Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., implored lawmakers and advocates to push for a single-payer health care system.
WASHINGTON – With the health care reform law set to take effect this fall, a group of lawmakers and advocates gathered on Capitol Hill Wednesday to say it’s not enough and to push for a single-payer health care system.
Meanwhile, a House committee Wednesday curtailed Medicare payments to physicians. It was a lot of action on the date of the 48th anniversary of Medicare’s creation.
“We’re going to step up as a society,” Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Mich., said at the rally. “And say that we’re going to make sure our seniors are well taken care of.”
The rally, which included representatives from Public Citizen, Physicians for a National Health Program and Healthcare, Health Care Now!, pushed for Medicare expansion to cover everyone instead of only senior citizens. Ellison also said that the Affordable Care Act is only the beginning of a necessary overhaul to the U.S. health care system.
“We just pushed the ball down the road a few years ago with the Affordable Care Act,” Ellison said. “But we need to be making sure that states can take action among themselves to help move this goal of Medicare-for-all down the field.”
Public Citizen President Robert Weissman also said that the Affordable Care Act doesn’t go far enough. The single-payer system introduced in the House by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., would establish a single authority responsible for paying for medically necessary health care for all U.S. residents.
“At the end of the day we’re looking to replace [the Affordable Care Act],” Weissman said.
The Conyers bill would allow the country to save $592 billion, according to a study completed by Gerald Friedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and supporter of the bill.
Dr. Robert Zarr, a board member of the Physicians for a National Health Program and Washington pediatrician, said that Medicare expansion is the most equitable and cost-effective way to assure that every American receives quality health care. He also said that the majority of American doctors support national health insurance.
“The way to solve the issue of solvency is to put every single American on the rolls of Medicare,” Zarr said. “That is how you save Medicare.”
Later Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 51-0 to advance the Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act. The bipartisan act would repeal the sustainable growth rate formula for paying doctors and replaces it with a system of defined payments, transforming the Medicare physician payment system.
“The time of temporary patches and kicking the can down the road is over,” Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., said in a release.
“We are all resolved to achieve reform in a fiscally responsible manner,” Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in the same release. “Despite our significant progress, we will not be satisfied until the ink is dry on the president’s signature.”
The bill now goes to the full House for a vote.