Contact us: nursenpo@aol.com . Visit us on Facebook. Read the Physicians’ Proposal for a National Single Payer Program here. Sign on to it here. Articles of interest. Quote of the day by Dr. Don McCanne. Answers to questions on single payer. HR 676, Expanded and Improved Medicare for All.
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An affiliate of the Kentucky chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program
P. O. Box 17595, Louisville, KY 40217, www.kyhealthcare.org, (502) 636 1551
July 10, 2020
Governor Andy Beshear
700 Capitol Avenue, Suite 100
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Dear Governor Beshear,
We join our fellow Kentuckians in praising your strong and wise leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, the worst natural crisis most of us will ever see. We applaud your science-based actions and your sincere compassion for the people of the Commonwealth. Thank you!
Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare is a nonpartisan grassroots organization with a statewide following. We are affiliated with Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP.org) and share their mission to educate and advocate for single payer national health insurance—Improved Medicare for All.
Recently, shocked by the horrifying rate at which Black Kentuckians are dying from COVID-19, you committed publicly to covering every single African American and, furthermore, every Kentuckian. We are profoundly moved by your courageous commitment, and we welcome this initiative wholeheartedly. Yes, it must be done. There can be no excuse for our wealthy country, with its vast medical and professional resources, to leave anyone without high quality care.
We are grateful that you opposed the ill-advised Medicaid waiver proposals of your predecessor. Expansion of publicly-funded Medicaid was the major achievement of the ACA in Kentucky, but thousands still lacked coverage. Many fall into the gap with income too high for Medicaid yet too low to buy private plans or afford their deductibles and copays. In 2018 Kentucky still had 7% of the non-elderly uninsured—a total of 238,400, close to a quarter of a million people, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Today, as you well know, we are in crisis. With the arrival of the pandemic, the rising unemployment rate plays havoc with employment-based health insurance. Over 900,000 Kentuckians could lose their employer-based health coverage due to layoffs and furloughs. Many of these individuals may never be called back to their old jobs, which will create an enormous lack of health coverage in Kentucky. There is no way that the ACA can begin to meet the challenge with the newly unemployed numbers at over 40 million nationwide and a pandemic raging. Prior to the layoffs of 2020, there remained over 27 million uninsured, and nearly 62 million underinsured individuals in this country. We already have distressing health care outcomes lagging behind other wealthy countries in maternal mortality, life expectancy, and infant mortality, to name but a few. As coverage grew under the ACA, so did underinsurance—the number of people nominally covered who still could not afford their care.
We believe it is essential to look to a more far-reaching and cost-effective solution to covering all our people and eliminating health disparities. The solution is Improved Medicare for All, a publicly-funded single payer plan. The current state of healthcare in the midst of Covid-19 cries out for a low-cost, universal expansion of coverage that only a Medicare for All plan can provide, a truly best-case solution to insure that everyone receives equal and unparalleled access to the best medical care available. There will be no distinction in coverage based on race, ethnicity, health status, or ability to pay. All necessary medical procedures, hospitalization, dental, eye care, hearing aids, mental health, prescriptions, and long-term care would be available to all. To remove all financial barriers to care, there will be no copays and no deductibles. And the cost for better than 95% of our citizens would be significantly lowered.
Our nation’s health care system is structured to be dependent upon private health insurers and profits, making it the most expensive system in the world, yet millions are still deprived of coverage and care. About a third of the nearly $4 trillion per year that our country spends goes, unnecessarily, to administrative costs. We call for universal coverage that does not depend on private health insurance companies whose overhead and profit consume over 30% of total health care costs and will eventually bankrupt our healthcare system.
To accomplish the goals you have so courageously expressed, to which you are committed, will require national single payer legislation, an improved Medicare for All system as set forth in the proposal of the Physicians for a National Health Program.* We urge you to publicly endorse that proposal. You will have a world of impact in advancing your goals if you call on Kentucky’s congressional representatives to pass such legislation. Your endorsement can move the whole nation forward.
There is momentum now for a permanent solution to the ongoing health care crisis in our state and in our nation. Polls show majority support Medicare for All. In the recent Kentucky Democratic Primary senatorial election, the combined vote totals for the two candidates who supported Medicare for All were greater than the candidate who did not. In 2007, the Kentucky House of Representatives passed House Resolution No. 81, urging the US Congress to enact H.R. 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act.
Improved Medicare for All is the solution to solving this moral issue.
We would be pleased to provide more information on the advantages of Improved Medicare for All, either by teleconference or, hopefully soon, a face to face meeting. Please consider our request on behalf of the people of the Commonwealth. We look forward to future discussion, to answering your questions.
And again, thank you for your continued efforts tackling the heartrending problem plaguing the most vulnerable in our State.
Sincerely yours,
Garrett Adams, MD, MPH
Past President
Physicians for a National Health Program
Kay Tillow
Chair
Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care
Edgar Lopez, MD, FACS, Vice Chair
Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care
Harriette Seiler, Secretary
Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care
Charles Casper, Treasurer
Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care
* https://pnhp.org/what-is-single-payer/physicians-proposal/supplemental-materials-2/
cc: local and national news media
1. Harriette Seiler and Kay Tillow discuss Medicare Advantage, the privatized Medicare plans:
Wed., July 22 at 2 PM; Thur. July 23 at 11AM; Fri., July 24 at 1PM Link
2. Dr. Barbara Casper and Charlie Casper discuss Unemployment and Health Care:
Wed. July 29, 2020, at 2PM; Thur. July 30 at 11AM; Fri. July 31 at 1PM
3. Dr. Eugene Shively, Dr. Mike Flynn, Mark McKinley, and Kay Tillow discuss “Where does the money go in our health care system?”:
Wed. Aug. 12 at 2PM; Thur., Aug. 13 at 11AM; Fri. Aug. 14 at 1PM Link
4. Dr. Eugene Shively, Dr. Mike Flynn, Mark McKinley, and Dr. Jesse Wright discuss mental health and health care reform. Wed. Aug. 26 at 2PM; Thur., Aug. 27 at 11AM; Fri. Aug. 28 at 1PM Link
B. Dr. Mike Flynn and Dr. Eugene Shively discuss the Covid 19 virus in an interview by Mark McKinley. Aired May 27-29, 2020. It is archived at this link.
We are recording some shows in our homes using the open source program Audacity. If you are interested in recording for single payer radio, let us know 502 636 1551.
If the coronavirus could speak, it would thank America for its warm welcome. It would be delighted by the abundance of available hosts, such as factory workers who couldn’t afford to stay home, people in prison for whom social distancing was impossible, and health care workers who weren’t provided sufficient protective equipment. It would mock us for significantly outpacing the rest of the world in COVID-19 cases and deaths despite spending the most per capita on health care.
America’s fractured health system has enabled the coronavirus to thrive. Millions of Americans, particularly Americans of color, lack health insurance or otherwise can’t access care.
When I become a physician next year, I aspire to provide excellent medical care to everyone, without exception. The only way America can successfully defeat COVID-19 (and adequately respond to future health crises) is through enacting comprehensive, lifelong health coverage for everybody.
Unprecedented moments call for unprecedented actions: It’s time for Medicare for All.
Jerome Soldo
Louisville, 40217
In the Courier-Journal 5-12-2020
Closing of rural hospitals
How tragic that 18 of Kentucky’s 45 rural hospitals are in danger of closing, and the president of the rural hospital association says that’s a conservative estimate. How can we let this happen? These hospitals mean life-or-death access to care – or not – for millions of Kentuckians.
Since the late ‘80s, Physicians for a National Health Program has proposed a national single-payer system that would assure funding of every hospital through global budgeting. Hospitals’ income would be stable and predictable. Bureaucracy geared to billing, profits and bill collection would be eliminated. Responsiveness to the needs of the community and quality of care would replace financial performance as the criteria for judging the value of a hospital. Every hospital that serves a community would have the funds to care for its patients.
The World Health Organization has ranked U.S. health system performance as 37th despite having the wealth to be the best. The majority of us are for this improved Medicare for All, single-payer system. We must insist that the legislation that would make it real be passed.
Kay Tillow
Louisville, 40208
Dr. Barbara Casper, a Louisville internist, shares her concerns about our current profit driven healthcare system and the harm it causes for patients and providers. She is interviewed by her husband Charlie Casper who is a member of the steering committee of Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care.
This episode of Single Payer Radio will air on 106.5 FM on Wednesday May 13 at 2pm with repeat broadcasts on Thursday May 14 at 11am and Friday May 15 at 1pm – the Forward Radio Community Access hours for the 2nd week in May.
Single Payer Radio is a project of Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare and Physicians for a National Health Plan, Kentucky. We are proud to be a community partner with Forward Radio. kyhealthcare.org
You can subscribe to our podcasts and please join the Forward Radio Community at forwardradio.org
You can listen to this program at the link below.
Single Payer Radio is back on the air! The show, sponsored by Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care, will be broadcast on Forward Radio 106.5 FM and live streamed the 4th week of each month:
If you can’t pick it up on your radio, you can listen on line. Go to forwardradio.org and tap “Listen live.”
The April program on profit driven healthcare is archived here.
This show can be heard on 106.5 FM on:
Wednesday, May 27, 2pm;
Thursday, May 28, 11am;
Friday, May 29, 1pm.
Michael Flynn, MD, a retired surgical oncologist, has an article in the March 2020 edition of Louisville Medicine, the publication of the Greater Louisville Medical Society. The article is on page 31 and can be accessed from this link:
https://view.joomag.com/louisville-medicine-volume-67-issue-10/0707749001583327866?short
Courier-Journal
March 3, 2020
We can provide health care for all
Would you rather have your life and death medical decisions made by a “nameless bureaucrat” or in a boardroom in New York city? Having worked for many years for our government, I can assure you that the vast majority of government workers are motivated by the desire to do a good job and to provide a decent living for their family. They are not motivated by the need to siphon off millions of dollars from the healthcare industry to enrich their fellow board members and stockholders. These “nameless bureaucrats” do indeed have names and are responsible hard-working people trying to help with the mission their agency has been assigned. They are held accountable when they make mistakes and not given a golden parachute to go away. If all of our government workers and politicians are just lazy crooks, just what makes our country so great?
The insurance companies do not add any value to our health care. We can get along just fine without them. Our own Medicare, Medicaid and VA have proven this. Look at all of the other industrialized countries in the world that do just fine with government-run health care systems. If these other countries can afford to provide healthcare to all of its citizens, then surely the wealthiest country to have ever existed could also.
Gary Hagan, Shepherdsville, KY 40165
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Letter writer wrong about “Medicare for all”
I respectfully disagree with the views expressed by E. W. Hoelscher in his letter published in The Courier Journal’s Community Forum. In opposing Sen. Sanders’ “Medicare for All” bill, it appears Mr. Hoelscher was confusing Bernie’s plan with the British National Health System (NHS), where doctors and hospital workers are employed by the government. The NHS is a true socialist system. Under Bernie’s proposal, physicians would not work for the government. They would operate their own practices, and their fees for service would be reimbursed and processed through the government—as is now the case for traditional Medicare. Nor would hospitals be expropriated; they would operate as they do now but be paid through the single-payer financing system, rather than by way of costly middlemen. It is true that “Bernie and friends” oppose the private insurance companies who pay their CEOs outrageous salaries and add billions to the costs of U. S. health care.
Harriette Seiler, Louisville, 40207
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Courier-Journal Letter
March 11, 2020
Distortions about single-payer healthcare
Not surprising, the single-payer, Medicare for All alternative to our current healthcare mess is being heaped with distortions and outright false information. Witness two recent letters to the editor in The Courier Journal.
One writer says businesses will be the big winner with Medicare for All. Partially correct. They will definitely save money, but they will pay their fair share, just like employees. Eliminate premiums, deductibles and co-pays, and workers are the big winners, not employers.
The second writer claims the federal government will expropriate all hospitals and clinics if Medicare for All is adopted, and everyone will be working for the government. Not true. Hospitals and clinics would continue to be privately owned and operated. No different than the current Medicare program.
When the profit and overhead of insurance companies and hospitals amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars, and drug prices will be lowered due to negotiation, the savings are huge under Medicare for All. Savings will go to patient care and everyone will be covered.
And rest assured, Medicare for All will be sustainable long term, since Congress will be included in the plan, just like each of us, a sure-fire way to make sure funding is preserved.
Charlie Casper, Louisville, 40207
State Representative Tom Burch has introduced HB 445 which would end the ability of Medigap plans to charge higher rates or deny coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions. The legislation is needed because seniors in Kentucky who purchase Medicare Advantage but later seek to return to traditional Medicare and purchase a Medigap plan are no longer protected from underwriting.
Such persons with pre-existing conditions can be charged sky high prices, or denied entirely, a supplementary Medigap plan. The problem is discussed in Medpage Today.
There are only four states where there is some protection against discrimination for pre-existing conditions under these circumstances. This article from Kaiser Family Foundation explains.
Republicans, Democrats and independents are all opposed to charging outrageous rates or refusing to sell policies to people because they are, or have been, sick. The practice is clearly inhumane, and Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care asks all legislators to join with us in banning Medigap discrimination on the basis of pre-existing conditions.
These are the representatives who are sponsoring HB 445: T. Burch, T. Bojanowski, J. Donohue, C. Miller, P. Minter, J. Raymond, A. Scott, L. Willner
Currently there are massive ad campaigns to entice seniors to purchase Medicare Advantage plans by offering additional benefits and lower or no monthly premiums. Such offers are compelling for Kentucky’s many seniors with fixed incomes and tight monthly budgets.
What the ads do not say is that for-profit Medicare Advantage plans place limits on which physicians you can see and which hospitals, rehab centers, and nursing homes you can use. These private plans can also charge co-pays, drop physicians from their networks, and charge large payments for drugs.
The limitations of the Medicare Advantage plans only become apparent when a patient is sick and has to use the plan. When seniors initially become eligible for Medicare, they are protected against discrimination for pre-existing conditions in the purchase of a “Medigap” plan to supplement traditional Medicare. But those who purchase a Medicare Advantage plan and later seek to return to traditional Medicare will find that protection no longer applies.
In addition to the disadvantages brought to seniors by the Medicare Advantage plans, these plans also overbill the government by billions each year in a money grab that diverts Medicare money from health care into the pockets of the insurance companies. By 2012 the diversion of Medicare funds to private companies had already cost Medicare over $282 billion, and it is projected that the overpayments to Medicare Advantage insurers will amount to $200 billion over the next decade.
Speaking on behalf of Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care, Dr. Garrett Adams stated that Rep. Tom Burch’s bill to end discrimination by Medigap plans on the basis of pre-existing conditions has strong public backing. He added that the longer term solution must be the enactment of a national, improved Medicare for All plan that will finally cover everyone through a not-for-profit single payer system. “Such a plan will end the waste caused by profits, free everyone to choose their own doctors, end discrimination for pre-existing conditions and remove all financial barriers to care,” Dr. Adams said.
