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Latest News
For the latest news, analysis and opinion on health reform legislation, check the PNHP national web site at www.pnhp.org
PNHPWW 2010 Annual Public Meeting - Save the Date!
Click here to download meeting PDF flyer
Donna Smith, community organizer and legislative representative for the National Nurses United (US largest nurses’ union with 150,000 members)/California Nurses Association and the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care will deliver the keynote address. Congressman Jim McDermott and state health care reform activist Larry Kalbwill also speak.
Smith was recently honored as the National Organization for Women’s (NOW’s) 2009 Woman of Action and first came to the public’s attention in Michael Moore’s 2007 movie, “SICKO.” She is a founder of the health care advocacy group American Patients United and has appeared on PBS’s Bill Moyer’s Journal.
Rep. Jim McDermott has represented Washington’s 7th Congressional District since 1989 and has been a leading advocate for health care reform. He is the sponsor of HR 1200, the American Health Security Act, which would guarantee health care to every American through universal, single-payer health care. Rep. McDermott will deliver an insider report on health care legislation in Congress.
Larry Kalb will address the moral imperative of universal coverage for guaranteed access to comprehensive, timely health care. He is a Democratic candidate for Congress in Washington’s 2nd District and has been Chair of the Progressive Caucus for the Washington State Democratic Party. Larry also served as the National Coordinator for the Health Care Working Group for the Progressive Democrats of America. He has been a board member of Health Care for All - Washington for six years and its President for the past two years. You can follow Larry’s campaign at http://kalbforcongress.org
The speakers will each make presentations and take questions from the audience. In his State of the Union address on January 27, President Obama asked, “But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and top insurance company abuses, let me know.” The presenters at this event will have answers to the President’s challenge.
Also on the program, a representative of the Mad as Hell Doctors will introduce a short video of their caravan trip across the country advocating for single payer Medicare for All. The Bob Wickline Family will provide musical entertainment. The PNHP Western Washington Chapter will present its 2010 John Geyman Health Justice Advocate Award to a worthy activist.
We also plan a workshop for activists with Donna and the Mad Docs on Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning. If you are interested in participating, stay tuned.
PNHPWW January Monthly Meeting
Speaker - Sarah Cherin, Co-Chair Healthy Washington Coalition
The Healthy Washington Coalition is the largest health care reform organization that has existed in Washington State in recent history. PNHPWW is a member of HWC that includes labor unions, business organizations, health care providers, hospitals, consumer groups and public interest groups.
Sarah is the new Co-Chair of the HWC along with Rachel Berkson. Sarah's responsibility is to coordinate HWC's activities in Olympia during the 2010 legislative session. She is Director of Governmental Relations UFCW-Local 21 (United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Local #21).
Sarah filled us in on the Healthy Washington Coalition's legislative agenda for the 2010 State Legislature session and led the discussion, especially lively in the wake of the events the preceding day in Massachusetts. Please see the meeting report linked below:
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Contact your legislators in support of Kucinich's amendment for a state single payer option/ERISA waiver in the House bill and Sen. Bernie Sanders' single payer bill in the Senate (S. 703). Additional supporting materials are located at www.pnhp.org/change and www.pnhp.org/amendment.
Use PNHP's online campaign tool to send a letter to your Representatives - click here to send a letter!
- Speak out to local media and / or publish an op-ed about the new Harvard study that finds nearly 45,000 excess deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage. note that you are a local physician who is willing (if you are) to be interviewed about this study and the need for Medicare for all. According to new study by PNHP co-founders Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein, and Dr. Andrew Wilper, nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with a lack of health insurance, up from the 18,000 estimated by the Institute of Medicine in 2002. One American now dies every 12 minutes from lack of health insurance. A copy of the study, along with a state-by-state breakout of excess deaths from lack of insurance, is available at: http://www.pnhp.org/excessdeaths
PNHPWW at the Martin Luther King Day Celebration March in Seattle, 1-18-10
PNHPWW at the "Health Care for the Holiday" rally in Seattle, 12-12-09
- PNHPWW Lobbying Suggestions and Contact Info - Click Here
Click below to watch the video montage put together and sung by BobWickline and family:
PNHP Annual Meeting - Cambridge, Mass - Oct 23-24
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The PNHP Annual Meeting was held on Saturday, October 24 in Cambridge, MA at the Royal Sonesta Hotel. Guest speakers included Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine; Harvard health economist William Hsiao Ph.D.; former CIGNA executive Wendell Potter; journalist TR Reid; Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Anthony Weiner (tentative), and more. Links to meeting materials and slideshows - http://www.pnhp.org/annual-meeting-2009.
United for Single Payer
United for Single is a coalition of organizations that are committed to continuing to advocate for single payer as the gold standard and to work together to build and amplify our strength and impact during this crucial period when Congress and the Administration are negotiating health care reform alternatives. The focus of activities is on our representatives and building grassroots support for the only real hope for achieving health care justice.
Organizations represented include:
Health Care for All – Wa
PNHP – Western Washington
Progressive Democrats of America – Wa State
Washington Single Payer Action
Jobs with Justice - Wa
Wash State Progressive Caucus
Olympia Single Payer Action
Vancouver Health Care Now
Sociualist Alternative
Island County Activists for Single Payer
The USP Web Site is www.unitedforsinglepayer.org
More than $6000 has been raised
for ads, events, signs, rallies or other actions.
 David Himmelstein of PNHP and Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen discuss curerent prospecis for health cate reform and why single payer must be on the table during a must-see "Bill Moyer's Journal."
Click on image to view program - give a minute to start streaming
The information You Need to Remain Up-To-Date on Health Care Reform:
This Week's Perspectives in Health Care Reform
Larry Kalb, President, Health Care for All Washington, selects the best weekly information on health care reform
Listserve free subscription - http://www.newseattle.net/HCFA-WA/perspectiveemail.html
Quote of the Day
 For invaluable daily current health care reform information and analysis read PNHP Senior Staff Policy Analyst Don McCanne's Quote of the Day
Listserve free subscription http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day
PNHPWW Lending Library
We have books on health care reform and health related topics of interest as well as some DVD's. These can be borrowed for one month, first come, first served. They can be picked up at meetings or by email request (pay postage). Some of these books are new and for sale.
For a list of Books and DVD click here
If you have books you would like to donate to the library, please do so.
Top of Page
Latest Literature
Frontline “Sick Around the World” This PBS program by TR Reid looks at other HC systems in 5 countries and the different ways they guarantee coverage, finance HC and control costs. The obvious contrasts with the US are pointed out. It’s low-key, more of a “here’s the information & draw your own conclusions” rather than pushing a solution for the US. It’s well worth watching – you can stream the whole thing to your computer at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/view/main.html
"Fein Calls For Taking Profit Out Of Health" - Ollie Fein, PNHP President-Elect, on necessay health care reform
"State Health Care Reform Flatlines" - International Journal of Health Services - Woolhandler, Himmelstein and Benjamin Day on the failure of incremental state health care reform legislation
"Health Policy Placebos" - Nation Magazine, April 14th - Woolhandler and Himmelstein on the Presidential candidates' reform proposals
“Support for National Health Insurance among American Physicians: Five Years Later,” - Aaron E. Carroll and Ronald T. Ackermann, Annals of Internal Medicine, April 2008. A study published in Annals of Internal Medicine reports that a survey conducted last year of 2,193 physicians across the United States showed 59 percent of them “support government legislation to establish national health insurance,” while 32 percent oppose it and 9 percent are neutral. The findings reflect a leap of 10 percentage points in physician support for national health insurance (NHI) since 2002
Robert Kuttner on the failure of market-based health care reform - NEJM 2/07/08
The prestigious American College of Physicians (ACP), the nation's second largest medical association (124,000 members), endorsed single payer national health insurance as "one pathway" to universal coverage. This is the first time the group has endorsed single payer and represents a huge step forward in the movement for fundamental health care reform.
The ACP position paper “Achieving a High-Performance Health Care System with Universal Access: What the United States Can Learn from Other Countries” notes that single payer systems have the advantage of being "more equitable, have lower administrative costs, have lower per capita health care expenditures, have higher levels of patient satisfaction, and have higher performance on measures of quality and access than systems using private health insurance."
David Dale, MD is now President of the ACP and spokesman for the position paper. He is a UW physician. Dr. Dale will addressed our January monthly meeting.
Quentin Young on the significance of this endorsement and recommendations for PNHP'ers to follow up this opening
The Commonwealth Fund released a paper “A Roadmap to Health Insurance for All: Principles for Reform." This paper compares and contrasts the three major approaches to HC reform based on 10 criteria. It reaches conclusions very similar to the ACP paper noted above. Clearly, the conservative "Tax Incentive and Individual Insurance Market" approach does not measure up. The "Mixed Private-Public Group Insurance" model meets all the criteria, but not as well as the "Public Insurance" model EXCEPT for the criteria of “Minimize Dislocation, Ability to Keep Current Coverage.”
Ramon Bernal, Seattle's first student at the Latin American School of Medicine
 Cuba trains physicians from the Carribean, Central and South America, Africa, and the United States at the free Latin American School of Medicine in Havana (ELAM), the largest medical school in the world. Students make a commitment to return to their underserved communities after graduation. There are now 110 US student studying at ELAM.
Ramon Alejandro Bernal in now in Havana, becoming the first student from Seattle to receive the opportunity for a free medical education at ELAM. PNHPWW has committed to support this outstanding individual as he persues his MD degree.
Ramon returned to Seattle in August for his summer break. See report #18 for a report on his experience working at SeaMar.
Click for info about Ramon and his monthly reports from Havana as he progresses (now 21 reports with photos)
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n, MD, is Professor Emeritus of Family Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. He has spent 25 years in academic family medicine. He is Past President of Physicians for National Health Program (PNHP) and a PNHPWW Board member. John has written several books that are indespensible for understanding the roots of our health care crisis, its current condition, and what must be done to achieve a just and sustainable replacement. You can find information about his books and ordering information by following these links - 
