So I spent the morning making calls and continued making calls while watching the House Energy & Commerce Committee Health Care Markup meeting on CSpan2 - waiting and waiting for this moment... around 2:30 when Rep Anthony Weiner introduced his Single Payer Amendment:
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More below....
After each amendment is introduce, each party has a short time for its members to express their support or disagreement with the amendment and then a vote is taken on whether the amendment will be included with the bill or not.
When Weiner finished I was ready for the fireworks. But there weren't any. The Republicans express their objection via one member and declined to speak about their objections to the amendment.
You can see the entire segment here via CSpan2 - starts about 03:16:11 in to the video.
Now jump to 03:31:15 where Chairman Waxman asks Rep. Weiner to yield to him.
And Waxman then says that he has talked with Pelosi and if Weiner will withdraw his amendment, Pelosi has pledged to allow the single payer bill (HR-676) on the full House floor for debate and a vote.
Seeing as how this is something I hae worked towards for over six years I nearly fell out of my chair. Weiner appeared totally surprised as well, but after making sure he understood the offer - having Waxman repeat it - he agreed and his amendment was shelved.
A few Republicans jumped in to object, but apparently, this was not something where any consensus was needed and Waxman quickly moved on to the next amendment. At that point you can see Weiner turn and give Tammy Baldwin a high-five.
Weiner's office issued this press release:
First Time Single-Payer Debated on Floor
"It’s a Better Plan and now it’s on Center Stage," says Weiner
Washington, DC – Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chairman of the Energy & Commerce Committee announced today that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has pledged to give Single-Payer an up or down vote when healthcare reform is considered before year’s end.
Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY), Co-Chair of the Middle Class Caucus and member of the Energy & Commerce Committee who led the effort with Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI); Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA); Rep. Elliot Engel (D-NY); Rep. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL); Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL); and Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT), released the following statement:
"Single-payer is a better plan and now it is on center stage. Americans have a clear choice. Their Member of Congress will have a simpler, less expensive and smarter bill to choose. I am thrilled that the Speaker is giving us that choice."
That was picked up by the NY DailyNews, which added:
Anthony Weiner is about to be the new hero of the progressive crowd after getting a promise from Nancy Pelosi to debate — and vote — on a single-payer plan to solve health care reform.
Weiner got that promise after he agreed to withdraw an amendment to essentially create Medicare for the whole nation in the Energy and Commerce Committee health care markup session this evening.
The Brooklyn-Queens Rep. looked a little surprised when Chairman Henry Waxman said Pelosi would allow that vote, and made Waxman repeat the deal to be sure it was clear and on the record.
It’s an especially big deal for advocates of a single health care system — who see it as cheaper and simpler than the complicated measure being drawn up — because they have been complaining that they have not even been able to get an airing of their position.
And having the vote of the floor of the House will force members to declare a position, and bring much more attention to the idea.
Personally, I can't thank Anthony Weiner (D-NY), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Mike Doyle (D-PA), Elliot Engel (D-NY), Bobby Rush (D-IL), Janice Schakowsky (D-IL), and Peter Welch (D-VT) for their work on this.
And of course John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich who have been pushing Single Payer in the House for years - generally the bill has had a significant number of cosponsors each session - have my deepest gratitude and a promise that I will continue making calls, visiting my reps and printing my postcards.
For those of you who are convinced that continuing to push for the public option as the best route I would really urge you to read this piece by John Nichols in the Nation:
Hope for Health Reform? Push Single-Payer Now
Unfortunately, the creation of a robust public plan, one that can compete on the basis of quality and affordability, will require a significant federal expenditure in the form of start-up money as well as regulatory protection for the program. That's where the devil comes in.
The powerful insurance and private health-care lobbies, which fear honest competition as the vampire does the stake, are going to do everything in their power to accomplish three things:
- Scare Americans with hypocritical talk about the hefty price-tag for getting a robust public plan off the ground.
- Undermine the structural supports for a public plan so that it cannot compete -- effectively turning it into a sub-standard "alternative" that will appeal only to those who have no other options.
- Fiddle with the overall "reform" so that most of the taxpayer money that is expended streams into the accounts of private firms.
In the state of confusion created the industry's lobbying and advertising campaigns, chances are that the scaremongers and the profiteers will come out ahead.
Physicians for a National Health Care Plan has launched a smart -- and necessary -- new campaign to get President Obama to abandon experiments that are likely to fail in favor of the reform he supported before he became president: a single-payer plan.
"Like most of our colleagues and the majority of the general public, we believe that single-payer reform is the standard against which other health reforms should be measured. Sound single-payer proposals have been introduced in both the House of Representatives (H.R. 676, The U.S National Health Care Act) and the Senate (S. 703, The American Health Security Act of 2009)," the physicians write. "Single payer reform, as embodied in these bills, would eliminate the bewildering patchwork of private insurance plans with their exorbitant overhead and profits, as well as the costly paperwork burdens they impose on providers. These savings on bureaucracy - nearly $400 billion annually – are sufficient to cover all of the uninsured and to provide first dollar coverage for all Americans. No other approach can provide comparable coverage at a cost our nation can afford."
That's the proper prescription. Obama and Pelosi should listen to the doctors and follow it. But that will only happen if those who favor real reform seize on this uncertain but not unforgiving moment to make the case for single-payer.
This piece in the Detroit Free Press makes a point we should all come back to:
For-profit insurance: No value added
In the health care debate, the one question we should be asking is: What is the marginal value of having private health insurance?
After all, if the purpose of health insurance is to mitigate the financial consequences of catastrophic illness or injury, the current level of medical bankruptcy shows that having such "insurance" is, for many Americans, anything but. Recent research from Harvard University and Ohio University showed that 78% of the individuals whose illness led to bankruptcy had health insurance at the onset of the illness that pushed them or their families into bankruptcy court.
Yet we continue to trust private insurers. Policymakers and federal legislators seem to have blind faith in their ability to solve the problems of American health care.
You never start a negotiation from your "line in the sand" - which is what a robust, Medicare like public option is for most of us. We have proof enough now, that doing so means you lose too much.
Let us all join together now to work for Single Payer in the House. We may still not have enough support for it to pass, even in the House, - but the current road of working for a public option is not getting us where we need to be.
Stand up for Single Payer and let the politicians do the compromising. At least then we will know we did our best to clear the path for them to give us the best plan currently possible.