Guaranteed Healthcare

President Lyndon B. Johnson signing Medicare Bill into Law with Harry S.
Truman looking on!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Last Thursday, September 18, 2008, Progressives For
Pennsylvania held our
second forum on the health care crisis in
Pennsylvania. This time, the focus
was on passing Pennsylvania's
HB 1660 and SB 300, both of which would
provide health care to all
Pennsylvanians in a Medicare model of health care
delivery.

This delivery system is publicly funded and privately
delivered, and
includes the free choice of physicians.

I certainly have nothing against socialized medicine, but
just to say, our
bill does not fall under that category, which
is publicly funded and publicly
delivered.

The first panelist to speak was Jim Ferlo, State Senator
from Pittsburgh,
PA., and prime sponsor of HB 1660.

He said that Single Payer is like a prairie fire that once
it ignites you
can't put it out, and it just spreads exponentially.

Social reform movements are never easy, Ferlo said, citing
the Safety For
Workers Act (Osha), Social Security and Medicare.

He also said that the National Media did not attend our
event because
they've been bought off by insurance companies.

Next up was Kathy Manderino, Pennsylvania State Representative
for the
past 16 years, and another prime sponsor of the bill.

She said that nothing breaks her heart more than when a
constituent comes
into her office after losing her job and health
insurance, with white knuckle
fear gripping that person's psyche.

She said that lack of health care coverage (now upwards of
48 million
people nationwide and 1,220,000 in PA alone, according to
the latest census
bureau results), is a Domestic Threat, similar to a
terrorist attack.

Our job is to educate Pennsylvanians about our bill, Kathy said.
We have
to convince our family, friends, neighbors, card playing partners,
book club
members, AARP and local clubs that if Single
Payer is good for the rest of
the world, then it is good for us, and why.

Manderino said that if we can't pass Single Payer, than we
must realize
that incremental change will bring us ultimately to a
Single Payer
system.

Dr. Walter Tsou, the next presenter, and co-writer of the
bill, said that
with all due respect to Ms. Manderino, Mitt Romney's
Massachusetts Health
Care Plan, and Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont,
Washington State and
Maine not
to mention Governor of PA Rendell's plan all have
caved in to Insurance
Companies thus driving their States into greater debt.

We cannot spend less money as long as insurance companies
are involved in
the delivery of health care, Walter Tsou said.

In the next 5 years, employers will no longer pay for
health care and the
burden will shift 100% to the employee under our present
very sick
system.

Did you get that, dear Reader?

In 5 years, you will be paying 100% of your health care
costs under the
present system. This will more than double the number of
uninsured in this
country.

Bill George, President of the AFL-CIO was next, on video,
giving us the
pleasure of his passion regarding Single Payer. He said
that the health care
delivery system that keeps the Health Insurance Industry
in place is not
working. The Health Insurance Companies are the problem with their
CEO
salaries, their advertising budget, their ever increasing denial of claims
to
pay for their bottom line of greed: this also contributes to our ailing
economy.

37 cents to every (health care) dollar is the current health care spending

compared to the cost of Medicare which is 3 cents to every health care
dollar.

The single payer alternative would save 32 cents on every
health care
dollar.

Dawn Ali, RN, was next, who serves on the Executive Board
of the
Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied professions
(PASNAP). She
also co-owned and operated the first African American nurse
owned dialysis
facility in Philadelphia for ten years.

She said she sold the business because of the drain on her
energy in
always having to fight to get the health insurance companies to pay
for
services rendered, which they were constantly trying to get out of
paying.

She also said the nursing shortage is largely due to the
impossible
working conditions that most bedside nurses have to work
under: mandatory
overtime, large patient loads, not to mention the suffering
caused by the
refusal of health insurance companies to pay the bills.

Donna Smith, star of Michael Moore's SiCKO, and now
Community Organizer
for the California Nurses, said her job with the California Nurses
is to
ferret out patient stories and to follow up and advocate for
these
people.

She told one story of a 30 year old woman diagnosed with
Chrohn's disease
earlier in her life. First she was on her Mom's insurance then
when she moved
out, her
pre-existing condition made it impossible for her to
get
insurance, and to pay for her mounting doctor bills.

Donna said this young woman told her story before an
audience, saying, "I
wonder what I might have become."

The Reverend Sandra L. Straus, director of Public Advocacy
for the
Pennsylvania Council of Churches, gave a moving talk about Jesus, who
healed
the sick and raised the dead unconditionally.

Right-wing fundamentalist so-called Christians fail to be good stewards
to
our citizens.

What would Jesus do?

Weston Scott Fisher, third year medical student at Penn State
University
Medical College in Hershey, PA, sent out a plea to the audience

to attend the second lobbying day at the State Capitol in Harrisburg,
PA
for Single Payer and HB 1660.

14% of all medical students are trained in Pennsylvania, but only 7%
stay.
These students lobby the legislators by telling them that if
they
pass HB 1660, they will gladly stay and practice medicine in
Pennsylvania.

Dr Tom gates followed Wes. He said that our current system of health care
delivery
is broken beyond repair.

He said this is due to lack of access and to the fact that 56 million

Americans are medically disenfranchised. They do not have a medical
home.
They use only the Emergency Room for care and often when it is too
late.

The cost of health care world wide is 4 trillion dollars and the cost of

health care in the US is 2 trillion. America consumes 50% of the health care

dollar, yet we have an ever increasing infant mortality rate and an ever

decreasing life expectancy.

Morton Mintz, media critic and the journalist who originally exposed
the
Thalidomide and Dalkon Shield scandals 40 and 20 years ago, said that
Single
Payer would prevent 100's of thousands of bankruptcies and yet the
media refuses to
cover this amazing story.

Mintz called this a grave sin of journalist omission and neglect.

And finally, our Mayor, Rick Gray stood up during the Q&A and said that
if we
can prove to him, by showing him the numbers, how Single Payer would
save our town
and every town and city and rural municipality in PA millions
of dollars, he's in.

And he will tell all the other mayors in PA.

What he may not know is that the US Conference of Mayors June 23rd of this
year
adopted a resolution endorsing HR 676, the National Health Insurance
Act, the National
Single Payer bill introduced by Democrat Representative
John Conyers of Michigan.

Progressives For Pennsylvania will make a point of meeting with our
mayor
very soon.

And the rest, as they say, will be history.

Kate Loving Shenk

-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Kate
Loving Shenk is a writer, healer, musician and the creator
of the e-book
called "Transform Your Nursing Career and Discover
Your Calling and Destiny."
The book is designed to stimulate
nurses to love their work and to prevent
on-the-job-burnout.
Click here to find out how to order the
e-book:
http://www.katelovingshenk.com/blog
http://http://www.katelovingshenk.com/nursingcareertransformation
Check out Kate's Blog:
http://nursehealers.typepad.com
And the Lens: http://www.squidoo.com/katelovingshenk
http://www.squidoo.com/thinkriches
http://doganddolphin.ning.com
http://nursehealers.typepad.com/dog_lovers_unite
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Kate Loving Shenk Nursing Career Transformation Sign Up HERE For Your
*FREE* Newsletter For Nurses And Healers Your e-mail address is safe with
me--see privacy notice on my
website!
http://www.katelovingshenk.com/nursingcareertransformation/simplenewslettersignup.html