For an up-to-date look at the fight for Single-Payer in Washington, watch these interviews with Donna Smith and Drs. Himmelstein and Wolfe.

Our healthcare system is the most expensive in the world and it is badly broken. Most of the current proposals for fixing it include maintaining a large role for the health insurance industry. Including the insurance industry guarantees that these proposals will not provide affordable, high-quality healthcare for all Americans.

The insurance industry is in the business of making money, in part, by avoiding coverage for the people most likely to need it, by avoiding payment of claims and by passing along ever-increasing healthcare costs to patients and employers. Healthcare dollars spent on the insurance industry go to people who are neither preventing nor curing illness.

A different solution is necessary: a universal, single-payer healthcare system.

It's called "single-payer" healthcare because one organization makes all the payments to the private healthcare professionals and institutions that you, the patient, choose to use.

It's "universal" because it covers everyone.

By eliminating the duplication, paperwork, overhead, advertising, profits and excessive executive salaries of the insurance industry, and by negotiating lower drug prices with the drug industry, we can eliminate 15 to 30% of current healthcare spending.

Traditional Medicare, itself a single-payer system, spends only about 3% on these overhead costs. H.R. 676, the single-payer healthcare bill now before Congress, is also known as "Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act ".

H.R. 676 provides for single-payer health insurance for all U.S. residents. It covers all medically necessary care, including:  primary care and prevention; inpatient, outpatient, and emergency care; prescription drugs; durable medical equipment; long term care; dental, vision, and hearing care; mental health services; substance abuse treatment; and chiropractic services. 

In addition to covering all US residents, this bill seeks to improve the current Medicare program by closing the infamous "donut hole," negotiating lower drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies, and replacing all premiums, deductibles, and co-pays with a with a 3.3% payroll tax on employees and a 4.5% payroll tax on employers, a modest (one quarter of one percent) tax on stock and bond transactions, and a supplemental tax on our wealthiest Americans.

The Western PA Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare is working to educate the public about H.R. 676 and to encourage our elected officials in Washington, Harrisburg and locally to support single-payer.

To learn more about single-payer watch the videos or read the articles listed to the left or read this brief summary of the legislation.

To get active for change, come to our next general meeting or to our next study group. Or contact us to arrange to have us make a presentation to your group or to talk about how you can get active for change in your community. And add your name to our e-mail list.

Who supports Single-Payer?

A collection of public opinion poll results (LINK)

Endorsers of H.R. 676-

PENNSYLVANIA UNIONS ENDORSE H.R. 676 (LIST)

NATIONAL ENDORSERS OF HR 676 (LIST)

DOYLE CO-SPONSORS HR 676

	Congressman Mike Doyle Issues Strong Statement in Favor of H.R. 676 DETAILS

ALLEGHENY COUNTY COUNCIL PASSES RESOLUTION SUPPORTING HR 676 (DETAILS)

PITTSBURGH CITY COUNCIL EMBRACES
SINGLE-PAYER (DETAILS [PDF])

U.S. CONFERENCE OF MAYORS (LINK)

Your Financial Contribution

Please review the letter we recently sent to supporters asking for contributions. While we have no staff or offices, our continuous growth and ever-widening activities are producing expenses beyond what can be paid for out of our pockets or by passing the basket at our meetings. Read the letter here.

HEALTHCARE for America NOW ???

A new coalition called Health Care for America Now (HCAN) has been in the news lately.  Although the name is similar to the group with which our Coalition is associated, Healthcare-NOW, HCAN is not promoting single-payer, universal healthcare.  Here  is a article outlining some of important differences between the HCAN proposal and single-payer.  For a lively debate highlighting the differences, listen to Dr. David Himmelstein, associate professor of medicine at Harvard University and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, and Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager for HCAN.

Medicare Birthday Party A Success

STORY

NATIONAL SINGLE-PAYER ACTION
IN WASHINGTON D.C.
Medicare: Made in America, Lobby Day and Rally,
Thursday, July 30, 2009

Single-payer advocates from across the country are going to Washington to tell Congress;

Single-Payer is the only morally and fiscally responsible reform.

Single-Payer includes everybody, all the time, no exceptions.
Single-Payer costs less than we spend now.
Single-Payer includes built-in control of national health care costs.

GET ON THE BUS WITH US!
Buses will leave from Pittsburgh, with a stop in Monroeville.
Reserve your seat on the bus (HERE)
or call 412-371-6650 for details.
Learn more about this national rally (HERE).

State Legislators for Single-Payer, HR 676

Pennsylvania State Senator Jim Ferlo and NY State Assemblyman Richard Gottfried Launch New National Campaign to Win State Legislator Support for HR 676. (MORE)

“HEALTH CARE: HUMAN RIGHT AND MORAL IMPERATIVE” Conference, organized by the Coalition with support from the Presbyterian Church USA, draws hundreds. (STORY)
U.S. Representative Eric Massa (NY-Corning) addresses the Conference at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

PROTEST IN CRANBERRY !!!
Altmire gets an earful from constituents and a pocketful from health care business interests. Post-Gazette Story

---

HEALTH CARE IS A
HUMAN RIGHT !!!
NOT A COMMODITY
Coalition Protests Opening of Highmark Store in North Hills

In the October 7th Presidential Debate, President Obama said that health care is a human right.  We believe that there is a moral imperative to provide health care for everyone. President Obama said what the rest of the industrialized world already knows: health care is not just another consumer product to be packaged, marketed, and sold to the few who can still afford it.

VIDEO REPORTS	PRINT REPORTS
	Coalition Press Release
	Protest Announcement
	Protest Flyer

---

What's the Matter with Massachusetts?
From the hearing held on Capitol Hill, February 25th,
"National Lessons from State Health Reform:
The Massachusetts Case Study"

Q: How is the Massachusetts' health plan like a hospital gown?
	David Himmelstein, MD, Cambridge Hospital Physician, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School on YouTube.
A: It looks a lot like coverage until you start to inspect carefully around the back.

Massachusetts Is No Model For National Healthcare Reform
The Massachusetts health care system, widely regarded as an example of how to provide universal coverage and keep costs low, is in fact faltering badly and should not be held up as a national model for reform... CONTINUED.

---

W. Pa. Coalition joins this national alliance for single payer healthcare reform as it gears up to push Congress to pass H.R. 676. (MORE)

---

HOUSE OF HOPE TO STAY OPEN ! ! !
SINGLE-PAYER SUPPORTERS STAND UP - UPMC BACKS DOWN

Protesters call for health care for people-
not for profit.

VIDEO REPORTS	PRINT REPORTS
	Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
	Press Release

---

President Obama needs to hear from you!

Barack Obama has often spoken favorably of single-payer (LINK, LINK, LINK).  But the healthcare program he proposed during the campaign was not a single-payer plan. It was a plan that included a big role for the insurance industry, guaranteeing that the plan will not be “universal” and that it will not do enough to contain healthcare costs.  The financial crisis has changed the healthcare problem and we need to urge the President to change his solution, to a single-payer health care plan. Contact the President and tell him that single-payer health care, "Improved and Expanded Medicare for All", is the fiscally responsible way to guarantee that everyone gets the health care they need.

---

Press Conference at Democratic Party Platform Committee Meeting

Congressman John Conyers, sponsor of H.R. 676,
addresses the press conference.
Single-Payer Supporters "Lobby" the Delegates Prior to Platform Committee Meeting in Pittsburgh
STORY

---

Cartoon by John Jonik