Join me and my colleagues tomorrow as we provide an update on my Medicare-For-All legislation. H.R. 676 is the solution for our healthcare system and I’m proud that 111 Democrats feel the same way. Join us at the House Triangle (in front of the Capitol) or live on Facebook at 9:45AM EST on May 24th!
Washington,D.C. – On Wednesday, May 24th at 9:45AM, Members of Congress will hold a press conference at the House Triangle to provide a new update on legislation to expand Medicare to a national, single payer system. Rep. John Conyers, Jr.(D-MI), the sponsor of H.R. 676, The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, will be joined by Members of Congress, along with representatives from Physicians for a National Health Plan and National Nurses United.
Date: Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Time: 9:45AM
Location:
House Triangle
West front of the U.S. Capitol
Washington, D.C.
(Near the corner of NewJersey Ave. and Independence Ave.)
Who:
Congressman John Conyers, Jr., Dean of the U.S. House of Representatives
Congressman Keith Ellison, Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chair
Congressman Ro Khanna
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee
Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman
Congressman Jamie Raskin
Congressman Adriano Espaillat
Congressman Peter Welch
Dr. Philip Verhoef, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics, ICU physician, University of Chicago
Jean Ross, RN., Co-President, National Nurses United
Additional Members of Congress
LIVESTREAM: The press conference will stream live on Rep. Conyers’ Facebookpage.
Background: In January, Congressman John Conyers, Jr., reintroduced H.R. 676, “The Expanded And Improved Medicare For All Act.” H.R. 676 would expand and improve the highly popular Medicare program and provide universal access to care to all Americans. The program would be primarily funded by a modest payroll tax on employers and employees, a financial transaction tax, and higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans. H.R.676 has been introduced in Congress since 2003.
The time for Medicare for All has come.
Conyers: Medicare for All's time has come (LINK)
Published: April 3, 2017 in the Detroit Free Press
I’m as happy as anyone with the way the Republicans’ plan to wreck our healthcare system crashed and burned. And President Donald Trump is right: Republicans lost because Democrats beat them. We beat them because we were organized, we were unified and we were backed by unprecedented grassroots energy. Members of the U.S. Congress hosted dozens of rallies, advocacy organizations hosted hundreds more and constituents showed up in overwhelming numbers at town halls across this country to make their voices heard.
And what exactly was their message? One of the most poignant moments came at a town hall hosted by U.S. Rep. Diane Black, Republican of Tennessee, where a constituent explained her opposition to the GOP bill using faith. As a Christian, she said, her faith was rooted in helping the unfortunate, not cutting taxes on the rich, so why not expand Medicaid and allow everyone to have insurance? And she’s not alone. Last week, a Quinnipiacsurvey found that voters overwhelmingly oppose cuts to Medicaid -- 74% of them -- including 54% among Republicans.
Given the record high support for publicly funded healthcare, economists, policy experts and commentators everywhere have called on the Democratic party to build on our momentum by supporting a single payer system. But perhaps the most convincing case I heard came from Jessi Bohan, the teacher from Cookeville, Tennessee who spoke at Rep. Black’s town hall.
The week after her question went viral she wrote to the Washington Post that she was troubled to see her comments used as a "defense of Obamacare" instead of what they were: an indictment of any healthcare policy that leaves anyone out. As Bohan so eloquently put it, "it is immoral for health care to be a for-profit enterprise" that allows insurance companies to make"enormous sums of money off the sick while people are struggling to pay their medical bills." If she had it to do over again, she wrote, she would have explained to Black "the Christian case for universal, single-payer health insurance, which would protect all Americans."
While her message was targeted at Republicans, it is one that many of my colleagues in the Democratic Party need to hear as well. For two weeks, I’ve watched Democrats point to the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the Paul Ryan bill and express righteous outrage that it would lead to 24 million Americans losing their insurance. But that same CBO score says that 28 million Americans will still be without insurance even under the Affordable Care Act. I’m impressed that the ACA has expanded Medicaid eligibility in states that have adopted it and more than 20million previously uninsured now have insurance, but universal healthcare it is not.
Time and time again I’ve heard Democrats dodge questions about their support for universal healthcare by saying they’re focused right now on defending the ACA. Now that we have repelled Paul Ryan’s attack and Donald Trump has signaled that Republicans will move on, the time for those excuses has passed.
For years, I’ve also watched as Democrats, including our presidential nominee last year, have avoided putting their name behind single payer by saying they’re focused on politically achievable short-term goals.
Single payer is politically achievable.
Gallup, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and other polling organizations have found that there is majority support for Medicare for All in America today. But more important, elected officials are not supposed to move to the political center, we are supposed to stake out the moral center and convince others to join us there.
November’s election results showed that we can’t just say "the other side is awful," however true that may be, and expect Americans to flock to us. To win again, we must be a party of principles and present bold ideas and a vision for the future.
It is true that single-payer healthcare has been implemented in virtually every other advanced democracy on Earth. It is also true that in those countries, people live longer andhealthcare is dramatically less expensive than it is here. And finally, it is true that Medicare for All is the direction Americans overwhelmingly want us to go. Nevertheless, I want my colleagues to join me in supporting single-payer not to save money or to win elections, but because it is the moral and just thing to do. If, like me, you believe healthcare is aright to everyone and not a privilege to those who can afford it, let’s be organized and let’s be unified in our support for Medicare for All.
John Conyers represents Michigan's 13th District in the U.S. Congress. He has introduced H.R. 676 Medicare for All bill in every Congress since 2003.
