On June 24, 2026, hundreds traveled to the Capitol Annex in Frankfort to express outrage at the cuts that were closing the Lee Specialty Clinic, a Louisville institution vital to the care of adults with disabilities.
Family members and supporters testified at a meeting of the Medicaid Oversight Advisory Board, passionately expressing the dire consequences that closing Lee Clinic would cause to their loved ones.
The following day, Governor Andy Beshear announced a transfer of funds to assure one more year to the Lee Clinic.
But the crisis of care in Kentucky will continue with many losing coverage because of cuts to Medicaid and exchange subsidies–hence the need to build a passionate push for national single payer.
You can watch the video of the hearing. Public comment begins at 1:06. Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care testifies at 1:41.
Harriette Seiler and Kay Tillow spread the Enhanced Medicare for All message with flyers and brochures. The families truly appreciated the KSPH solidarity.
Hundreds stopped by to tell about their struggles to get or to pay for health care and to sign a petition for a national single payer plan, an Enhanced Medicare for All, free from profit.
Above left, U. S. Senate Candidate Charles Booker signed the petition for Enhanced Medicare for All, free from profit. Above right, a young single payer supporter who traveled from eastern Kentucky to attend the May Day event in Louisville. Above center, Harriette Seiler, Secretary of Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care, and Paul Hoppe, host of Single Payer Radio, talked health care with all who passed by.
On April 25, 2026, Forward Radio, Louisville’s community radio station, 106.5 FM, celebrated its 9th Birthday at the Southern Louisville Christian Ministries. That’s 9 years of bringing to the public the programs and voices that have been locked out of the mainstream media. For all of that time, Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care has been broadcasting Single Payer Radio, magnifying the stories of the patients, physicians, and others who suffer from the for-profit control of U. S. health care.
Single Payer Radio, hosted by Paul Hoppe, Dr. Mike Flynn, and Dr. Eugene Shively, shines a light on health care and keeps alive the promise of a day when our country enacts an Enhanced Medicare for All, free from profit, covering everyone with high quality care.
Hasten the day by sharing the programs on social media and telling your friends to listen in.
On this 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we declare it is time for the people to rise up, organize, take control of the health care system, and run it in the interest of the public instead of in the interest of profit.
The Coalition of Labor Union Women, at its national convention in November of 2025, passed this resolution.
National single payer, an Improved Medicare for All, will provide operating expenses for rural hospitals and end the disastrous health care deserts in rural areas and small towns. In Kentucky, with 35 hospitals at risk of closure, this is a life or death matter.
Your city, county, organization, or union can help by passing a similar resolution! More info: Kay Tillow 502 636 1551, nursenpo@aol.com.
In the United States, where we have the highest costs yet the poorest health care performance in the industrialized world, single payer efforts were derailed in the early 90’s and again in 2010.
As we head into the midterms and beyond that election, there will be a renewed push for national single payer, an improved Medicare for All, free from profit.
All other wealthy countries, and some not so wealthy, have established universal health care through some form of single payer system. To do it here, we must have an informed public and an energetic movement.
In this National Single Payer webinar, Dr. Adam Gaffney begins at 3:00 minutes and finishes at 42:45. Please share it widely.
Dr. Gaffney has made the slides available. If you would like to have them, please make the request to nursenpo@aol.com with SLIDES in the subject line.
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.
___________________
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!
At the Humana HQ in Louisville on Dec. 11, 2021.
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.
Harriette Seiler at an earlier rally protesting healthcare cuts.
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
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