George Miller votes to ban States from enacting single-payer health care

Dear Rep. Miller,
Why did you vote NO on the Kucinich amendment to the Health Care Reform bill, an amendment that would allow the states to enact single-payer health care systems? (Thank goodness it passed the Ed & Labor Committee vote, in spite of your opposition.)

You claim that you fully support a "public option". Isn't single-payer a public option? Single-payer would eliminate the insurance company middle man, control costs, and ensure universal coverage. The so-called public option in the current version of the bill would not be nearly as effective as a single-payer system.

If you support the concept of universal affordable public health care, but can't get enough votes in the House to pass a single-payer system, why in the world would you block the States from enacting it?!

As this bill works its way through congress, there will be many working behind the scenes trying to strip this amendment out of the final bill. Please don't be one of them!
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House Lets States do Single-Payer
by David Swanson , July 17, 2009
http://www.opednews.com/

On Friday morning at 9:45 a.m. ET in the House Committee on Education and Labor, the committee members voted 25 to 19 to pass Congressman Dennis Kucinich's amendment to the healthcare reform bill. This amendment, if it survives the full House, the Senate, the conference, and the President, will not alter the federal legislation except to allow states to create single-payer healthcare systems if they choose to. ....

READ Full Article and see ROLL CALL VOTE
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A Real Win for Single-Payer Advocates
by John Nichols, July 17, 2009
http://www.thenation.com/

Canada did not establish its national health care program with a bold, immediate political move by the federal government.

The initial progress came at the provincial level, led by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation's Tommy Douglas when he served from 1941 to 1960 premier of Saskatchewan. The universal, publicly-funded "single-payer" health care system that Douglas and his socialist allies developed in Saskatchewan proved to be so successful and so popular that it was eventually adopted by other provinces and, ultimately, by Canada's federal government.

... Votes for the amendment came from progressive Democrats who favor single-payer -- such as Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Lynn Woolsey, of California, and Raul Grijalva, of Arizona -- as well as conservative Republicans who have no taste for single-payer but want states to be able to set their own agendas.

Opposition to the amendment came mainly from Democrats such as committee chair George Miller, of California, who have resisted moves to create more flexible, innovation-friendly legislation.

.... After the committee vote, Rose Ann DeMoro, the executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, said, "This is a historic moment for patients, for American families, and for the tens of thousands of nurses and other single-payer activists from coast to coast who can now work in state capitols to pass single-payer bills, the strongest, most effective solution of all to our healthcare crisis."

READ Full Article
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For an overview of the current health care reform bill being discussed and formulated in congress, and its prospects for genuine reform, see article, "Obama's Health Plan, far from transformation".

For better understanding of single-payer system, see website of Physisians for a National Health Program http://www.pnhp.org/

Miller flip flops on prior vote against war funding

Dear Congressman Miller,

We were so impressed with your vote in the House on May 14 to oppose the $100 billion supplemental war funding bill to continue our endless military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course you and the sixty others who voted against it knew it would easily pass anyway, but it was an important principled stand.

Since then, the Senate passed their version of the bill, tacking on an additional 100 billion in the form of a loan to the IMF (to bail out European banks!), and now the House Republicans are saying they won't vote for the revised House/Senate version of the bill! This means the bill could actually fail!! And the wars could end!!

Unless of course the "House leadership" can convince at least forty of those Democrats who voted no on the first version of the war funding bill to flip their vote and vote yes on the revised bill.

And sadly we watched as you were one of the first of those Democrats to step forward and announce to reporters that you would vote yes on the revised bill. I guess this shouldn't surprise us, since you are actually Chair of the "Congressional Democratic Policy Committee".

But this certainly makes your original vote on May 14 look like an empty gesture, a safe vote for the purpose of political posturing.

NOTE TO READERS: If you don't like American policy of endless war, and George Miller's support for it, call him and tell him!

George Miller's contact form: http://georgemiller.house.gov/contactus/
Phone: 202-225-2095