Panel Discussion on Vermon'ts Passing of Single Payer

Julie Sokolow of Healthy Artists is organizing a panel discussion on the struggle for single payer in Vermont which passed it's plan in 2011. Details are below.   The Fight for Universal Healthcare: Lessons from Vermont Join us for a Panel Discussion with the Vermont Workers’ Center and Put People First! PA! The Big Idea Bookstore 4812 Liberty Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15224 6:30 – 8:00 PM Free and open to the public In 2011, the state of Vermont passed the nation's first true universal healthcare law, Act 48. The Green Mountain Care Board established by Act 48 has a mandate to create a statewide single-payer system by 2017. In the meantime, it is leading the nation with the most progressive implementation of Obamacare of any state, ensuring that the "exchange" is publicly run and equitable. Join us for a panel discussion with Jonathan Kissam of the Vermont Workers' Center and Mitch Troutman of Put People First! PA! Jonathan will discuss the Healthcare Is a Human Rights Campaign that led to the healthcare bill, and the subsequent Put People First campaign that has brought people together across movements to win real victories. Mitch will talk about a similar Healthcare Is a Human Right campaign to be launched in PA, and how Pittsburghers can get involved! Jonathan Kissam is a long-time rank and file activist with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), and currently a member of UE Local 203. He has served on the UE General Executive Board and on the Coordinating Committee of the Vermont Workers’ Center, where he helped launch the Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign in 2008. Mitch Troutman is a staff field organizer for Put People First! PA. Born and raised in Central PA, his background is in manual labor as well as community and workplace organizing. The Vermont Workers' Center is a statewide grassroots organization building one movement for people and the planet. Our current campaigns include Healthcare Is a Human Right, the People's Budget, and Put People First. Put People First! PA is an organization for people who are struggling to meet the basics and believe we need a voice. We’re fighting for our human rights, county by county, all across PA. We’re urban and rural, multi-racial, and politically independent. We’re people like you. Until we unite, we don’t have the power to change things. Join us! Put People First! PA is starting a statewide, grassroots effort to make Healthcare a Human Right. Inspired by Vermont's success, we're building a movement to get universal, affordable healthcare for all PA residents. Everybody in, nobody out! **Related Posts** Vermont Green Mountain Plan Video   If Vermont Won't Have Single Payer What Will it Have? STOP Obamacare in Pennsylvania: Where We Agree with Them   Aaron Carroll's Analysis of Single Payer and Wait Times

Legislature Polarization and Single Payer Prospects

I came across this chart while looking at Kevin Drum's blog at Motherjones.com.  It summarizes the results of a study measuring the amount of political polarization in all 50 state legislatures compared to the US Congress. They looked at the roll call voting record of each legislator from 1996-2009 for both houses (and Nebraska which has a unicameral legislature) to see how polarized their record was and ranked each member within their party.  The difference in the polarization between the members ranked in the middle of their party determines the polarization scores of the legislature. 

The US Congress, which has left John Conyers' HR 676 single payer bill in committee has a score of 1.2.  California, which almost passed single payer in 2010, had by far the highest polarization score at 2.5 while Vermont which did pass a single payer bill in 2011 has a score of 1.3.  Montana and Hawaii which are considering bills have scores of 1.6 and 0.9 respectively.  Our state, Pennsylvania of course, has a score close to the US Congress at 1.1 (I'm extrapolating from the graph for these numbers).  Louisiana had the lowest polarization at 0.5.

So what do these numbers mean for single payers prospects in the PA legislature with our new economic impact study?  As the film Lincoln artfully demonstrates raw numbers of votes are most important.  California, though polarized, had a large democratic majority which almost passed the bill.  Vermont is less polarized and passed their bill. 

Polarization in legislatures can fluctuate over time but averaged across years and houses can remain relatively stable.  Their original study plus the raw data can be downloaded here.

**Related Posts**

If Vermont Won't Have Single Payer What Will it Have?

Why Don't Republicans support Single Payer???

The Myth of the Conservative Voter

National, State, & County Uninsured Estimates

Vermont Green Mountain Plan Video

As demonstrations were held today in Pennsylvania to urge Governor Corbett to expand Medicaid under the affordable care act for 700,000 of Pensylvania's 1.2 million uninsured, DoctorsWeKnowVT has produced a 20 minute video on the status of it's single payer health care plan. 

**Related Posts**

If Vermont Won't Have Single Payer What Will it Have?

Aaron Carroll's Analysis of Single Payer and Wait Times

 

Protecting the Parasites: The Irony of Obamacare

The First Year of the PUSH Healthcare for All PA Blog

Your doctor, your choice

This is one of the slogans we believe in here at Healthcare for All PA.  It has been one year since we set up this blog.  The popular posts listed on the right are the top 5 for the last 30 days and since the blog began.  A more comprehensive list of the 10 most popular posts, out of 110 total, since the blog began, according to the built in stat counter, are listed below.

1.  Bob Mason's Letter to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

This one has received a lot of hits due to excellent writing by state VP Bob Mason on how the state Department of Public Welfare has dropped hospital care for newborns.


2.  Santorum: No One Has Ever Died Because They Didn’t Have Health Care | The New Civil Rights Movement

While running for president last winter Senator Santorum denied that anyone dies due to a lack of health insurance.  This post got a big response as it debunked his statement.

3.  Healthy Artists Video on Bicyclists Injury

This video post received a big response among the Pittsburgh's cycling community.  It is pro Affordable Care Act which we acknowledge does some good but needs big improvements.

4. Special Screening of Tony Buba Documentary on Braddock Hospital Closing

There was a big turnout for the special screening of the documentary 'We Are Alive' in early November.  It is about the struggle to keep Braddock Hospital open and it's impact on the community.

5.  Mike Stout & the Human Union Band Concert 

The blog was used to promote the concert by Mike Stout's band to raise money for PUSH and the Thomas Merton Center.

6.  If Vermont Won't Have Single Payer What Will it Have?

This post which discussed whether Vermont's Single Payer plan is really single player.  also received a big response and was published in the Thomas Merton Center's New People.

7.  The Supreme Pennsylvania Medicaid Decision

There was a huge upsurge in traffic in the wake of the Supreme Courts decision which upheld the Affordable Care Act in June.  The initial euphoria was tempered by the part which allowed the states to opt out of Medicaid expansion.  



8. Moving Backward

Blogger Lloyd Stires did an excellent skewering of the plan Paul Ryan-Ron Wyden plan to fix Medicare.

9.  Dan Onorato's Happy New Year

Lloyd Stires also gave the activist community an important heads up as outgoing County Executive Dan Onorato, after losing his bid to be governor of PA, was given a lucrative job by Highmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield. 

There are many other posts of which we are proud.  Many of these are linked to in the posts above and the tags below.  We encourage you to check them all out as well as the battles promise to continue rage on over the affordable care act in the coming year and we will continue to PUSH for single payer in Pennsylvania.

10. New Census Uninsured Data Out: White & Female Rates Getting Worse in PA

gender	%2010	MOE +/- %	% 2009	MOE +/- %	% 2008	MOE +/- %
Male	13.3	0.3	13.3	0.3	11.7	0.3
Female	10.8	0.3	10.0	0.2	9.5	0.2

 
The Small Area Health Insurance Estimates or SAHIE from the Census Bureau show that the uninsured problem in Pennsylvania was spreading to women and whites while remaining steady in African Americans and Hispanics in 2010.  This is their most recent year available.

If Vermont Won't Have Single Payer What Will it Have?

Wednesday night I was at a meeting of the Western Coalition for Single Payer Healthcare (a group in Western PA campaigning for a national single payer plan to be enacted).  The subject of state efforts to enact single payer came up.  I said that there were efforts in several states to enact it and Vermont passed it two years ago.  A member objected saying that Vermont's plan is not single payer because it's administered by Blue Cross.  This made me ask myself what a single payer system is.

I looked at the Vermont for Single Payer website and they do have a definition saying that "health care is financed by the public whose money is managed by the government or by a government sanctioned agency... (the full definition can be read here)."  If the government of Vermont indeed has sanctioned Blue Cross to administer their plan in a nonprofit capacity then it does meet their definition of single payer.  As TR Reid in the documentary Sick Around the World shows there is considerable variability in health care systems around the world.  Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands have systems which are administered by private insurers but heavily regulated by the government.  Does that count as single payer?  According to Vermont, yes.

Watch Sick Around the World on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Canada, the United Kingdom, Cuba, and Taiwan have healthcare systems which are administered directly by the government.  This I believe is the type of single payer system which those at the Western PA Coalition would prefer.  While there are good reasons to be suspicious of the intentions of Blue Cross or UPMC.  We won't really know how it works until it is fully implemented.  

We do have working models in other nations for universal non profit systems, They are all good systems with outcomes comparable to Canada's.  The commonwealth fund has studies which show that their health and cost outcomes are roughly equivalent with the US for profit system trailing.  If you double click on the image with some comparisons between the US and other countries below you can enlarge it.

I go to discussion groups like Drinking Liberally where many on the left do not really understand what single payer is.  They ask me questions like "doesn't Massachusetts already have it?"  I tell them no because it leaves the for profit nature of the current system intact which drives up the costs.

  **Related Posts**

WaPo Interactive International Cost Graphic

 

STOP Obamacare in Pennsylvania: Where We Agree with Them

 

Aaron Carroll's Analysis of Single Payer and Wait Times

 

Protecting the Parasites: The Irony of Obamacare