HEALTH CARE: Conyers promises a fight to get health-care reform bill through Congress

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To the Baby Boomers who packed the Rochester Museum and Science Center's Eisenhart Auditorium last night, Representative John Conyers� (D-MI) is something of a folk hero. He has pushed for health-care reform for more than a decade. In his soft-spoken Walt Disney-like voice, he said, "We're at a crossroads in this��
country," referring to the ailing US health-care system. Meeting President Barack Obama's request for a bill he can sign into law by the end of this year that would reform health care is going to be difficult, he said.

Conyers is the author HR 676: The US National Healthcare Act, a single-payer approach to health-care reform. He was here to talk about the bill and the obstacles to getting it through the House and Senate at "Rochester Speaks Out." The meeting also featured� Representative Eric Massa (D-NY), actress and activist Mimi Kennedy, and� University of Rochester professor Theodore Brown. Rochester was one of 50 cities nationwide holding similar meetings.

Conyers warned that just because Democrats hold power in the White House and control the House and the Senate, history shows that Democrats can't be relied on for health-care reform any more than Republicans. Former President Bill Clinton and his wife, now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, not only sought the wrong advice on crafting new legislation, they made it too complicated, Conyers said.
Obama, he said, is heading down a similar path.

"Some of the people in his Cabinet are not the smartest people," Conyers said.

And he is worried that Democrats will not have the political will to stand up to opponents of single-payer care. Polling from mainstream media shows that the public knows that the health-care system doesn't work, but is divided about action to correct it.

HR 676 has 75 co-sponsors, but there are Democrats who still have not signed on to the bill, including Rochester Representative Louise Slaughter. And some Democrats in Congress, Conyers said, are actively trying to block the bill.�

Part of the reason similar bills have failed in the past, Kennedy said, is due to an attitude in American society that says, "Some people are going to suffer, probably due to their own self-inflicted misfortunes." Many Americans seem to believe that the reason people don't have health care is because they are unemployed or work low-skills jobs. More education is needed to help Americans shift away from a system that links health care to employers, Kennedy said.

Since taking office, Massa said that he has had 35 families come to him for help because a child or a parent was being denied life-saving medical care from insurance companies.

For more information on HR 676, go to www.pdagv.org

Comments for "HEALTH CARE: Conyers promises a fight to get health-care reform bill through Congress" (5)

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Hope I don't get sick said on May. 31, 2009 at 7:57pm

Have any of those people packing the room actually read HR676, or is this going to be another "stimulus" bill that no one reads before its passed, then come to find out it really doesn't stimulate anything other than more government?

HR 676 is socialized medicine, meaning the federal government tells your doctor what diagnostic procedures can be done, what treatments can be prescribed, what medicines can be used. Yes, you can still have your own doctor. But your doctor is under the direction of the federal rules. It is much like NY school districts, which have their own school boards but 98% of what happens is dictated by the Dept of Educ in Albany anyhow, so "local control" means the remaining 2%.

American health care needs reforming, but a "single payer" (i.e., government) system is not the answer. It doesn't work too well where its been tried (think USSR and England, both public health disasters), and a bunch of federal bureaucrats telling my doctor how he can treat me is not my idea of a solution.

Kiku said on Jun. 01, 2009 at 12:32am

HR 676 is NOT socialized medicine. Socialized medicine is when the government is responsible for all medical facilities, research, doctors, hospitals, etc. HR 676 does not address the doctors, it addresses only the way that we pay for it, taking out the insurance companies who profit by denying care. 33% of all money for healthcare, stays in the insurance company. That's 33% that could stay in our pocket with a mechanism to collect funds and pay for them that doesn't require payments to stockholders, expensive CEOs, administrators, and a system designed not to make a payment.

OldenGoldenDecoy said on Jun. 01, 2009 at 4:12am

Thank you for providing this forum for discussions.

I am 62 years old. My wife of 40 years is 58. We still continue to be able to afford private coverage. We are both very active and in good health. We both continue to be employed.

Can someone tell all of us what the combined CEO's and fat cats and various board of directors salaries and advertising and marketing budgets are of the top 10 publicly-traded health insurance corporations?

Then to add to that, what's the stock investors cut of the action? Plus don't overlook adding the amount for the lobbying and legal expenses for those lobbyists in both Washington DC and every state in the Union. Oh, and then there are the expenses paid out for the various associations who run copious amounts of bat-crazy spin-and-spew fact twisting BS through the myriad of print, TV and internet news outlets throughout the country.

And here is an eye-opening stat from Health Care for America Now: "Profits of the 10 largest publicly traded insurers increased 428 percent from 2000 to 2007, from $2.4 billion to $12.9 billion."

Have your wages or salary gone up 428 percent?

Now let's get serious here, how much does all of that truly benefit the doctor/patient relationship or the health care services rendered??

On an end note: Our family of three has had the fortunate opportunity to have had health care coverage continuously with the same system since 1982. Over that 27 year period our total outlay for the premiums has been $175,500. Presently, since our son left the nest, our coverage costs $725 per month for only the two of us now.

Thanks to our genetics, our lifestyle of healthy living practices, preventative care, and our fortunate situation of no catastrophic hospitalizations, in addition to the lesser amount of stress of not worrying about coverage-- over that same period of time our total doctor and medical bills, and prescription drug costs including co-payments have added up to a yearly average of $859.72. That's a grand total of $23,212.50 over the 27 years.

I wonder if there's any chance of getting a rebate on what we've saved the system?

And just imagine the hundreds of thousands, no make that millions of people who haven't been as fortunate in that same time period.

Think about that ...

Conyer's bill: HR676!

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.676:

Read it ... if you haven't already done so.

Thanks again for providing this forum.

OldenGoldenDecoy

Speedmaster said on Jun. 01, 2009 at 6:11am

It's unfortunate that a member of Congress can be so ignorant of the Constitution, let alone economics.

Fred said on Jun. 01, 2009 at 6:29am

If you would like to help pressure Congress to pass single payer health care please join our voting bloc at:
http://www.votingbloc.org/Health_Bloc.php

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