Now we need for HR 676 to be introduced into the senate

At 11:06 AM on Wednesday, April 19, 2017, Pennsylvania Congressman Brendan Doyle tweeted his statement on why he decided to cosponsor HR 676, Congressman John Conyers’ national single payer, Expanded and Improved Medicare for All, legislation.

Two days earlier, Congressman Conyers tweeted a welcome to California Congresswoman Linda Sanchez as the 99th cosponsor.

This single payer legislation is soaring! Across the country at town hall meetings and demonstrations people are raising the demand to move forward to covering all the people, ending the outrageous costs, and freeing health care from the control of insurance and pharmaceutical companies. HR 676 is the legislation that accomplishes just that.

(Check out the statement of the Tennessee teacher who spoke up at a town hall meeting then wrote in the Washington Post “As a Christian I defended Obamacare but I really support single payer.”)

Keep working to get your representative to sign on to HR 676! If they have signed on, encourage them to boldly and publicly support HR 676, to indicate their support on their website, and to speak on the House floor for it. The phone number is (202) 224-3121.

Now we need a companion bill to HR 676 in the Senate.

A “public Option” bill won’t help.

A buy-in to Medicare won’t help.

Such legislation may sound good, but it isn’t. Such bills maintain the illusion that we can make a profit-based market system work. The only way to progress is full throttle ahead to remove the insurance industry’s control of care by passing HR 676.

We need a companion bill to HR 676 in the senate. Ask your two senators to read the bill and then to introduce it.

It’s important to note that HR 676 is a very special piece of legislation. Congressman Conyers first introduced this bill in 2003. He worked with Physicians for a National Health Program to craft HR 676 to reflect the principles set out in the Physicians Proposal which was printed in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Unlike the current Trump-Ryan proposals and the patches to the ACA proposed by anti-single payer Democrats, the physicians’ proposal is evidence based.

The current Physician’s proposal is printed here.

All of the parts of HR 676 are important to assure that the economic barriers to care are removed and to guarantee the economic savings that will be used to expand care and improve it for all of us. There are no co-pays, no premiums, and no deductibles under HR 676. HR 676 is free at the point of service, swinging wide open the door to care for even the poorest—the least of these.

HR 676 provides for the ending of for-profit hospitals and institutions which will be converted to non-profit entities. This is crucial, for all of the data show that for-profit hospitals cost us more yet have higher death rates. Let us not leave a loophole through which hospitals can continue their deadly pursuit of profits to the detriment of patients.

HR 676 covers long term care and dental and drugs and mental health and rehab and all of the other medically necessary care. Unlike the Affordable Care Act, HR 676 does not discriminate against the undocumented. HR 676 is “Everybody In, Nobody Out.”

HR 676 does not turn over our care to the whims of 50 different states. HR 676 is simple and straight forward—the starting point—the platinum standard. We need the same bill in the Senate.

Polls show overwhelming support for single payer, improved Medicare for All. An April 2017 poll by The Economist shows that 60% favor expanding Medicare to provide health insurance to every American. Only 23% oppose it! And, yes, even 40% of those who voted for Trump favor it. The wind is at our backs!

Add your strength to the growing movement! If your union has not yet endorsed HR 676, please do so. Your action will make a difference at this crucial time. The sample resolution is here.

Forward to single payer health care!