On March 28, 2026, activists passed out tiny pink flyers with the Medicare for All message in Morehead, Lexington, Richmond, Berea, Jeffersonville, Downtown Louisville, and Crescent Hill. Thanks to all who helped to spread the word. Everyone was for it!
We celebrate the life of Dr. Ewell Scott, a founding member of the Kentucky Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), whose soft Kentucky accent and deep empathy for humanity won hearts and minds to support single payer health care in hills and hollows, and towns and universities across the state.
Dr. Scott, born and raised in Frankfort, Kentucky, graduated Cum Laude from DePauw University and from Case Western Reserve University Medical School. He did his Internship in Med-Peds at the University of Virginia Hospital and his Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Virginia.
He is Past President of St. Claire Regional Medical Center Medical Staff. He served as President and Medical Director of Morehead Clinic, and he was Clinical Volunteer Faculty at both the UK and U of L Schools of Medicine. From 1972 until his retirement he practiced internal medicine in Morehead, Kentucky.
Dr. Scott was deeply involved in his community and played a leading role in bringing orchestral music to the hills with the founding of the Cave Run Symphony based in Morehead, the smallest city in Kentucky with a community-supported symphony orchestra.
He belonged to the Kentucky Medical Association, and, on Dr. Scott’s initiative, that organization hosted Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a PNHP founder, for a program on single payer health care at their annual meeting.
Around 2005, Dr. Scott persuaded the city council of Morehead to pass this resolution:
City Council, Morehead, Kentucky
Resolution
Whereas the cost of Health Insurance is excessive and places a burden on the budget of City Government, and whereas other essential services and fair wages may be compromised, and whereas police and fire protection services are placed in jeopardy and whereas there is no National Policy or Strategy to reduce this burden, therefore the City does request responsible lawmakers to urgently address these issues
Furthermore, since Single Payer Plan with Progressive Public Financing is the most reasonable and economical solution, the City urgently urges our Federal Representatives to give consideration to such solution and to support THE NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE BILL, HR 676, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
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Similar resolutions were passed in Louisville, Vicco, and Boyle County.
In 2006 Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care hosted a hearing at a downtown Church in Louisville. Many told their stories of suffering and tragedy caused by a broken health care system. Dr. Ewell Scott explained how to fix it. Thanks to Harriette Seiler for preserving and editing this 18 minute segment, part of a video made by Sonja De Vries. Thanks to Paul Hoppe for restoring the audio.
In 2019, Dr. Scott was a part of a panel presentation at the UK Medical School. All panel members agreed that a Single Payer system would effectively lower hospitals’ overhead costs without changing physician salaries very much, but had different ideas of how best to implement such a system. Dr. Scott was in favor of a fast implementation of a Single Payer System, pointing to Taiwan as an example, where a complete healthcare overhaul was achieved in 1995. He said, “our country needs to get over our fear of socialism,” in order to improve healthcare for citizens.
Dr. Scott is survived by his wife, Sandra Scott; his two sons, Andrew (wife Morgan) and Adam (wife Nicole); and his beloved grandchildren, Alexis, Mitchell, Andrew, and Nina Scott; his brother, Dr. Ed Scott (wife Ann); and his sister, Lucy Pryor (husband Bob). Obituary.
No Kings Day Protests are set nationwide for Saturday, March 28, 2026. Will you help to bring the message of Improved Medicare for All, free from profit, to the crowds that will be gathering across Kentucky? If so, we can provide you with flyers and petitions.
March 28 demonstrations are planned in Louisville, Pee Wee Valley, Shelbyville, Bardstown, Elizabethtown, Frankfort, Lebanon, Danville, Lexington, Florence, Owensboro, Richmond, Winchester, Berea, Bowling Green, Maysville, Franklin, Madisonville, Morehead, Hopkinsville, Middlesboro, Whitesburg, and Paducah. Check here for the details: https://www.nokings.org/
We can provide you with tiny flyers, about 4” by 5”. They are small enough to fit in a pocket yet concise enough to get the message across. We can send you flyers, and include petitions, bumper stickers, and brochures if you like. Write to nursenpo@aol.com with No Kings flyers in the subject line.
This is what the flyer says:
Medicare!
Love it. Improve it. Expand it to all!
We celebrate Medicare by calling for improvement of its benefits, protection of it from privatization, and expansion to the entire population.
We call for passage of national single payer legislation, an Enhanced Medicare for All as set forth in the proposal of Physicians for a National Health Program. This plan would add dental, drugs, long term care, in fact all medically necessary care, remove all co-pays, deductibles, and premiums, and end medical debt.
This Enhanced Medicare for All would extend the benefits to people of all ages, assure that no one goes without care because they cannot pay, and save our rural hospitals by providing funding.
Better care for all—while saving billions. Join us to make it happen! Sign the petition! Join our meetings. Patients, not profits.
Free presentations on single payer and Medicare.
Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care www.pnhp.org www.kyhealthcare.org, nursenpo@aol.com, 502 636 1551.
The Louisville Fellowship of Reconciliation invited Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care to present the program on February 19, 2026, at the Third Thursday Luncheon at Hotel Louisville.
Using Power Point, Kay Tillow outlined the current state of our health care crisis showing the urgent necessity to enact a National Single Payer Plan, an Improved Medicare for All, free from profit. Jim Johnson of Solutions to Violence recorded the program for use on Forward Radio. You can listen to the radio program here.
Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care will make this presentation, free of charge, to any organization or group in Kentucky. Just let us know: nursenpo@aol.com. 502 636 1551
On January 20, 2026, the Floyd’s Fork Democratic Club hosted a community discussion on the health care crisis.
Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care set the stage with a power point presentation on the current costs and outcomes of our U. S. system. The U. S. is 49th in life expectancy and, according to the Commonwealth Fund, has a failing health care system ranking at the bottom when compared to other wealthy countries. Yet the U. S. spends double, per capita, what those comparable nations spend.
No wonder we have an affordability crisis! Participants engaged in a vigorous question and comment session. The meeting was open to the public.
KSPH offers this same presentation, for free, to any organization in the state of Kentucky. Write to nursenpo@aol.com to make arrangements.
The Washington Post editorial predictably ignores research showing that a single-payer system would save hundreds of billions of dollars—and tens of thousands of lives—each year.
By Jake Johnson
Dec 26, 2025
An editorial published on Christmas by the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post inveighed against supporters of Medicare for All in the United States, pointing to the struggles of Britain’s chronically underfunded National Health Service as a “cautionary tale” while ignoring research showing that a single-payer system would save the US hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives each year.
On Dec. 2, 2025, Claudia Fegan, MD, National Coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in Washington, D. C. She put forward the solution, Improved Medicare for All, a national single payer program, free from profit.
This was a full committee hearing on: Making Health Care Affordable Again: Healing a Broken System.
Dr. Fegan’s testimony begins at 59:29. The video is at the link.
https://www.help.senate.gov/hearings/making-health-care-affordable-again-healing-a-broken-system
‘We don’t turn anyone away.’ Eastern Kentucky clinic may become health care model
By Linda Blackford, Herald-Leader
Updated November 11, 2025 11:22 AM
Dr. Edward Roberts founded the Post Clinic in 1996 because he wanted to help patients with free health care in Mount Sterling. Linda Blackford
Inside Mount Sterling’s city limits, past the food pantry and vast Victorian piles on Main Street, there’s a quiet street with a brick building with a small sign that says simply: “Post Clinic.” But inside the nondescript building, medical personnel are hard at work filling cavities, making X-rays and diagnosing such Kentucky ailments as high blood pressure and diabetes. But money never exchanges hands. Since its founding in 1996, the Post Clinic has lived up to its founders’ desire to help people get medical care for free.
Drs. Ellen and Edward Roberts, both had practices in Mount Sterling, but wanted to do more for patients who couldn’t afford their regular services.
“Medical debt is the greatest driver of bankruptcy in Kentucky,” Edward Roberts said recently as he gave a tour of the clinic wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with “Single Payer Health Care.”
November 2 to 4 was a fantastic fall weekend in Bowling Green. KSPH staffed a table and talked to scores of workers. Many signed the petition for National Single Payer, Improved Medicare for All, free from profit. The theme of the convention was “Stand Up, Fight Back.”
On October 18, 2025, Kentuckians gathered in over 25 cities and towns to express their concerns. In Louisville where thousands protested, Jill Harmer and Harriette Seiler passed out over 900 Improved Medicare for All flyers. In Morehead, over 300 demonstrated at Fountain Park where speakers competed with the constant car honking in support. Morehead is the home of one of Kentucky’s 35 hospitals that are at-risk of closure in the face of Medicaid cuts and inadequate funding. Kay Tillow addressed an enthusiastic crowd calling for the enactment of a national single payer health care system, free from profit and covering everyone. Such an Improved Medicare for All system would save and sustain those hospitals by funding operating costs. Many signed the single payer petition.
