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 spins a response to our question about war funding

Congressman Miller responds to our key question about "why doesn't the Congressional Democratic leadership (Pelosi) simply cut off the purse strings by just not offering any more Supplemental Iraq funding bill at all." (Ending the war now was after all the clear mandate of the American voters when the elected a Democratic majority to Congress in 2006.) Cutting the purse stings by not offering a supplemental funding bill would end the war without the game of trying to round up Republican votes on a bill. With the clear message that there would be no supplemental funding extension, the military would have no choice but to begin an orderly withdrawal of troops, using the plentiful funding they still have in the pipeline from previous funding authorizations. Instead, the Democrats keep offering supplemental funding extensions with "strings attached," knowing full well that the strings will be stripped away in negotiations with the Republicans, or vetoed by the President.

Listen to Miller's response and see whether he actually answered our key question (about not offering a supplemental funding bill to vote on at all) or whether he evaded it (quote from Miller: "as you know, we cannot end the war without Republican votes"), while he throws in the false spectre that the decision to not offer another supplemental funding extension would leave our troops with no funding at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4iFlmIJZNU