Congressional Update: John Conyers on Board!
Posted on September 17th, 2008 by Jason Rosenbaum in Take Action!
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It's been a while since I've updated folks on how our campaign to contact Congress is going, but we've got a big breakthrough! DemFromCT over at DailyKos has the news:
In the pursuit of health reform, a major issue for the voters, there's been some debate about the Health Care For America Now coalition and what their push for quality, affordable health care means for single payer advocates and for those who want this issue addressed in DC (see Health Reform: An Integrated Problem In An Integrated World and Health Care Discussion Links).
Today, John Conyers, author of H.R. 676 (the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act), is releasing a statement of principle.
"I am proud to join HCAN’s broad progressive campaign to raise awareness about the need for true universal health care reform. The HCAN coalition and I are united by our belief that the current non-system of health care run by profit hungry insurance companies is unsustainable and inhumane. It will take a monumental effort to defeat the entrenched special interests that benefit from the status quo. I remain firmly committed to the passage of my single-payer universal health care bill, H.R. 676, and believe that private insurance will never provide the kind of guaranteed affordable health care America needs. However, I agree with HCAN that a true policy debate in the Congress can only begin when there is broad consensus that the sham reform trumpeted by the industry is off the table."
We're proud to have one of the loudest critics of the insurance industry on board with our efforts, and we repeat our claim that the people who want health care reform are united behind Health Care for America Now and our statement of principles.
Because of this united front, support from Congress is flooding in. As of today, 31 Representatives and 2 Senators have signed onto our efforts. Here's the full list:
Arizona
Representative Raul GrijalvaArkansas
Representative Marion Berry
Representative Mike RossCalifornia
Representative Henry WaxmanFlorida
Representative Corrine Brown
Representative Robert WexlerIllinois
Representative Janice SchakowskyIowa
Senator Tom HarkinLouisiana
Representative William JeffersonMaryland
Representative Elijah Cummings
Senator Barbara Mikulski
Representative Chris VanHollenMichigan
Representative John Conyers, Jr.
Representative David E. Kildee
Representative Carolyn Cheeks KilpatrickMinnesota
Representative Keith EllisonMissouri
Representative Russ Carnahan
Representative Emanuel CleaverNew Jersey
Representative Bill Pascrell
Representative Albio SiresNew York
Representative Timothy Bishop
Representative Kirsten Gillibrand
Representative John Hall
Representative Brian Higgins
Representative Carolyn McCarthy
Representative Michael R. McNultyOhio
Representative Tim RyanPennsylvania
Representative Jason AltmireTexas
Representative Sheila Jackson-LeeWashington
Representative Adam SmithWisconsin
Representative Tammy Baldwin
Representative Steve Kagen
Representative Ron Kind
More are going to come in shortly.
Overall, with the help of thousands across this country, we've contacted 273 Members of Congress, over 50%! As the number of phone calls has grown, as more people tell their elected officials to get on board with quality, affordable health care for all, Congress is joining the fight.
So, if you haven't already, please give your Members of Congress a call. They are really listening, and you can really make a difference.
Let's not forget that Chairman Conyers
is first and foremost on board
with a single payer solution, HR 676.
Along with 91 of his fellow Congresspersons:
Rep Abercrombie, Neil [HI-1] - 1/24/2007
Rep Baca, Joe [CA-43] - 9/17/2007
Rep Baldwin, Tammy [WI-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep Becerra, Xavier [CA-31] - 6/13/2007
Rep Berman, Howard L. [CA-28] - 6/15/2007
Rep Bishop, Sanford D., Jr. [GA-2] - 12/11/2007
Rep Brady, Robert A. [PA-1] - 2/27/2007
Rep Brown, Corrine [FL-3] - 4/17/2007
Rep Capuano, Michael E. [MA-8] - 11/9/2007
Rep Carson, Andre [IN-7] - 7/10/2008
Rep Carson, Julia [IN-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Christensen, Donna M. [VI] - 1/24/2007
Rep Clarke, Yvette D. [NY-11] - 2/16/2007
Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy [MO-1] - 1/24/2007
Rep Cleaver, Emanuel [MO-5] - 4/22/2008
Rep Clyburn, James E. [SC-6] - 4/24/2008
Rep Cohen, Steve [TN-9] - 2/7/2007
Rep Cummings, Elijah E. [MD-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Davis, Danny K. [IL-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Delahunt, William D. [MA-10] - 2/12/2007
Rep Doyle, Michael F. [PA-14] - 3/21/2007
Rep Ellison, Keith [MN-5] - 1/24/2007
Rep Engel, Eliot L. [NY-17] - 1/24/2007
Rep Farr, Sam [CA-17] - 1/24/2007
Rep Fattah, Chaka [PA-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep Filner, Bob [CA-51] - 1/24/2007
Rep Frank, Barney [MA-4] - 3/7/2007
Rep Green, Al [TX-9] - 1/24/2007
Rep Grijalva, Raul M. [AZ-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Gutierrez, Luis V. [IL-4] - 1/24/2007
Rep Hare, Phil [IL-17] - 4/30/2007
Rep Hastings, Alcee L. [FL-23] - 1/29/2007
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. [NY-22] - 1/24/2007
Rep Hirono, Mazie K. [HI-2] - 7/23/2007
Rep Honda, Michael M. [CA-15] - 1/24/2007
Rep Jackson, Jesse L., Jr. [IL-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila [TX-18] - 1/24/2007
Rep Jefferson, William J. [LA-2] - 6/26/2007
Rep Johnson, Eddie Bernice [TX-30] - 1/24/2007
Rep Johnson, Henry C. "Hank," Jr. [GA-4] - 2/13/2007
Rep Jones, Stephanie Tubbs [OH-11] - 5/23/2007
Rep Kaptur, Marcy [OH-9] - 2/12/2007
Rep Kennedy, Patrick J. [RI-1] - 9/24/2007
Rep Kildee, Dale E. [MI-5] - 4/17/2007
Rep Kilpatrick, Carolyn C. [MI-13] - 1/24/2007
Rep Kucinich, Dennis J. [OH-10] - 1/24/2007
Rep Lantos, Tom [CA-12] - 10/1/2007
Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9] - 1/24/2007
Rep Lewis, John [GA-5] - 1/24/2007
Rep Loebsack, David [IA-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep Lynch, Stephen F. [MA-9] - 10/9/2007
Rep Maloney, Carolyn B. [NY-14] - 1/29/2007
Rep McDermott, Jim [WA-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep McGovern, James P. [MA-3] - 1/24/2007
Rep McNulty, Michael R. [NY-21] - 1/24/2007
Rep Meehan, Martin T. [MA-5] - 1/24/2007
Rep Meeks, Gregory W. [NY-6] - 9/20/2007
Rep Miller, George [CA-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Moore, Gwen [WI-4] - 1/24/2007
Rep Moran, James P. [VA-8] - 1/22/2008
Rep Nadler, Jerrold [NY-8] - 1/29/2007
Rep Napolitano, Grace F. [CA-38] - 2/27/2007
Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes [DC] - 3/21/2007
Rep Olver, John W. [MA-1] - 2/16/2007
Rep Pastor, Ed [AZ-4] - 1/24/2007
Rep Payne, Donald M. [NJ-10] - 1/24/2007
Rep Rangel, Charles B. [NY-15] - 1/24/2007
Rep Richardson, Laura [CA-37] - 9/20/2007
Rep Roybal-Allard, Lucille [CA-34] - 1/24/2007
Rep Rush, Bobby L. [IL-1] - 2/6/2007
Rep Ryan, Tim [OH-17] - 5/8/2007
Rep Sanchez, Linda T. [CA-39] - 4/23/2007
Rep Sanchez, Loretta [CA-47] - 9/20/2007
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. [IL-9] - 4/17/2007
Rep Scott, David [GA-13] - 9/20/2007
Rep Scott, Robert C. "Bobby" [VA-3] - 1/24/2007
Rep Serrano, Jose E. [NY-16] - 2/7/2007
Rep Solis, Hilda L. [CA-32] - 2/12/2007
Rep Sutton, Betty [OH-13] - 3/27/2007
Rep Thompson, Bennie G. [MS-2] - 6/12/2007
Rep Tierney, John F. [MA-6] - 9/6/2007
Rep Towns, Edolphus [NY-10] - 1/24/2007
Rep Udall, Tom [NM-3] - 2/27/2007
Rep Waters, Maxine [CA-35] - 1/29/2007
Rep Watson, Diane E. [CA-33] - 1/24/2007
Rep Weiner, Anthony D. [NY-9] - 1/24/2007
Rep Welch, Peter [VT] - 5/3/2007
Rep Wexler, Robert [FL-19] - 1/24/2007
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [CA-6] - 1/24/2007
Rep Wynn, Albert Russell [MD-4] - 1/24/2007
Rep Yarmuth, John A. [KY-3] - 2/27/2007
Let's hope this acknowledgment of a shared belief
helps lead to the passage of the Conyers bill,
to be signed by the next President.
The insurance industry may be the most visible element of healthcare finance dysfunctionality, but there are many others.
Our firm supports single-payer universal healthcare. Ideology plays a limited determinant in this position. We believe that the infrastructure and logistics of a universal healthcare delivery system requires centralized funding, control and accountability.
A fragmented model, like the one we suffer currently, feeds abuse, waste, corruption, and fraud. It is rife with conflicts-of-interest and places those responsible for most of its defects with the responsibility of correcting them.
No greater indictment of the current non-system is more evident than the recent disclosure that 86% of healthcare organizations report having experienced corporate fraud within the last 3 years. http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2008/09/15/daily55.html?b=1221451200%5E1701647&ana=e_abd
It is not consolation that companies within other private sector industries suffer massive fraud as well.
Fraud in healthcare results in deaths, injuries, and adverse financial consequences for Americans. It is unacceptable.
HCAN's naievete manifested by its flirtations with insurance plans and efforts to reform and include them in healthcare public policy development is unfortunate at best. At worst, it is an exercise in futility.
Insurance companies cannot make profits and sustain unconscionable executive salaries and perks by insuring people with pre-existing conditions and chronically ill patients at premium fees affordable to families or acceptable to the United States Government. Many existing health insurance policies have enough exemptions, loopholes, and waivers in them to make mosquito netting look like a solid concrete wall.
Americans are seeking seamless healthcare coverage.
They have no stake in a cumbersome, incomprehensible and inexhaustible menu of health insurance plans.
Health insurance plans do not deliver healthcare. Healthcare providers deliver healthcare. Developing and policing a system to pay healthcare providers for their services to healthcare consumers is not Rocket Science.
Let's see, Conyers said
"The HCAN coalition and I are united by our belief that the current non-system of health care run by profit hungry insurance companies is unsustainable and inhumane…. I remain firmly committed to the PASSAGE OF MY SINGLE-PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE bill, H.R. 676, and believe that private insurance will never provide the kind of guaranteed affordable health care America needs"
and yet you claim he is on board with your "statement of common purpose" which is
"A choice of a PRIVATE INSURANCE PLAN, including keeping the insurance you have if you like it"
I wouldn't call that on board at all. In fact, Conyers is only agreeing with you that the private insurers are the problem, and yet you insist on maintaining a role for them in your campaign. Please revise your statement of common purpose to reflect the reality that "keeping the insurance you have if you like it" is not only completely counterproductive to real health care financing reform but also a pander to those you would have join your campaign.
John Conyers has earned the respect of all Americans for his lifetime of achievement in moving society to embrace a just and peaceful world.The healthcare non system in the USA will never be addressed or changed sucessfully until we face the reality that the healthcare insurance industry must go.
I prefer to believe that John Conyers is in fact leading HCAN in a new direction, not that he is "on-board" with HCAN. HCAN's strong talk about the disfunction and harm of a private for-profit insurance industry is a complete mismatch with the proposed strategy of "regulating" the industry.
A for-profit industry is about…..profit, not meeting social needs. Where is the logic of spending additional millions to set up multiple regulatory structures to try to make a for-profit business not act like a for-profit business? They will fight it and undermine it every step of the way because they are in the business of making money. The HCAN "solution" can only make our health care "non-system" even more expensive that it already is.
We need a comprehensive, publicly financed, privately provided healthcare system with no for-profit insurance industry involvement.
Comparing HCAN and HR 676 single-payer, HR 676 is the much better option. I will continue working to gain support for HR 676. I appreciate that HCAN is raising the central issue of private health insurance but a public-private health insurance mix is not an adequate reform of the U.S. health care system. I respect Cong. Conyers for acknowledging that we all have the same goals and encouraging us to make our best efforts to work together on common issues and raise awareness about the need for universal health care.
Stuart Fishman
Portland Oregon
Member, UFCW Local 555
Portland Jobs with Justice Health Care Committee
There are many advocates for single-payer and HR 676. The movement continues to grow for a reason–it makes sense. The insurance industry is the problem and cannot be part of the solution.
I completely agree with all of the above comments. Unless you're on the take from the insurance industry, I do not understand why you would think keeping the insurance industry going is a viable solution. Try and find a family that hasn't had to struggle with its insurance company, sometimes at the worst of times, or doesn't have a family member with a "pre-existing condition". More and more Americans are fed up and ready for single payer. We can see how much better other countries have it. More and more of us know how we're being ripped off financially and how our whole economy is being held hostage.
I think it was Woodrow Wilson who said, "The business of business is business." Not social justice, not health care. Business. Wake up. Support H.R. 676. Vashti Winterburg
While the health care industry is indeed deplorable, eliminating a trillion dollar industry overnight seems to me to be the definition of nonviable solution.
Jason Rosenbaum says that the eliminating a trillion dollar industry overnight seems … nonviable. Yet throwing billions at a failed private system to shore it up is viable? That's the direction HCAN is going. The only way there's money to pay for universal coverage is by diverting insurance premiums from private companies to one general fund.
And, as everyone commenting has already pointed out to you, it's a fraud to say Conyers is "on board." Why do you all feel the need to distort his words? This "Congressional Update" should be rewritten or removed from your website.
I'm not sure where you got "throwing billions at a failed private system."
We want regulation of the insurance industry and a public plan that's affordable to all.
We need an honest debate. To say that Conyers is "onboard" is worthy of Fox News and beyond spin. HR 676 is the real deal and worth the fight. HCAN seems willing to concede defeat to Big Insurance not as a compromise following a tough fight, but rather from the very beginning. The landscape regarding reform looked better the day before HCAN was created.
Sorry, Tom, buy Conyers signed on without conditions. He agrees with our principles, as we said in his statement.
More likely, Conyers sees his efforts as compatible with what we're doing.
Nothing seems to be easier than seeing someone whom you can help but not helping.
I suggest we start giving it a try. Give love to the ones that need it.
God will appreciate it.