Key congressman touts single-payer health coverage

Rep. John Conyers Jr. said yesterday that President Obama would not support single-payer universal health insurance now because he had too much on his plate - two wars and an economic crisis - and had to settle for the health-care reform he could get.

The Michigan Democrat, speaking at Thomas Jefferson University, said the president would push through a public-private system of health reform, keeping private insurance through employers, and expanding a Medicare-like system for the uninsured - "if he's lucky."

Obama has pledged repeatedly to pass health reform this year to cover all Americans, including the 46 million uninsured.

Conyers came to Philadelphia to rally support for his bill, which would create a single-payer system - essentially Medicare for all.

Under the bill, Americans would pay into a health-care trust fund, most likely through payroll taxes, and that fund would pay all hospitals, doctors, and other health-care providers for their services. Everything from ophthalmology to long-term care would be included. Private insurers would no longer be needed.

Conyers attended the health-care summit at the White House Thursday, although he was a last-minute invitee. "It was very heavy with corporate health-care interests - Big Pharma, insurance companies, the people who don't want single-payer," he said.

He joked that "I really wowed the president. I didn't say anything," although at least five other times in break-out sessions others sang the praises and called for a single-payer system, he said.

"Why can't we start from the point of view that health care is an inherent constitutional right?" he asked yesterday. "If it is a right, it shouldn't be based on employment, whether you have a job. So many people in American don't have jobs now, I don't need to tell you."

Conyers said a single-payer system was used in all the other major industrialized nations and was the only way to guarantee that right.

According to supporters, a single-payer system would remove all barriers to care, cover all medically necessary services, allow Americans to choose their doctors, and save enough money through a reduction in bureaucracy and administration to cover all the uninsured and pay for itself.

Physicians for a National Health Program, whose members handed out literature, says 14,000 American doctors, including two former surgeons general, support a single-payer system.

Ted Christopher, director of emergency medicine at Jefferson and a supporter of a single-payer system, said he believed "there is tons of waste" in the current system, and he underscored the urgency of reform. "We see more and more uninsured every day," he said.

Critics say a single-payer system would lead to rationing of health care, delays getting into hospitals and specialists, and shortages of doctors. They call it socialized medicine.

Responded Chuck Pennacchio, executive director of Health Care for All Pennsylvania, a group pushing bills in the state House and Senate for a universal single-payer system: "We've already got all that already - a rationing of care and a shortage of doctors. Everyone knows we don't have enough family-practice physicians."

One retired physician told Conyers that "single-payer will never happen in my lifetime."

Conyers, 79, drew a huge laugh when he replied, "You may not get it in your lifetime, but I'll get it in mine."