Guaranteed Healthcare

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RN Leader to Testify at Congressional Hearing Wednesday on Single-Payer Healthcare Reform
Press Release 06/09/09

Congressional Hearing to Consider Single-Payer Healthcare
National Nurses Blog - Daily Kos 06/09/09 - (Please comment!) 

President Obama is expected to host a group of Democratic Congress members at the White House later today. The meeting comes one week after Obama said he would consider supporting a mandate-based approach to healthcare and the creation of a public insurance option.

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Democratic lawmakers are close to unveiling new legislation on health care reform they hope to pass before the August recess. On Monday, House Ways and Means Committee chair Charles Rangel said Democratic Congressmembers are uniting around a plan that would include a mandate forcing employers to offer insurance or face penalties. Uninsured Americans would also face fines if they chose not to purchase coverage. The proposal would also offer a public “exchange” where consumers could shop for insurance online. Rangel says the exchange would offer a government-run public insurance program.

The plan would also impose new restrictions on insurance companies barring the denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions. Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy has been drafting a Senate proposal also centering around imposing mandates on employers.

President Obama is expected to host a group of Democratic Congressmembers at the White House later today. The meeting comes one week after Obama said he would consider supporting a mandate-based approach to health care and the creation of a public insurance option.

On Monday, a group of Republicans wrote a letter to President Obama opposing public insurance, saying: “Forcing free market plans to compete with these government-run programs would create an unlevel playing field and inevitably doom true competition.” The letter was signed by all Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee except Maine Senator Olympia Snowe.

In their comments on health care, President Obama and Democratic leaders have focused on enormous health care costs that they say must be reined in. But their plans would still leave much of the U.S. health care system in the hands of for-profit insurance companies that critics say account for most of the unnecessary spending.

I am joined now by two guests. Joining me from Washington, D.C. is Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Earlier this year he introduced the American Health Security Act of 2009, which would establish a single government program to guarantee healthcare to all Americans, including the 46 million currently uninsured. Senator Sanders is the longest-serving independent member of Congress in American history.

And joining me from St. Louis, Missouri is Rose Ann DeMoro. She is executive director of the California Nurses Association, which has been a leading advocate for single-payer health care. Last week she took part in a meeting arranged by Senator Sanders with

Senator Max Baucus, who has excluded single-payer voices from pivotal Senate Finance Committee hearings on health care reform.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, independent senator from Vermont. He is the longest-serving independent member of Congress in American history.

Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.