks. He hadn’t showered or eaten a lot. He asked if we had a meal tray,” said Sullivan, a physician at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago and a past president of the Illinois College of Emergency Physicians.

Sullivan said the man kept repeating that he wanted to kill himself. “It seemed almost as if he was interested in being admitted.”

Across the country, doctors like Sullivan are facing a spike in psychiatric emergencies – attempted suicide, severe depression, psychosis – as states slash mental health services and the country’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression takes its toll.

This trend is taxing emergency rooms already overburdened by uninsured patients who wait until ailments become acute before seeking treatment.

“These are people without a previous psychiatric history who are coming in and telling us they’ve lost their jobs, they’ve lost sometimes their homes, they can’t provide for their families, and they are becoming severely depressed,” said Dr. Felicia Smith, director of the acute psychiatric service at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Visits to the hospital’s psychiatric emergency department have climbed 20 percent in the past three years.

“We’ve seen actually more very serious suicide attempts in that population than we had in the past as well,” she said.

Compounding the problem are patients with chronic mental illness who have been hurt by a squeeze on mental health services and find themselves with nowhere to go.

On top of that, doctors are seeing some cases where the patient’s most critical need is a warm bed.

“The more I see these patients, the more I realize that if it’s sleeting and raining outside, the emergency room is the only place they have,” said Dr. R. Corey Waller, director of the Spectrum Health Medical Group Center for Integrative Medicine in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Government agencies such as the National Institutes of Mental Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration could not provide fresh data on use of psychiatric services in recent years.

But doctors from more than a dozen hospitals nationwide, mental health advocacy groups and state-funded agencies told Reuters they are all seeing a marked increase in psychiatric emergencies.

A WORSENING PROBLEM

The National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD), an organization of state mental health directors, estimates that in the last three years states have cut $3.4 billion in mental health services, while an additional 400,000 people sought help at public mental health facilities.

In that same time frame, demand for community-based services climbed 56 percent, and demand for emergency room, state hospital and emergency psychiatric care climbed 18 percent, the organization said.

“This wasn’t one round of cuts,” says Ted Lutterman, director of research analysis at NASMHPD Research Institute. “It was three or four for many states, and multiple cuts during the year.”

If the economy doesn’t improve, next year could be worse because many community mental health agencies are cutting programs and using up reserve funds, says Linda Rosenberg, president of the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare.

“It’s been horrible,” she said. “Those that need it the most – the unemployed, those with tremendous family stress – have no insurance.”

In the emergency room, this increased demand has meant doctors and social workers are spending hours and sometimes days trying to arrange care for psychiatric patients languishing in the emergency department, taking up beds that could be used for traditional types of trauma.

More than 70 percent of emergency department administrators said they have kept patients waiting in the emergency department for 24 hours, according to a 2010 survey of 600 hospital emergency department administrators by the Schumacher Group, which manages emergency departments across the country.

Ten percent said they had “boarded” patients for a week or more.

And many hospitals are not prepared for the increased caseload of psychiatric patients, says Randall Hagar, director of government affairs for the California Psychiatric Association.

California cut $587 million in state-funded mental health services in the past two years, the most of any state, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a patient advocacy group.

“They don’t have secure holding rooms. They don’t have quiet spaces. They don’t have a lot of things you need to help calm down a person in an acute psychiatric crisis,” Hagar said.

“Often you have a patient strapped to a gurney in a hallway outside of the emergency department where social workers are desperately trying to find an inpatient bed,” he said.

FROM CITIES TO SMALL TOWNS

In North Carolina, the state has cut its inpatient psychiatric capacity by half since 2005, says Dr. Bret Nicks, an emergency physician at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem and a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Nicks points to a report from the Institute of Medicine released in 2006 that found U.S. emergency departments were already overtaxed and overcrowded.

“Now you are adding in patients who are unsafe to leave but yet have nowhere to go,” he said. “I consider patients with acute psychiatric needs as really the forgotten patient population in the U.S. right now.”

Dr. Stephen Anderson is an emergency department doctor at Auburn Regional Medical Center, a mid-size suburban hospital outside of Seattle.

“When the economy is hurt they are some of the first to drop off the healthcare rolls,” he said of local residents in the largely blue-collar community.

Anderson, who heads the Washington Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, said the state has lost a third of its inpatient psychiatric beds in the past decade.

Lately he is seeing a marked escalation in patients with psychiatric problems turning up in the emergency department. In early December, a third of its beds were occupied with people in a psychiatric crisis who were not safe to return to the community.

The problem extends out to small towns.

Sullivan splits his time between the big emergency department at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago and St. Margaret’s Hospital, a tiny facility in Spring Valley, Illinois, about 100 miles southwest of the city.

On a recent shift, a young woman with schizophrenia arrived at the hospital. She had just lost her job and apartment and was living with relatives. She could not afford the medications that were keeping her illness in check.

The woman asked Sullivan to switch her prescriptions to drugs that could be found on the $4 discount list at Wal-Mart and other discount stores.

“I didn’t feel comfortable doing that,” Sullivan said, noting that emergency physicians are being asked to deliver specialized care that should be handled by a psychiatrist.

He found a healthcare facility about 25 miles away with a psychiatrist who could help, but even that presented a problem for the woman, who had no way of getting to the appointment.

“It’s almost akin to having a cardiac patient come in and say, ‘I need someone to adjust my defibrillator.’ In the emergency department, we can do a lot, but there are some things we have to leave with the specialists,” he said.

Legislation would “dramatically reduce” health care costs, improve access to care

BOSTON — Touting dramatic reductions in health care costs, improved access to health care for all residents, and a boost to local businesses, state Sen. Jamie Eldridge (D-Acton) and state Rep. Jason Lewis (D-Winchester), along with health care advocates, providers, employers, and employee union leaders, came out in support of S501, “An Act Establishing Medicare for All in Massachusetts,” at a legislative hearing at the State House this afternoon.

The bill, heard by the Joint Committee on Health Care Finance, would create a single payer health care system for Massachusetts: a universal public insurance plan covering all medically necessary care. This plan would function for residents under 65 much the way Medicare does for residents 65 and older, but without premiums or copayments.

A similar plan is currently used successfully by many countries around the world and is in the process of being implemented in Vermont.

“If Massachusetts is serious about reducing health care costs for families, businesses and state and local governments, we need to stop tinkering at the edges of a broken system and enact a single-payer healthcare system. It’s the only reform that would truly reduce costs in a substantial way, eliminating medical debt and bankruptcies while guaranteeing access to quality, affordable health care as a right for all residents of the Commonwealth,” said Eldridge.

“I believe that healthcare is a basic human right, and we must do everything we can to ensure that every Massachusetts resident has access to quality, affordable care,” added Lewis. “We can alleviate the burden of escalating healthcare costs on families and small businesses by instituting a robust single-payer plan here in the Commonwealth.”

Economist Gerald Friedman, from UMass-Amherst, noted at the hearing that a single-payer system could reduce health care costs by nearly $13 billion a year (or 19 percent ) in Massachusetts. Even after expanding coverage to all Massachusetts residents, this would leave savings of over 17.6 percent of current expenditures. Municipalities in particular would benefit; according to Friedman’s calculations, local governments would save over $350 million a year.

Friedman also noted that, when added to significant administrative savings within companies, a single-payer system would dramatically enhance the competiveness of Massachusetts companies, adding nearly 100,000 additional jobs to the economy.

“Single payer health care saves lives, saves money and prevents suffering. Every other country in the world that has achieved universal coverage and controlled costs has relied on a single-payer system to get there. A single-payer system will best achieve the health care reform goals that many of us share: improving coverage for families that already have coverage, reducing health care costs, and simplifying the health care delivery system,” added Benjamin Day, Executive Director of Mass-Care, the Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care.

The bill filed by Eldridge and Lewis would create a plan that covered all medically necessary care for all residents of Massachusetts, replacing current employer and employee premium payments with an employer and employee payroll tax. The total payroll tax would be 10 percent – the same as current average spending on health insurance – and would default to 7.5 percent for employers and 2.5 percent for employees, although employers could choose to pay for part or all of employees’ portion of the payroll tax, and collective bargaining agreements would be recognized.

Because payroll taxes primarily impact low- and medium-income wage earners, a 12.5 percent tax on unearned income would be imposed, reversing large cuts to state taxes on dividends and interest passed between 1998 and 2002. Lastly, all current state spending on health care would be consolidated, and the state would seek to have federal funds – such as those paid for Medicaid and Medicare recipients – paid directly to the state’s single-payer fund by applying for federal waivers.

The net result would be billions of dollars in annual savings from eliminating provider-level and private insurance administration. Eliminating insurance premiums would create significant after-tax savings for over 80 percent of Massachusetts residents.

Dr. Lynn Chacko put her money where her philosophy is.

Chacko told those gathered at a speakout on health care Saturday that she gave up a profitable job as a private physician in South Florida to work for the Veterans Administration in Gainesville.

“I had a wonderful group of patients, but I could not keep practicing in that environment. My conscience would not let me — because of the way our health-care system is, I could only spend less than 15 minutes with most patients. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to meet my overhead,” Chacko said. “In 2010, I decided to leave private practice and took a huge pay cut, but it was the best decision I ever made in my professional career. I work for the Veterans Administration, which is probably the closest thing to national health care we have in this country.”

Saturday’s speakout was organized by the Alachua County Labor Party along with Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Gainesville. The event was held in the Bo Diddley Community Plaza in downtown Gainesville.

Chacko said that the insured patients she saw in private practice were having difficulty affording co-pays as the economy weakened. Many could not afford specialists or preventative medicine.

While the veterans health-care system is not perfect, she added, the health outcomes are better for its patients than for those with private insurance.

Other speakers related their experiences with health care and insurance. One recurring theme was that of excessive costs, whether for patients or insurance companies. Those companies also came up for criticism.

Albert Meyer, of Gainesville, recalled how he fell while competing in a 5K race and cut his face. He went to the emergency room and was hit with a bill that included $12,000 for CT scans.

University of Florida graduate student Christina Van Houten, who also teaches classes, said she will soon be earning her doctorate degree but added she fears not being able to find a job that will offer adequate and affordable health insurance.

“I’m tired of health care being a privilege,” she said. “I’m tired of my health care being inconsistent. I’m tired of my health care having to be more cost-effective for my employer and my insurance provider.”

We will discuss how to push the single-payer agenda forward in an election year, as well as at a time when Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are on the chopping block.

With the Super Committee’s refusal to protect Medicare, now is the time to strategize and organize. Please join us in Houston on January 28th and 29th and share your ideas and insights.

If you are unable to attend, please consider making a contribution to our scholarship fund to help another activist attend. These are dire economic times, and we want to make sure that financial barriers never impede our members’ ability to participate in the single-payer movement.

There are many single-payer activists who want to attend the conference, but who are unable to cover the expenses. A $50 donation will pay for a scholarship for one activist to attend the Healthcare-NOW! Strategy Conference, but any size donation helps.

Will you sponsor an activist now?

Your financial contribution will have a critical impact in empowering another activist to help strategize to win what we know is the solution to our fiscal crisis: single-payer improved Medicare-for-all.

The time couldn’t be more ripe to organize for healthcare free of corporate profit as people all across the country are standing up and joining the Occupy Wall Street movement to demand, among other things, profit out of healthcare. Please join us by attending the conference or sponsoring an activist today.

I am chairperson of the Bergen County Central Trades & Labor Council Retirees. We set out to target towns in which we live to seek an endorsement for HR 676. One member of our committee Denise Powlis-Lightly and her father Austen Powlis live in Teaneck and helped to get the relevant figures from the town budget. Those figures were the towns health care costs for its employees and the salaries of the employees. We then calculated the savings Teaneck would realize under HR 676. The figure came in at about $4.6 million.

Denise and I met with a member of the council, Lizette Parker, who we learned would most probably be amenable to endorsing it herself and bringing it to the rest of the mayor and council. We gave her a packet of what we thought was relevant information and six other packets to present to the rest of the governing body for further discussion.

The result was this resolution.

70 state and local governments have already passed resolutions supporting HR 676. Help add yours to the list! Go here to learn more or participate in our Win-Win Campaign targeting local government entities – cities, towns, counties, school boards – in an effort to get them to endorse HR 676. Our hook is big money savings in a time of fiscal crisis for governments.

Healthcare-NOW! will be there to demand human needs over corporate greed, including life-saving, money-saving improved Medicare for all.

Help us build the single-payer contingent by coming to Freedom Plaza on October 6th. Please email Vanessa@healthcare-NOW.org if you and/or your organization are planning to attend.

The October 2011 movement stands for placing human needs over corporate greed; for stopping the machine and creating a new world. If you want economic justice, human rights, peace, a healthy environment, and an end to corporate criminals’ control of the political process, then you belong in Freedom Plaza on October 6th. Please join us!

If you want to get involved but cannot make it to D.C., check with the organizer in your state to see if a solidarity event is being planned.