Healthcare, Not Warfare -- How often we have shouted these words or prayed or whispered them in the past. And how fervently we are hoping for some significant change in the Congress and in the heart of this nation. More importantly, how hard are we working to get this change?

Now, during the season of “PEACE and GOOD WILL,” where do we stand?

We may be closer than we have been in almost 40 years as we move toward the commemoration of the Martin Luther King Jr. birthday. We are preparing to award the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Healthcare award to Congressman John Conyers who will be one of the most powerful men in the United States, as he weighs the options for his powerful House Judiciary Committee. 

His healthcare bill, H.R. 676, the United States National Healthcare Act, will be reintroduced in the Congress in January. It will be handled by the House Ways and Means Committee if it is allowed to go forward to hearings. It is the bill that could begin to turn around the continuing priority for war and war equipment and weapons of mass destruction. The passage of this bill could be the best possible reward to Congressman John Conyers as he rounds out his career. 

Not only is President Bush in denial about the war. ”Denial” is a mild substitute for “deception and lies.” He goes on killing (and causing our youngsters to be killed) suggesting it is a movement toward “succeeding in this war.” And he continues to suggest that privatization and more money from our pockets to pay the insurance companies and the Wall Street brokers will heal the healthcare crisis. We know better, and we have a great legislative possibility of turning this priority around to the needs of the people.

What would success in Iraq mean? Would it be freedom from fear or freedom from hunger? – some of the main reasons for terrorism across the world during the past 400 years. Would it mean healthcare for all? Would it mean U.S. control of the resources of the Middle East? Isn’t that the real goal? 

Ok, let’s go to healthcare. Why would the passage of a national healthcare system such as H.R. 676 make such a change? The way it would work is that it would cover virtually every medical need of everybody in the United States, and we would be spending less money than we are now on premiums, deductibles, co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses, including insurance company denials.

Everybody would be able to access hospital, medical, dental, optical, hearing, durable medical equipment, long-term care, prescription drugs, drug and alcohol treatment, mental health services and more. Each of us would pay into a payroll premium based on our income. 95% of us would be paying less than we are now. Only the very rich would pay more. Very importantly, this would be a tremendous victory because it would add a human rights entitlement to our law, showing how important the rule of a just and equal system of law is to the well-being of our people.

It would mean that many people doomed to prison would get drug treatment instead.

It would mean that there would be more jobs in the healthcare sector providing for healthcare for all.

It would mean that the huge insurance and pharmaceutical industries would no longer eat up one third of our healthcare expenditures for their profits, advertising, payment of lobbyists in Washington and in every state in the union, administration and multi-million dollar CEO salaries.

It would mean that all of us would have the healthcare we need and be able to turn our energies to the other issues and tasks that we face.

It would mean that we could help encourage other countries, particularly those that are weak and vulnerable, to avoid privatization of healthcare and go to a more humane program of healthcare for all. 

I just turned on the telly, and there was Pete Stark on CSpan, the new Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Health of the House Ways and Means Committee. 

“To not have universal care is a crime!” he said without blinking an eye.

Those of us who care about healthcare must be in touch with Pete Stark and say to him and to Congressman Charles Rangel, Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee that is supposed to hear our bill, that we want them to hold hearings on H.R. 676. We even suggest a date for those hearings. How about the week of the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King – a time where we would memorialize his statements and his commitment to healthcare for everybody? 

Someone in Rangel’s office said today, “We can’t do that. H.R. 676 national healthcare is ‘dead in the water.” I doubt that those sentiments represent Congressman Rangel’s real views. Certainly, they won’t represent his views if we do our job well. Let’s hold 1,000 healthcare TRUTH HEARINGS nationwide in every city and town in this country. Let’s organize a monthly call in or postcard-in or other concerted action that helps clarify to Congress that we voted for healthcare and for an end to this war and we want them to move seriously on our agenda.

Yes, we want healthcare for all children and we want control over drug prices. These are important, and the new Congress is committing to work on these – but that is not enough. We want a national healthcare system for all. The people who are working and feeding those children also need healthcare.

Healthcare-NOW is calling for Healthcare Truth Hearings in every city and town in this country. People who want to help organize such a Truth Hearing in your neighborhood and who would like to tell their healthcare story to such a hearing – let us hear from you.

CONGRESS IS WEAK

The way it is shaping up, many of the members of Congress are afraid to come out for Conyers’ H.R. 676 because the insurance companies and pharmaceutical drug companies are their supporters. It would be an interesting exercise for all readers to look up the amounts of money their Congress Members have received from various sources. You can do it from the website of Healthcare-NOW at www.healthcare-now.org, under Campaign Tools, choose Write Congress, then fill in your zip code. Or click this direct link and fill in your zip code. Send us your findings.

Congress is also afraid to go for peace. Even though, under the Constitution, they have the power of the purse – to stop funding the war, Congress is holding back. What would happen to the Iraqi people now that we have destroyed the infrastructure of their country? What if we cut and run – left the money there with the Iraqi government for the Iraqi people to determine how to rebuild? What if we left the oil there for the Iraqis to divide up as they have proposed, rather than demanding that the international oil companies have to receive the profits? What if we provided the money for all kids to go to college rather than to the army?

Why not come on home and deal with the healthcare disaster here in our own country? What would a transformation in the uses of the hundreds of billions being spent on war mean to the healthcare crisis and other crises in this country? 

Do we need the war to end to pay for national healthcare for everybody?

No, as a matter of fact, we have enough money to pay for healthcare for all. Under the Conyers bill, we would all be paying into the healthcare system on a sliding scale according to our income. The hundreds of billions now going to the insurance companies would be transferred into equal quality healthcare for the uninsured. Everyone would get their choice of doctor. 

However, we would need to be sure that Medicare which would continue as the administrator of the healthcare system would be secure on into the future. Medicare will cost us less money because Medicare uses less than 3% for administration compared with upwards of 30% administrative costs by the insurance companies. So the elimination of this overhead, profits, etc. would help provide coverage for all.

But, it is a matter of priorities. As long as we have a government that requisitions billions of our dollars, the priority should be support for Medicare – a much improved Medicare for All, single payer, H.R. 676, rather than missiles in space or other potential weapons of mass destruction. 

No other country has weapons in space. There is no enemy out there. All other industrialized nations have national healthcare. Maybe this equation means something!

During this season of “PEACE and GOODWILL,” we hope and pray for you and yours and all of the people who can’t afford healthcare both here in our country and around the world. 

If you are up for organizing a hearing in your neighborhood or other activities, be in touch with Healthcare-NOW. We are waiting to hear from YOU. 1-800-453-1305, www.healthcare-now.org. If you’d like to be on our national mailing list, let us know. Marilyn Clement, National Coordinator, Healthcare-NOW. Click here to contact Ms. Clement and Healthcare-NOW

Billie Spaight of the Healthcare-NOW campaign is responsible for the design of the Healthcare! Not Warfare! banner.

Click here to read any of the articles in this special BC series on Single-Payer Healthcare.