Protesters Disrupt Health Care Hearing (VIDEO)

A series of protesters demanding single-payer health care coverage disrupted a Senate Finance Committee roundtable on health care reform Tuesday. At the beginning of the hearing Tuesday morning, a man stood and yelled, "So let me get this straight -- you have 15 seats at the table and not one for single payer? Why is that?"

Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) banged his gavel and said the committee would stand in recess until police restored order. It wasn't long after the disruption ended before another began.

"We need more police," Baucus said, to laughter.

"Is there some place they can watch it on television?" asked ranking committee member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), apparently wanting to offer the protesters a seat on the couch, if not at the table.

The protest was organized by a coalition of groups, including Physicians for a National Health Program and Healthcare-NOW!, that advocates a single-payer or universal health care plan. "Other methods of communication with elected officials have failed in delivering the demand for single-payer national health care as evidenced by the exclusion of single-payer advocates from official hearings on health reform," said a release about the event.

"It's only when people who are living in the park and people who are living on Park Avenue have the same health care that everybody will have high quality health care," said one man. "Single payer now!"

Baucus begged for cooperation.

"Everybody on the committee and everybody in the Congress deeply deeply respects the views of all members of the audience, and all Americans who feel deeply about health care reform, especially those who are worried about a single payer system or public option who really do fervently believe that is the proper result," Baucus said. "We are going to get the best result here the more we can have an orderly discussion as to how we can best reform the health care system, so I want to say to everyone, especially those of you who might be inclined to stand up, I urge you not to so we can proceed with the hearing."

UPDATE: Katie Robbins, assistant national coordinator with Healthcare-NOW!, tells the Huffington Post that eight people were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and disruption of Congress.

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Comments

[flossophy]

Creepy:

Behavioral Science and Political Change, hosted by Warren Olney (NPR)

http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/tp/tp090409behavioral_science_a

The idea is to slowly nudge everybody into single-payer...

[coultersnemesis]

if you didn't know about 'nudge theory' already, you have been hiding under a rock.

[PlaceboStudman]

if you call what we get here in the push toward single-payer a nudge, then you must have become incredibly desensitized, cause I call it being steamrolled into single-payer.

Honet to God it almost makes me GLAD that I'm terminally ill

[flossophy]

After decades of Noam Ch0msky telling us about manufacturing consent... Nobody bats an eyelash when these techniques are used to draw the bewildered herd into a government program... Let's say that program is faulty (like Medicare/caid)... it will be impossible to get those people off of that program (like Bush's failed attempt at Soc Sec reform).

Humans, you do not want to go down the single payer path... simply because it creates a centralized point of failure instead of a distributed one.

[jinsei]

また？　ばかばかばかばか！！！　消えろ。

[Artemis34]

I got the middle

Stupid stupid stupid stupid! ! !

[flossophy]

私はあなたより賢く。

[PhilipTaylor]

100% could choose Medicare as a CHOICE

Choose base coverage of Medicare and if you want more buy supplemental coverage!

[loki]

just saw a Neo con Propaganda commercial against a national health care system. The spokes person, a Dr. Brian Day from Canada gave it some validity. Then I did a search on Dr. Day, and found his speech from his recent 2009 post of president of the Canadian medical association. In his speech he does talk of how waiting is a problem, but then says

" Waiting for care remains the number 1 health care concern on the minds of Canadians.

Other countries have had similar challenges. England has introduced reforms. They made some mistakes. Mistakes we can learn from. But, the bottom line is that wait lists have dropped dramatically, yet they spend far less on health care than we do.

Countries like Switzerland, Austria, France, Belgium, Germany and others do not ration or deny access in the Canadian manner.

It is a source of shame that we have over a million patients waiting for care and 5 million without a family doctor.

I have never advocated that we try to import any one country's particular system into Canada. But, we can - and must - look elsewhere for ideas that work

We must not deny any patient access to essential health care based on ability to pay; nor should we deny access based on a shortage of doctors, hospital beds, or operating time.

http://www.brianday.ca/

[KQuark]

If congress was pushing Canadian style healthcare that would mean something.

[EconPadawan]

Anyone who tells you you don't have to wait to see a doctor in the US has obviously never been to the doctor.

[Artemis34]

This is all conservative propaganda. Canada does not ration health care.

People have to wait in Canada as they have to wait around the world based on triage.

The difference is at the end of the wait there is actual care in Canada. Whereas the in the US far to often the wait is indefinite and care is never received.

Here is a rebuttal to a lot the propaganda going around about Canadian health care.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/canada.asp

I live in British Columbia, Canada and I'm delighted with the care. I'm also a US citizen and have a valid point of comparison.

[CanadianBeef]

My fellow Canadian! Thank goodness there are some actual Canadians around to rebut the scare-mongering going on down south. I don't recognize my own country when these right-wingers start talking about "rationing". It would be funny -- except that it's causing millions of Americans to go without a basic need. And that's what's really wrong.

[flossophy]

There are tens of thousands of cases each year about Canadian's problems with their health care coverage.

Illegal private health clinics are sprouting up all over Canada... The government is reticent to close them down because of fear of a public backlash.

It isn't a s0cialist ut0pia up above the 49th parallel... but the msm and progress0sphere will not tell you this.

[Peabodies]

Thank you, Artemis.

[RightsGuy]

The two main arguments for single-payer healthcare:

THE MORAL ETHICAL ARGUMENT

Health insurance companies make their profit by denying health care to sick people. That is immoral and unethical.

THE ECONOMIC ARGUMENT

Our current system of for-profit corporate health insurance has created an unbearable economic burden on the nation.
There are over 1500 separate health insurance companies operating under different sets of rules creating a 30 % administrative overhead-- Medicare overhead is only 2%.

By converting to a single payer system, we immediately save 300 billion dollars in administrative overhead.

As a nation, we are now paying twice what other countries pay for healthcare, yet we do not have universal health coverage in the US. 50 million Americans have no healthcare coverage and 87 million Americans were without health insurance at some point in the past 2 years. Almost half the bankruptcies currently filed in the US are due to medical bills.

Despite the costs we pay, the United States ranks LAST on a list of 19 industrialized nations in preventable deaths, and 29th of 37 in infant mortality. The World Health Organization ranks the US at 72nd for healthcare accessibility and efficiency. We can no longer maintain the status quo for the ways we currently provide and pay for health care.

ASK your Senators to support S 703, The American Health Security Act.

ASK your Representative to support HR 676, The United States National Health Insurance Act.

[coultersnemesis]

what;s the difference between the above bills and

Representative Pete Stark's (D"Calif.) "AmeriCare Health Care Act of 2007" (H.R. 1841) and Senator Edward Kennedy (D"Mass.) and Representative John Dingell's (D"Mich.) "Medicare for All Act" (S. 1218 and H.R. 2034)

?

[KQuark]

The economic argument will take care of itself if congress passes a bill with the public option because the economics of the situation will send people flocking to public healthcare because it will be inherently cheaper.

http://pol.moveon.org/publicoption/

[CanadianBeef]

I agree. It's a moral and economic no-brainer. Too many people here are trying to zing each other on this site with one-liners they come up with by parsing the sentences of thoughtful people like yourself. If they would do the kind of basic research you just did, everyone in the U.S. would already have health care.

[KQuark]

RightsGuy I'm not trying do be deceptive the link I left before was just dated before this current plan was introduced.

I think we should look at all options. I prefer Senator Kenn edy's plan because it's the most progressive plan that has a chance to past. I just don't feel like single payer can pass and as long as people have the option our healthcare system will evolve into single payer anyway.

Peace.

[KQuark]

sorry pass.

[23000Days]

Here's some good comparative charts on world health expenditures:

http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/universal.htm

[KQuark]

Cheers great info.

[coultersnemesis]

This is the best one, IMO:

Representative Pete Stark's (D–Calif.) "AmeriCare Health Care Act of 2007" (H.R. 1841) and Senator Edward Kennedy (D–Mass.) and Representative John Dingell's (D–Mich.) "Medicare for All Act" (S. 1218 and H.R. 2034)

Creates a new public health insurance program administered by the federal government to provide everyone with multiple choices for health coverage. Under the Stark bill (H.R. 1841), employers would either offer their employees coverage or pay into a fund to cover their employees through the new public program.

[marxmarv]

Screw employers. That does nothing for the self- or un-employed.

[KQuark]

That's my favorite plan as well.

[PhilipTaylor]

We can DO THIS - Medicare FOR ALL, the most Cost Effective Health Care in America!

Lets take the $Hundreds of Billions taken by Insurance Companies and by Health Care Providers and by MRI machines costing over $1 Million sold to a doctor's group every few miles ap[art in cities. Low utilization of EXCESS capacity in Hospitals so outpatient procedures cost $60,000 and in patient costs $Hundred(s) of thousands.

Medicare, a government program, is the most effective Health Care Program Available!
Everyone should have it plus buy supplemental plans if you want!
For 30 years we have tried for Health Care and the CORPORATE INTERESTS STOP IT EVERY TIME with their ownership of Congress!

This is as bad as the corruption on Wall Street!

Our Congress is owned by Health Care Companies/Providers, Bankers, and Insurance Companies!

Who pays Baucus opensecrets.orgg): $10,579,544 Banking Related $3,168,287 Health Related

Big Business PAC $8,956,729.0 (83%) Big Business 9 to 1 over Labor
Labor $1,001,805 (9%)

Securities & Investment $1,458,035
Insurance $1,170,313
Health Professionals $1,016,276
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $734,605
Lobbyists $713,684
Real Estate $687,217
Hospitals/Nursing Homes $541,891
Commercial Banks $518,807
Health Services/HMOs $439,700
Misc Finance $367,240

[KQuark]

Philip what is your favorite plan in congress?

[Artemis34]

We'd just have to make accepting medicare a condition of practicing medicine, operating hospitals, etc.

if we have a mix of public and private plans, then there will have to be quotas. Say, if 30% of the population is on the public plan, 30% +-5% of their transactions would have to be on the public plan.

If not, they could be forced to close their doors. We know fines don't work.

Those who want to practice private medicine, without public quota, can work in uncovered areas, cosmetic plastic surgery, etc., retire or leave the country.

[PhilipTaylor]

100% could choose Medicare as a CHOICE

Choose base coverage of Medicare and if you want more buy supplemental coverage!

[TheHandyman]

And we could take the money we'd have if we quit attacking other countries with our expnsive shiny war toys and put it into the program and there would be no need to increase taxes!

[zius]

in a socialized health insurance program the government doesn't interfere with medical care ie bureaucrats will not interfere in medical care

1-current system :- patient =======) private insurance company ====) healthcare (hospital doctor)

2-single payer health care system:- patient.====) socialized health insurance ===) healthcare (hospital doctor)

in a publicly financed, universal health care system, medical decisions are left to the patient and doctor,
people who are satisfied with their health care can keep their private insurance .....

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php#socialized

single=payer = socialized health insurance

[PhilipTaylor]

I like it! Good Job!

[KQuark]

Why do you insist on using the word socialized when it's not accurate?

The public option will work just like the insurance congresspeople get now.

All systems work the same you pay into a pool and benefits are payed to the providers from that pool. But the difference in government administering that pool is that they take no profits while private insurance does.

That's why we pay the highest for healthcare per person than any nation on earth. So healthcare providers can make blood money profits.

[doubtingdavid]

Actually I think you mean health insurance providers.

[Peabodies]

Well said, KQuark.

[paix]

Socialized medicine is when the government employs health care providers in goverment owned clinics. This is the system that England uses. What is being proposed for the US is a single-payer system similar to Medicare. There is competition because Medicare hires private companies to administer the plans in each state. This is done via a competitive bidding process. The difference is that Medicare mandates and supervises the rules of the system and the reimbursement that is paid to physicians and other medical providers.

[KQuark]

Veteran's care is socialized medicine where the doctors, nurses and hospitals are all part of the same system.

The single payer option is not socialized medicine.

[TheHandyman]

And the English have had excellent healthcare for quite a long time, that is until their equivalent of the neocons got a hold of the system and tried to destroy it on the behalf of American health corporations who wanted to gut it and make money off of the sick and dying!

[coultersnemesis]

AN INSULT to the People:

Senator Ron Wyden's (D–Ore.) and Representative Brian Baird's (D–Wash.) "Healthy Americans Act" (S. 334 and H.R. 3163)

Establishes a requirement for non-elderly, non-disabled individuals to purchase private insurance, called Healthy Americans Private Insurance (HAPI). HAPI plans would be offered by private insurers through "Health Help Agencies" created by each state or territory, or through an employer under the Senate bill, or through the federal government if there were not a private plan available in a region. The income tax exclusion for employer health benefits would be eliminated and a standard tax deduction (Senate version) or tax credit (House version) would be substituted. Additional subsidies would be available for low-income individuals.

Wow--keep the middle men useless private insurers AND fund their profit. Lovely idea Wyden and Baird. WHAT A JOKE.

[RightsGuy]

You are correct. Any system that requires Americans to buy health insurance will make the insurance companies richer and richer. A travesty!

[KQuark]

That is just one bill.

"Representative Pete Stark’s (D–Calif.) “AmeriCare Health Care Act of 2007″ (H.R. 1841) and Senator Edward Kennedy (D–Mass.) and Representative John Dingell’s (D–Mich.) “Medicare for All Act” (S. 1218 and H.R. 2034)Creates a new public health insurance program administered by the federal government to provide everyone with multiple choices for health coverage. Under the Stark bill (H.R. 1841), employers would either offer their employees coverage or pay into a fund to cover their employees through the new public program. Under the Kennedy and Dingell bills (S. 1218 and H.R. 2034), employers and their employees would help finance the expansion through new payroll taxes. "

Here is a link to the rest.

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/Fund-Reports/2009/Jan/An-Analysis-of-Leading-Congressional-Health-Care-Bills--2007-2008--Part-I--Insurance-Coverage.aspx

[PhilipTaylor]

PRIVATE INSURES=MASSIVE PROFITS to pay GREED EXECUTIVES

Public Health Care=No EXTRA MIDDLE MAN HUNGRY FOR PROFITS!

[PlaceboStudman]

Gotta love how anyone who puts even the tiniest wrinkle, or asks the slightest question, or raises the tiniest concerns around here, specifically those questions and issues that affect a minority of people, the elderly, disabled and generally medically fragile, are all shouted down, told to shut up, or called liars or shills for the insurance industry, simply because we won't fall lock step into the forward march position of heading over a cliff without a proper map. And not one single plan I've seen from anyone, Republican, Demoocrat, or Progressive has shown signs of even knowing the first thing of how to build a proper road map.

[seted]

Canada.

[PlaceboStudman]

Canada with their rationing and long wait lines is far worse than trying to fix the problems that exist here for those of us who fit in the elderly disabled and or medically fragile population

[LKV]

This isssue is so vital to our nation and to the people that are uninsured. To not have insurance or be able to buy it because of the cost os terrifying. This is a good start to help with the problem of the uninsured or under insured.

[helonias]

So what happens to the person who can afford health insurance, but has a pre existing condition?

TFB I guess

[LKV]

That is the big question.

[PlaceboStudman]

Damn...somebody other than me actually asked that?? Be ready to be shouted down and told to shut up because no one has an answer. because that's been my experience

[coultersnemesis]

Simple: Either you want to pay the high premiums (and they WILL be high if you have pre-existing issues) of private insurance because you think it is a better service than the public option, or, you 'buy-in' to the more affordable plan (it is more affordable due to the larger pool of risk and due to lower overhead)

[helonias]

Nonsense I have friends who had cancer and they are uninsureable even though they are now cancer free.

[Jeany]

My experience has been that certain prior conditions mean you cannot buy insurance for ANY amount of money.

[Enid]

Ever person no matter their health are insured within national health plans.

[lafrance]

I applaud those who had the courage to stand up and make their views known when trying to go through other avenues did not work.
Someone right before my post mentioned the tea baggers.
The difference with the two is that the teabaggers did not know what they were protesting or have any real facts about what they were putting on their signs. They mostly did it because Fox and Rush told them to. they were out to just make noise.
They were protesting Obama and democrats not any real policy.
The people today were protesting the lack of single payer representation and deeply care about and are very knowledgable about what they were dissenting over. And they did so with respect.

[wisecrack]

That is BS. YOu don't know the first thing about the tea parties so you make up a bunch of BS. Fox or Rush told them to? Are you nuts??????

[Renee27]

Although I don't advocate disrupting Congress, I am glad they did it. Congress doesn't seem to be listening to the people.

I hope they show us that they can do the right thing by passing the Credit Card Bill of Rights and the Anti-Tax Haven Law.

Elected Officials Contact Info:

http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

[Peabodies]

And the Employee Free Choice Act, and Conyers (H.R.676), and Sanders (S.703), health care for all legislation.

[Renee27]

Thank you!

[KrugnacTheMagnificent]

I'm all for single payer, with one stipulations.

Not *ONE* new dollar.

Our government already spends over $850 billion on health care. That's ~$2750 per capita. That's more than enough to cover every citizen in this country. Britain covers every citizen in their country for far less per capita than we already spend. So, go ahead and use the money we already spend, extend universal health insurance to all, and let the private insurance companies stay in business to supplement that government insurance.

Easy enough, now why can't Dems do it?

[coultersnemesis]

"Easy enough, now why can't Dems do it?"

--insurance companies take part in a practice called 'skimming' which means that they take the healthiest people, charge them lower premiums-- (ye the healthy hardly ever get sick, so the companies profit from never paying out benefits) and they refuse to cover, or charge insanely high premiums, to the most vulnerable (old, those who are already sick, or who have past problems) and thus leave the HIGHEST COST PEOPLE to be covered by the Government. Genius, really.

[KrugnacTheMagnificent]

Private insurers don't even enter into it. The government has $850 billion to run its own single payer public system. Instead, they dump it into the broken system we have, and as a result are only able to cover seniors, the disabled, and poor kids.

The government has more than a 50% monopoly on health care, since they pay over half the bills nationwide.

If they allow private insurance to drive up their cost of doing business, it's by choice. Your argument is like saying that a mom and pop retailer drives up the costs for Walmart.

It doesn't work that way, obviously. We're the 850 billion pound gorilla, and if we wanted to drive down spending, we could.

[seted]

UK is a he ll of a lot smaller than US.

[Artemis34]

Okay, Canada.

[marxmarv]

Kindly leave the discussion until you understand what "per capita" means.

[Philip Combs]

Simple, they've been paid to not 'want to...'. And the sooner we all realize this and let them know, repeatedly and loudly, the better the chances that the bribery won't be able to hold.

This issue more than any other, even the illegal wars we've got going, shows just how little our elected officials care about....

...us.

[RightsGuy]

They CAN do it with not one new dollar.

A NEW STUDY SHOWS THAT SINGLE-PAYER REFORM (national healthcare) WOULD BE A MAJOR STIMULUS FOR THE US ECONOMY and would provide:

** 2.6 Million New Jobs,
** $317 Billion in Business Revenue,
** $100 Billion in Wages, and
** $44 Billion New Tax Revenues

You can find out more about this study here: http://www.CalNurses.org/

The press release is here: http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2009/january/nurses-to-congress-expanding-medicare-could-reverse-job-losses-and-repair-our-broken-healthcare-system-and-safety-net.html

And check out this Bloomberg.com article, “No Reason to Demonize U.S. Single-Payer Health:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_wasik&sid=ao58otXrmrPM

[PhilipTaylor]

Yes!

Lets take the $Hundreds of Billions taken by Insurance Companies and by Health Care Providers and by MRI machines costing over $1 Million sold to a doctor's group every few miles ap[art in cities. Low utilization of EXCESS capacity in Hospitals so outpatient procedures cost $60,000 and in patient costs $Hundred(s) of thousands.

Medicare, a government program, is the most effective Health Care Program Available!
Everyone should have it plus buy supplemental plans if you want!
For 30 years we have tried for Health Care and the CORPORATE INTERESTS STOP IT EVERY TIME with their ownership of Congress!

This is as bad as the corruption on Wall Street!

Our Congress is owned by Health Care Companies/Providers, Bankers, and Insurance Companies!

Who pays Baucus opensecrets.orgg): $10,579,544 Banking Related $3,168,287 Health Related

Big Business PAC $8,956,729.0 (83%) Big Business 9 to 1 over Labor
Labor $1,001,805 (9%)

Securities & Investment $1,458,035
Insurance $1,170,313
Health Professionals $1,016,276
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $734,605
Lobbyists $713,684
Real Estate $687,217
Hospitals/Nursing Homes $541,891
Commercial Banks $518,807
Health Services/HMOs $439,700
Misc Finance $367,240

[Zenfull]

My congratulations to those citizens who directly petitioned their government on their views on health care legislation. If I was Barack Obama, I would invite those citizens to the White House along with the Senators from the Hearing and listen to their stories.

[Progressive Pete]

Except Obama is very opposed to thier views... Why would he bring them to the whitehouse?

[coultersnemesis]

Not true, this is on the table; make sure you tell your Rep and Senator to support it:

Representative Pete Stark's (D–Calif.) "AmeriCare Health Care Act of 2007" (H.R. 1841) and Senator Edward Kennedy (D–Mass.) and Representative John Dingell's (D–Mich.) "Medicare for All Act" (S. 1218 and H.R. 2034)

Creates a new public health insurance program administered by the federal government to provide everyone with multiple choices for health coverage. Under the Stark bill (H.R. 1841), employers would either offer their employees coverage or pay into a fund to cover their employees through the new public program.