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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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
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.
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.
