Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care mourns the unexpected January 23, 2024, passing of our steering committee member and activist Larry Hovekamp. We send condolences to his sister Elaine, his family and many friends. We honor the memory of Larry for his decades of marching and fighting for single payer healthcare so that everyone would have care regardless of their ability to pay.

Standing up by sitting down. Larry is pictured here in an October 2009 sit in on the marble floor of the Humana Building protesting the denial of care. This was part of nationwide demonstrations in the effort to place Improved Medicare for All, a national, not-for-profit, single payer plan, on the nation’s agenda. Larry was with us despite needing a cane to walk because of a serious car accident.

On January 10, 2024, National Single Payer hosted a webinar entitled:

“McMedicare for All: What Privatization Means for the Single Payer Movement”

presented by Ana Malinow, MD.

National healthcare experts Kip Sullivan, Suzanne Gordon, Karen Palmer, MD, Don McCanne, MD, Andy Coates, MD, John Geyman, MD, and Jim Kahn, MD, participated in the discussion following the presentation.

The webinar takes the participant from “Taking Advantage of Medicare” to “The Menace of Value-Based Care” to “The Way Out.”

The program begins after 48 seconds. Dr. Malinow ends at 38 minutes when Judy Albert, MD, chairs the Q & A from the audience.

In Lexington In early December of this year, Kay Tillow, Chair of Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care, addressed the KY AFL-CIO Convention with a presentation on the current health care crisis and the single payer solution.  Delegates responded enthusiastically—some requested copies of the slide show, most signed the petition, and several requested presentations.

Over a decade ago the Kentucky State AFL-CIO was the first state federation to endorse single payer health care—an Improved Medicare for All that would remove insurance companies, co-pays, and deductibles, and publicly fund health care for everyone.  After Kentucky broke the ice, a total of 44 state AFL-CIO federations and the national AFL-CIO proclaimed support for single payer.

At this year’s convention, Kentucky AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan, a long time supporter and activist for single payer health care, announced his retirement after 24 years of service.  The convention elected Dustin Reinstedler of the Bricklayers to succeed him.

The convention celebrated energized contract and organizing struggles with speeches by Teamsters Secretary Treasurer Fred Zuckerman, UAW President Shawn Fain, and the Flight Attendants’ President Sara Nelson.  Mineworkers President Cecil Roberts, a staunch single payer supporter, brought down the house with his unique narration of the miners’ battle at Cabin Creek.

The Dec. 7, 2023, presentation of Dr. Ana Malinow for Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care.

Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care invites you to a webinar featuring Dr. Ana Malinow who will present on:

Value-Based or Value-Less? From the Board Room to the Exam Room:

Medicare, Privatization, and the Menace of “Value-Based” Care.

Following the presentation, Dr. Malinow will respond to our questions. You’re invited! If you would like to participate, please email Kay at nursenpo@aol.com requesting to be sent the zoom link for the Dec. 7 webinar.

Dr. Ana Malinow spent three decades working as a pediatrician with immigrant, refugee and underserved children in Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, and California before retiring as Clinical Professor of Pediatrics from the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. She is past president of Physicians for a National Health Program and has been featured on national and international television and radio on health care reform and the stealth privatization of traditional Medicare.

She is currently a lead organizer for National Single Payer and The Movement to End Privatization of Medicare.

(This webinar will replace the December first Thursday meeting of KSPH. If you are on that list to receive the zoom link for regular meetings, you will receive the link for the webinar automatically.)

Below are three articles on this issue.

1. Value-based payment has produced little value. It needs a time-out

By Kip Sullivan, Ana Malinow and Kay Tillow, July 26, 2022

The value-based payment crusade is now two decades old. But despite the tens of billions of dollars — perhaps hundreds of billions — spent on these programs, they have done little to improve Americans’ health or lower health care costs.

Full article

________________

2. Value-Based Payment Is the New For-Profit Health Care Industry

Financed by powerful corporations and private equity firms, value-based payment threatens to take over health care.

By Kip Sullivan , Kay Tillow , Ana Malinow , Truthout, Published September 8, 2022

Over the last decade, a new industry has emerged that may eventually contribute as much to administrative waste as the insurance industry does today. This industry has no name. Because the participants in the industry all promote a new scheme known as “value-based payment,” and because they all make money off it, we propose to call the new industry the value-based payment (VBP) industry.

Full article on Truthout

____________________

3.“Value-Based Care” is a Pretext for Privatization

by Kay Tillow, July 13, 2022

Later this month, right before Medicare’s 57^th birthday on July 30, corporate health care and the government players who facilitate their lucrative businesses, will gather for a summit on value-based care.   They will speak of driving health equity, of reaching underserved communities, of coordination of care, and accountable care.  They will insist that physicians share in risk just like insurance companies.  They will advocate the transformation of health care to value-based care, supposedly founded on payment for quality rather than quantity, value instead of volume, and outcomes not fee-for-service.  They will assert that this transformation brings equity, improves care, and saves money.

They have no evidence to back up their assertions.  But the scheme to move to value-based care and to shove risk onto physicians imposes profit-making managers into the system, shifts the profit incentive from more care to denial of treatment, and expands opportunities for venture capital, private equity, and insurance companies. 

Article on Counterpunch

Baptist Health and a federal investigation cite plans’ denial of care and refusal to pay

By: Deborah Yetter – October 25, 2023

On Wed., Oct. 11, 2023, Kentuckians for Single Payer Health (KSPH) protested at the Humana Headquarters in downtown Louisville demanding 

*an end to denial of care

*the right to choose your doctor

*an end to forced placement in Medicare Advantage

*an end to ACO REACH and the privatization of Medicare

*enactment of a national, not-for-profit single payer plan–Improved Medicare for All.  

The action was waged in solidarity with New York City retirees fighting the city’s effort to take away their traditional Medicare who demonstrated on the same day at the Aetna and United Healthcare corporate offices in Hartford, Connecticut.  There were demonstrations in a dozen other cities, including Detroit and Denver, at the offices of other health insurance companies.

Harriette Seiler, Secretary of KSPH, was featured on WHAS TV, Channel 11.  Humana Medicare Advantage and other Humana plans in Kentucky recently failed to reach agreement with Baptist Health physicians forcing thousands of Kentuckians to have to find new doctors or pay out-of-network fees.  This crisis impacts Kentucky state retirees, county retirees, school board retirees other than teachers, and retirees and employees of Local 862 who work at two giant Ford plants in Louisville. Later on Oct. 11, UAW Local 862 workers at the Kentucky Truck Plant joined the strike for a contract. Restoration of retiree health benefits and pensions are UAW demands in the current negotiations.

Kirk Gillenwaters, President of the Kentucky Alliance for Retired Americans and a member of Local 862, addressed the issues on WDRB TV.

Jill Harmer, KSPH Steering Committee Member; Bill Londrigan, President of the Kentucky AFL-CIO; Jeff Wiggins, Secretary-Treasurer of the KY AFL-CIO;  Kay Tillow, Chair of KSPH, and Garrett Adams, MD, past president of Physicians for a National Health Program, were among those who addressed the crowd through a powerful sound system.

Chants of “Patients, Not Profits, Medicare for All,” and “Everybody In, Nobody Out” rang out above the noise of the construction on the Humana Building.

WDRB TV aired a story on Humana’s new CEO and included at the end additional coverage of the protest at Humana.

We are grateful to UAW retiree and skilled videographer Ron Hargrove for his creation of two videos from the demonstration.

Wed. Oct. 11, 2023

11:30 am – 1:00 pm 

Humana Headquarters

500 W. Main St.

Downtown Louisville 

*  to protest the denial of care, 

*  to demand the right to choose your doctor,

*  to express solidarity with retirees fighting forced placement in Medicare Advantage, 

*  to demand health care for patients not profits–Improved Medicare for All.

On Wednesday, Octobert 11, 2023, there will be demonstrations at Aetna and United Healthcare in Hartford, Connecticut, at Humana in Louisville, and in 10 cities around the country to protest the private insurance companies for their denial of care, their taking away of the right to choose your physician, their fleecing of the Medicare Trust Fund, their forcing retirees into Medicare Advantage against their will, and their role in privatization of Medicare.

Further info:  www.kyhealthcare.org, 502 636 1551, Sponsored by Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care

Hear Marianne Pizzitola, President of NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees tell what’s wrong with Medicare Advantage.

On Sunday, September 17, 2023, the First Unitarian Church featured “Single Payer Health Care–What America Needs Now.” Jill Harmer, PhD, a Clinical Psychologist and a member of the Steering Committee of Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care (KSPH), made the event possible and presented the sermon. Devi Pierce, MD, who practices in southern Indiana, spoke of the destructive impact high costs and prior authorization have on her patients. The video “What Does U.S. Health Care Look Like Abroad? | NYT Opinion,” was a part of the church’s program.

Jill included in her single payer message an appeal to join in the campaign against the privatization of Medicare that is happening through Medicare Advantage, ACO REACH, and other projects promoted by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. Kay Tillow of KSPH joined Jill for a lively question and answer session.