Bernie Sander’s allotted 30 minutes on his proposal for single-payer health care (after Oklahoma asshat Senator Tom Coburn, on behalf of the Asshat Party, required a reading of the amendment to slow down the process, and Reid demanded Sanders pull the bill so he could kiss Nelson’s ass for Christmas).
And anyone offended by my calling a certain party names, I feel just as disgusted with the other one and have plenty more strong words for them. Fuck them all, with a handful of exceptions, they are all bought and sold by insurance, oil and banking interests and don’t deserve one second of my respect or anyone elses ..
Text:
From the Congressional Record, Dec. 16, 2009
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Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, let me begin not by talking about my amendment but by talking about the Republican action that we have seen right here on the floor of the Senate. Everybody in this country understands that our Nation faces a significant number of major crises–whether it is the disintegration of our health care system, the fact that 17 percent of our people are unemployed or underemployed, or the fact that one out of four of our children is living on food stamps. We have two wars, we have global warming, we have a $12 trillion national debt, and the best the Republicans can do is try to bring the U.S. Government to a halt by forcing a reading of a 700-page amendment. That is an outrage. People can have honest disagreements, but in this moment of crisis it is wrong to bring the U.S. Government to a halt.I am very disturbed that I am unable to bring the amendment that I wanted to bring to the floor of the Senate. I thank Senator Reid for allowing me to try to bring it up before it was obstructed and delayed and prevented by the Republican leadership. My amendment, which was cosponsored by Senators Sherrod Brown and Roland Burris, would have instituted a Medicare-for-all single-payer program. I was more than aware and very proud that, were it not for the Republican’s obstructionist tactics, this would have been the first time in American history that a Medicare-for-all single-payer bill was brought to a vote before the floor of the Senate. I was more than aware that this amendment would not win. I knew that. But I am absolutely convinced that this legislation or legislation like it will eventually become the law of the land.
The reason for my optimism that a Medicare-for-all single-payer bill will eventually prevail is that this type of system is and will be the only mechanism we have to provide comprehensive high-quality health care to all of our people in a cost-effective way. It is the only approach that eliminates the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste, administrative costs, bureaucracy, and profiteering by the private insurance companies, and we are not going to provide comprehensive, universal, cost-effective health care to all of our people without eliminating that waste. That is the simple truth.
The day will come, although I recognize it is not today, when the Congress will have the courage to stand up to the private insurance companies and the drug companies and the medical equipment suppliers and all of those who profit and make billions of dollars every single year off of human sickness. On that day, when it comes–and it will come–the U.S. Congress will finally proclaim that health care is a right of all people and not just a privilege. And that day will come, as surely as I stand here today.
There are those who think that Medicare-for-all is some kind of a fringe idea–that there are just a few leftwing folks out there who think this is the way to go. But let me assure you that this is absolutely not the case. The single-payer concept has widespread support from diverse groups from diverse regions throughout the United States. In fact, in a 2007 AP/Yahoo poll, 65 percent of respondents said that the United States should adopt a universal health insurance program in which everyone is covered under a program like Medicare that is run by the Government and financed by taxpayers.
There is also widespread support for a Medicare-for-all approach among those people who understand this issue the most, and that is the medical community. That support goes well beyond the 17,000 doctors in the Physicians for National Health Care Program, who are fighting every day for a single-payer system. It goes beyond the California Nurses Association, the largest nurses union in the country, who are also fighting for a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care. In March of 2008,
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S13291]a survey of 2,000 American doctors published in the Annals of Internal Medicine concluded that 59 percent of physicians “supported legislation to establish national health insurance.”
Madam President, you might be particularly interested to know that the New Hampshire Medical Society surveyed New Hampshire physicians and found that two-thirds of New Hampshire physicians, including 81 percent of primary care clinicians, indicated that they would favor a simplified payer system in which public funds, collected through taxes, were used to pay directly for services to meet the basic health care needs of all citizens. That is New Hampshire.
In 2007, Minnesota Medicine Magazine surveyed Minnesota physicians and found that 64 percent favored a single-payer system; 86 percent of physicians also agreed that it is the responsibility of society, through the Government, to ensure that everyone has access to good medical care.
But it is not just doctors, it is not just nurses, it is not just millions of ordinary Americans. What we are seeing now is that national, State, and local organizations representing a wide variety of interests and regions support single payer. These include the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the American Medical Students Association, the AFL/CIO, the United Church of Christ, the UAW, the International Association of Machinists, the United Steelworkers, the United Electrical Workers, the Older Women’s League, and so many others that I do not have the time to list them.
I ask unanimous consent to insert a list in the Record of all the organizations representing millions and millions of Americans who are sick and tired of the current system and want to move toward a Medicare-for-all single-payer system.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
National Organizations Support Single Payer
American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, American Medical Students Association, Americans for Democratic Action, American Patients United, All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care, Alliance for Democracy, Business Coalition for Single Payer Health Care, California Nurses Association/National Nurse Organizing Committee, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Coalition of Labor Union Women, Committee of Presidents, National Association of Letter Carriers, Committees of Correspondence, Earthly Energy Werx, Electrical Workers Minority Caucus, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Feminist Caucus of the American, Humanist Association, and Global Kids Inc.
Global Security Institute, Health Plan Navigator, Healthcare NOW!, Hip Hop Caucus, House of Peace, Institute for Policy Studies, Cities for Progress, Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organization, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, League of Independent Voters, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Association of Letter Carriers, National Council on Healthcare for the Homeless, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, National Education Association, National Organization of Women, National Student Nurses Association, Needed Now, and Older Women’s League.
PACE International Union, Peoples’ Health Movement–US Circle, Physicians for a National Health Program, Progressive Christians Uniting, Progressive Democrats of America, The United Church of Christ, United Association of Journeymen & Apprentices of the Plumbing & Pipe Fitting Industry of the United States & Canada, United Automobile Workers, United Automobile Workers, International Union Convention, United Electric Workers, United Federation of Teachers, United Methodist Global Board of Church and Society, United Steelworkers of America, Up for Democracy, Women’s Division of The United Methodist Church, Women’s Universal Health Initiative, and Young Democrats.
State Organizations Support Single Payer
1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, MD, DC, NY, MA; 1199SEIU Retired Division of New York; American Guild of Musical Artists: Chicago/Midwest Region; American Postal Workers Union (APWU), Michigan State; Arizona AFL-CIO; Arkansas AFL-CIO; California State Pipe Trades Council, United Association; California School Employees Association; Connecticut State Council of Machinists of the IAMAW; Connecticut Medicare for All; Delaware State AFL-CIO; Florida CHAIN; Florida State AFL-CIO; Florida State Alliance for Retired Americans; Health Action New Mexico; Health Care for All California; Health Care for All Colorado; Health Care for All New Jersey; Health Care for All Texas; Health Care for All Washington; Hoosiers for a Common Sense Health Plan; and Iowa Federation of Labor; AFL-CIO.
Kentucky House of Representatives; Kentucky Jobs with Justice; Kentucky State AFL-CIO; Maine Council of United Steelworkers; Maine State AFL-CIO; Maine State Building & Construction Trades Council; Maryland State and District of Columbia AFL-CIO; Massachusetts Nurses Association; Massachusetts State United Auto Workers; Michigan State AFL-CIO Women’s Council; Michigan State Association of Letter Carriers; Minnesota DFL Progressive Caucus; Minnesota State AFL-CIO; Missouri State AFL-CIO; New Jersey Media Corps; New Jersey State Industrial Union Council; New York Professional Nurses Union; New York State Nurses Association; North Carolina Fair Share; North Carolina State AFL-CIO; North Dakota State AFL-CIO; Ohio Alliance for Retired Americans.
Ohio State AFL-CIO; Ohio Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees; Oregon United Methodist Church; Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals; Pennsylvania State AFL-CIO; SCFL of Wisconsin; SEIU–United Healthcare Workers West; South Carolina State AFL-CIO; South Dakota AFL-CIO; Texas AFL-CIO; Texas Alliance for Retired Americans; Texas Building & Construction Trades Council; The Tennessee Tribune Newspaper; Utah Jobs with Justice; Vermont State Labor Council AFLCIO; Washington State Alliance for Retired Americans; Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council; Washington State Labor Council; West Virginia State AFL-CIO; Wisconsin Clean Elections Campaign; Wisconsin State AFL-CIO; Wyoming State AFL-CIO.
Mr. SANDERS. There is also significant support in the House of Representatives for a single-payer system. Together, H.R. 676 and H.R. 1200, two different single-payer proposals, have 94 cosponsors.
And let me say a word about State legislatures that have moved forward aggressively toward a single-payer system. In California, our largest State, the State legislature there has on two occasions passed a single-payer program. The largest State in America passed a single-payer program, and on both occasions it was vetoed by the Governor. In New York State, the State Assembly passed a single-payer system. Among other States where single payer has been proposed and seriously discussed are Ohio, Massachusetts, Georgia, Colorado, Maine, Vermont, Illinois, Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Minnesota, Indiana, and New Hampshire.
Why is it that we need an entirely new approach for health care in this country? The answer is pretty obvious. Our current system, dominated by profit-making insurance companies, simply does not work. Yes, we have to confess, it does work for the insurance companies that make huge profits and provide their CEOs with extravagant compensation packages. Yes, it does work–and we saw how well it worked right here on the floor yesterday–for the pharmaceutical industry which year after year leads almost every other industry in profit while charging the American people by far–not even close–the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.
So it works for the insurance companies. It works for the drug companies. It works for the medical equipment suppliers and the many other companies who are making billions of dollars off of our health care system. But it is not working for–in fact, it is a disaster for–ordinary Americans.
Today, 46 million people in our country have no health insurance and an even higher number of people are underinsured, with high deductibles or copayments. Today, as our primary health care system collapses, tens of millions of Americans do not have access to a doctor on a regular basis and, tragically, some 45,000 of our fellow Americans who do not have access to a doctor on a regular basis die every single year. That is 15 times more Americans who die of preventable diseases than were murdered in the horrific 9/11 attack against our country. That takes place every year: the preventable deaths of 45,000 people.
This is not acceptable. These horrific deaths are a manifestation of a collapsing system that needs fundamental change.
A number of months ago I took to the floor to relate stories that I heard from people throughout the State of Vermont regarding the health care crisis, stories which I published in a small pamphlet and placed on my Web site. Let me tell you one story.
A man from Swanton, VT, in the northern part of our State, wrote to me to tell me the story of his younger brother, a Vietnam veteran, who died 3
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weeks after being diagnosed with colon cancer. At the time he was diagnosed, he had been laid off from his job and could not afford COBRA coverage. This is what his brother said:
When he was in enough pain to see a doctor it was too late. He left a wife and two teenage sons in the prime of his life at 50 years old. The attending physician said that, if he had only sought treatment earlier, he would still be alive.
Horrifically, tragically, that same story is being told in every State in this country over and over again. If only he had gone to the doctor in time he could have lived, but he didn’t have any health insurance. That should not be taking place in the United States of America in the year 2009.
Our health care disaster extends beyond even the thousands who die needlessly every single year. Many others suffer unnecessary disability–strokes that leave them paralyzed because they couldn’t afford treatment for their high blood pressure, or amputations, blindness, or kidney failure from untreated diabetes. Infants are born disabled because their mothers couldn’t get the kind of prenatal care that every mother should have, and millions with mental illness go without care every single day.
In a town in northern Vermont not far from where I live, a physician told me that one-third of the patients she treats are unable to pay for the prescription drugs she prescribes. Think about the insanity of that. We ask doctors to diagnose our illness, to help us out, she writes the prescription for the drug, and one-third of her patients cannot afford to fill that prescription. That is insane. That is a crumbling health care system. The reason people cannot afford to fill their prescription drugs is that our people, because of pharmaceutical industry greed, are forced to pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. This is indefensible. There is nobody who can come to the floor of this Senate and tell me that makes one shred of sense.
The disintegration of our health care system causes not only unnecessary human pain, suffering, and death, but it is also an economic disaster. Talk to small businesses in Vermont, New Hampshire, any place in this country, and they tell you they cannot afford to invest in their companies and create new jobs because all of their profits are going to soaring health care costs–10, 15, 20 percent a year. Talk to the recently bankrupt General Motors and they will tell you that they spend more money per automobile on health care than they do on steel. GM is forced to pay $1,500 per car on health care while Mercedes in Germany spends $419, and Toyota in Japan spends $97. Try to compete against that.
From an individual economic perspective, it is literally beyond comprehension that of the nearly 1 million people who will file for bankruptcy this year, the vast majority are filing for bankruptcy because of medically related illnesses. Let’s take a deep breath and think about this from an emotional point of view. Let’s think about the millions of people who are today struggling with cancer, struggling with heart disease, struggling with diabetes or other chronic illnesses. They are not even able to focus on their disease and trying to get well. They are summoning half their energy to fight with the insurance companies to make sure they get the coverage they need. That is not civilized. That is not worthy of the United States of America.
In my State of Vermont–and I suspect it is similar in New Hampshire and every other State–I have many times walked into small mom-and-pop stores and seen those little donation jars that say: Help out this or that family because the breadwinner is struggling with cancer and does not have any health insurance or little Sally needs some kind of operation and she doesn’t have any health insurance, put in a buck or five bucks to help that family get the health care they need. This is the United States of America. This should and cannot be allowed to continue.
One of the unfortunate things that has occurred during the entire health care debate is that we have largely ignored what is happening in terms of health care around the rest of the world. I have heard some of my Republican colleagues get up and say: We have the best health care system in the world. Yes, we do, if you are a millionaire or a billionaire, but we do not if you are in the middle class, not if you are a working-class person, certainly not if you are low income. It is just not true.
Today, the United States spends almost twice as much per person on health care as any other country. Despite that, we have 46 million uninsured and many more underinsured and our health care outcomes are, in many respects–not all but in many respects–worse than other countries. Other countries, for example, have longer life expectancies than we do. They are better on infant mortality, and they do a lot better job in terms of preventable deaths. At the very beginning of this debate, we should have asked a very simple question: Why is it we are spending almost twice as much per person on health care as any other country with outcomes that, in many respects, are not as good?
According to an OECD report in 2007, the United States spent $7,290, over $7,000 per person on health care. Canada spent $3,895, almost half what we spent. France spent $3,601, less than half what we spent. The United Kingdom spent less than $3,000, and Italy spent $2,600 compared to the more than $7,000 we spent. Don’t you think that maybe the first question we might have asked is: Why is it we spend so much and yet our health care outcomes, in many respects, are worse than other countries? Why is it that that happens?
Let me tell you what other people will not tell you. One key issue that needed to be debated in this health care discussion has not been discussed. The simple reason as to why we spend so much more than any other country with outcomes that are not as good as many other countries is that this legislation, from the very beginning, started with the assumption that we need to maintain the private for-profit health insurance companies. That basic reality that we cannot touch private insurance companies, in fact that we have to dump millions more people into private health insurance companies, that was an issue that could not even be discussed. And as a result, despite all the money we spend, we get poor value for our investment.
According to the World Health Organization, the United States ranks 37th in terms of health system performance compared with five other countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The U.S. health system ranks less or less than half.
Sometimes these groups poll people. They go around the world and they poll people and they ask: How do you feel about your own health care system? We end up way down below other countries. Recently, while the Canadian health care system was being attacked every single day, they did a poll in Canada. They said to the Canadian people: What do you think about your health care system? People in America say you have a terrible system. Do you want to junk your system and adopt the American system? By overwhelming numbers, the people of Canada said: Thank you, no thank you. We know the American system. We will stay with our system.
I was in the United Kingdom a couple months ago. I had an interesting experience. It was a Parliamentarian meeting. I met with a number of people in the Conservative Party–not the liberal Democratic Party, not the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, the party which likely will become the government of that country. The Conservatives were outraged by the kind of attacks being leveled against the national health system in their country, the lies we are being told about their system. In fact, the leader of the Conservative Party got up to defend the national health system in the United Kingdom and said: If we come to power, we will defend the national health system. Those were the conservatives.
What is the problem with our system which makes it radically different than systems in any other industrialized country? It is that we have allowed for-profit private corporations to develop and run our health care system, and the system that these companies have developed is the most costly, wasteful, complicated, and bureaucratic in the entire world. Everybody knows that. With 1,300 private insurance companies and thousands and thousands of different health benefit programs all designed to maximize profits, private
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health insurance companies spend an incredible 30 percent of every health care dollar on administration and billing, on exorbitant CEO compensation packages, on advertising, lobbying, and campaign contributions. This amounts to some $350 billion every single year that is not spent on health care but is spent on wasteful bureaucracy.
It is spent on bureaucrats and on an insurance company telling us why we can’t get the insurance we pay for. How many people today are on the phone today arguing with those bureaucrats to try to get the benefits they paid for? It is spent on staff in a physician’s office who spend all their time submitting claims. They are not treating people; they are submitting claims. It is spent on hundreds of people working in the basement of hospitals who are not delivering babies, not treating people with cancer. They are not making people well. They are sending out bills. That is the system we have decided to have. We send out bills, and we spend hundreds of billions of dollars doing that rather than bringing primary health care physicians into rural areas, rather than getting the doctors, dentists, and nurses we need.
Let me give a few outrageous examples. Everyone knows this country is in the midst of a major crisis in primary health care. We lack doctors. We lack nurses. We lack dentists–a major crisis getting worse every single day. Yet while we are unable to produce those desperately needed doctors and nurses and dentists, we are producing legions of insurance company bureaucrats.
Here is a chart which deals with that issue. What this chart shows is that over the last three decades, the number of administrative personnel, bureaucrats who do nothing to cure our illnesses or keep us well, the number of bureaucrats has grown by 25 times the number of physicians. This is growth in the number of doctors–nonexistent. This is growth in the number of health care bureaucrats on the phone today telling you why you can’t get the health care coverage you paid for or telling you that you have a preexisting condition and throwing you off health care because you committed the crime last year of getting sick. That growth is through the roof. This is where our health care dollars are going. This is why we need a single-payer system.
According to Dr. Uwe Reinhardt in testimony before Congress, Duke University Hospital, a very fine hospital, has almost 900 billing clerks to deal with hundreds of distinct managed care contracts. Do you know how many beds they have in that hospital? They have 900 beds. They have 900 bureaucrats involved in billing for 900 beds. Tell me that makes sense.
At a time when the middle class is collapsing and when millions of Americans are unable to afford health insurance, the profits of health insurance companies are soaring. From 2003 to 2007, the combined profits of the Nation’s major health insurance companies increased by 170 percent. While more and more Americans are losing their jobs, the top executives of the industry are receiving lavish compensation packages. In 2007, despite plans to cut 3 to 4 percent of its workforce, Johnson & Johnson found the cash to pay its CEO Weldon $31.4 million. Ron Williams of Aetna took home over $38 million, and the head of CIGNA, Edward Hanway, took away $120 million over 5 years on, and on and on it goes.
So what is the alternative? Let me briefly describe the main features of a Medicare-for-all single-payer system. In terms of access, people getting into health care, this legislation would provide for all necessary medical care without cost sharing or other barriers to treatment. Every American–not 94 percent but 100 percent of America’s citizens–would be entitled to care. In terms of choice, the issue is not choice of insurance companies that our Republican friends talk about. The question is choice of doctors, choice of hospitals, choice of therapeutic treatments. Our single-payer legislation would provide full choice of physicians and other licensed providers and hospitals. Importantly–and I know there is some confusion–a single-payer program is a national health insurance program which utilizes a nonprofit, private delivery system. It is not a government-run health care system. It is a government-run insurance program. In other words, people would still be going to the same doctors, still going to the same hospitals and other medical providers.
The only difference is, instead of thousands of separately administered programs run with outrageous waste, there would be one health insurance program in America for Members of Congress, for the poorest people in our country, for all of us. In that process, we would save hundreds of billions of dollars in bureaucratic waste. In terms of benefits, what would you get? A single-payer program covers all medically necessary care, including primary care, emergency care, hospital services, mental health services, prescriptions, eye care, dental care, rehabilitation services, and nursing home care as well. In terms of medical decisions, those decisions under a single-payer program would be made by the doctors and the patients, not by bureaucrats in insurance companies.
If we move toward a single-payer program, we could save $350 billion a year in administrative simplification, bulk purchasing, improved access with greater use of preventative services, and earlier diagnosis of illness.
People will be able to get to the doctor when they need to rather than waiting until they are sick and ending up in a hospital.
Further, and importantly, like other countries with a national health care program, we would be able to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry, and we would end the absurdity of Americans being forced to pay two, three, five times more for certain drugs than people around the rest of the world.
Every other industrialized country on Earth primarily funds health care from broad-based taxes in the same way we fund the Defense Department, Social Security, and other agencies of government, and that is how we would fund a national health care program.
Let me be specific about how we would pay for this. What this legislation would do is, No. 1, eliminate–underline “eliminate”–all payments to private insurance companies. So people would not be paying premiums to UnitedHealth, WellPoint, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and other private industry companies–not one penny. The reason for that is that private for-profit health insurance companies in this country would no longer exist.
Instead, this legislation would maintain all of the tax revenue that currently flows into public health programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP, and it would add to that an income tax increase of 2.2 percent and a payroll tax of 8.7 percent. This payroll tax would replace all other employer expenses for employee health care. In other words, employers in this country, from General Motors to a mom-and-pop store in rural America, would no longer be paying one penny toward private insurance revenue.
The income tax would take the place of all current insurance premiums, copays, deductibles, and all other out-of-pocket payments made by individuals. For the vast majority of people, a 2.2-percent income tax is way less than what they now pay for all of those other things. In other words, yes, you would be paying more in taxes. That is true. But you would no longer have to pay for private health insurance, and, at the end of the day, from both a financial perspective and a health security perspective, we would be better off as individuals and as a nation.
What remains in existence–I should add here–is the Veterans’ Administration. I believe, and most of us believe, they have a separate set of issues, and the VA would remain as it is.
Let me bring my remarks to a close by giving you an example of where I think we should be going as a country in terms of health care. Oddly enough, the process that I think we should be using is what a small country of 23 million people–the country of Taiwan–did in 1995. In 1995, Taiwan was where we are right now–massive dissatisfaction with a dysfunctional health care system–and they did what we did not do. They said: Let’s put together the best commission we can, the smartest people we know. Let’s go all over the world. Let’s take the best ideas from countries all over the world.
As Dr. Michael Chen, vice president and CFO of Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Bureau, explained in an interview earlier this year, the Taiwanese ultimately chose to model their system–after a worldwide search–on
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our Medicare Program. That is where they went, except that they chose to insure the entire population rather than just the elderly. After searching the globe, the Taiwanese realized what many Americans already know: a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system is the most effective way to offer quality coverage at a reasonable price.
Taiwan now offers comprehensive health care to all of its people, and it is spending 6 percent of its GDP to do that while we spend 16 percent of our GDP. But, unfortunately, the single-payer model was not ever put on the table here. Maybe we should learn something from our friends in Taiwan.
Let me end by saying this: This country is in the midst of a horrendous health care crisis. We all know that. We can tinker with the system. We can come up with a 2,000-page bill which does this, that, and the other thing. But at the end of the day, if we are going to do what virtually every other country on Earth does–provide comprehensive, universal health care in a cost-effective way, one that does not bankrupt our government or bankrupt individuals–if we are going to do that, we are going to have to take on the private insurance companies and tell them very clearly that they are no longer needed. Thanks for your service. We don’t need you anymore.
A Medicare-for-all program is the way to go. I know it is not going to pass today. I know we do not have the votes. I know the insurance company and the drug lobbyists will fight us to the death. But, mark my words, Madam President, the day will come when this country will do the right thing. On that day, we will pass a Medicare-for-all single-payer system.