Have you ever thought about how it would feel to have a national single payer healthcare system? To get rid of the unequal and unjust current healthcare system? I have a vision of such a change, and it invades my dreams and keeps me working hard every day. This vision itself makes my work for healthcare satisfying, even when faced by detractors who have no such vision.

My Vision:

• That every baby will be issued a National Healthcare Card the day she is born;

• That when a worker is in pain or injured or ill, he will get treatment instantly in the best quality institution, that day without paying a dime in co-pays, deductibles or premiums. He will just carry his personal healthcare card to any doctor or hospital of his choosing for full coverage;

• That every worker will be able to change jobs and get something that pays better or is less stressful or more to her liking -- not having to drag herself to a demeaning job with a terrible employer in order to “keep her healthcare coverage”;

• That someone who has a good entrepreneurial idea to create a new business or an invention he wants to pursue can do so without worrying about healthcare costs stopping his progress;

• That every budding Mozart or John Coltrane or Robert Frost or Maya Angelou can write and entertain and give us joy and solace without fear of healthcare costs;

• That everyone who has a chronic illness or a disability or a lump in her breast will be able to get healthcare without worrying about bills or waiting to qualify for some program that requires many months of waiting and suffering;

• That all who need mental health care or a hearing test or drug or alcohol treatment or a prosthesis or major surgery will get it immediately, rather than hurting themselves or someone else, losing their home or going to prison, when all they really needed was healthcare;

• That prescription drugs and long term care will be guaranteed to everybody who needs them;

• That all veterans will come home to a country where they and their families don’t have to worry about the cost of illnesses for many years caused by the after-effects of war;

• That all of our people will be able to go to a doctor with their aches and pains and premonitions of illness and get preventive care rather than waiting for an emergency room visit or a death sentence;

• That prescription drugs and long term care will be guaranteed to everybody who needs them;

This is the vision we enjoy when we think about passage of the H.R. 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act, John Conyers’ national single payer healthcare bill.

But It Isn’t Just a Vision

It is a well thought-out plan that is embodied in our legislation. And it is moving toward reality, step by step, as we tell our friends about it and build the momentum toward what I believe to be an inevitable victory. You won’t see anything about it in the newspaper because it doesn’t enrich the insurance and drug industries. But, as of yesterday 55 Members of Congress had signed on as endorsers in the 19 days since January 24th, when the bill was reintroduced.

This Vision Will Become Reality

Every day someone calls or emails me to let me know that they have talked with their Member of the House of Representatives or sent a letter to their Senator calling on him or her to join us in this vision of a nation dedicated to providing healthcare for its people. I know the Congress Members are hearing from their people because I hear about it. You could make a Free Call to Congress -1-866-338-1015 right now. It is just that easy. Just tell your Congress person or his/her healthcare staff to sign on to H.R. 676.

Some History About How Visions Become Reality

Listen to these words from Congressman John Conyers when he talks about the courage and tenacity of the people who dream of and act on their vision of a better world, “And there was Rosa Parks. And it was just this one thing! She said, 'If you are going to kill me, just kill me now, but I am not getting up out of this seat!' as she launched the bus ride that changed the world in her own time." And the fight to get the King birthday celebration that Conyers began three days after Dr. King’s assassination – “It was just a dream! A wish! Here was the greatest man of our century, and something had to be done. I asked Coretta Scott King for her permission to introduce the bill.” She said, 'Ok, John, go ahead'".

But it was not so easy. For 15 years, this bill was introduced at every session. The resistance was almost overwhelming. But the vision was still there –beaming brightly ahead. Because the pressure from the people was so strong and unrelenting, we finally reached passage. John said, as new members of Congress were elected, they would come to his office and say, “The first thing I have to do, John, is sign onto that bill, the one about Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday. I know it will never pass! But I have to sign on.” And then finally, it was passed. The overwhelmers, those with no vision or who hated the idea of a national celebration of Dr. King were themselves overwhelmed. (From the “Giant Steps” dvd)

Fierce Resistance to Our Vision

Getting to a national healthcare system is a similar case. The resistance is fierce and well-funded. Every kind of subterfuge has been offered in the place of taking action for a national healthcare system now. There are incremental strategies. There is a plan for big business and a couple of labor unions to get together, but without a plan—just a statement that everybody should be covered by 2012. FIVE years from now! When they say “Now is the Time” and then suggest a date five years from now and have no plan to offer, then it sounds as though they really mean “Now is the time -- to delay.” To delay while the big corporate profit takers continue to bleed the people of their last dime and our nation of its economic survival. Or perhaps there is a more subtle theme here – Maybe they are saying Let’s wait until I get my candidate elected President and then think about some other plan that won’t change things so drastically. A plan that will keep the insurance and pharmaceutical companies making profits for another eight to twelve years and continue to keep the barriers to a full healthcare system so the profits will keep flowing.

The Unvarnished Truth Is That “Now IS the Time”

It is not a perfect time. No presidential candidate will jump out in front on this issue. The monied interests will make it very hard and will punish anyone who takes the initiative. Would that the churches and the schools and the unions and the libraries and every influential center of the culture were talking about the role they could play to get this non-profit national healthcare system in place. Would that the elected members of Congress were studying the single payer bill and understanding the historical role they could play right now during this moment, pregnant with possibility. But they seem still paralyzed from 12 years of being outside and unable to move forward on any humane legislation. Maybe it will be the newly elected Members, who are riding on success, to take the ball and run with it now.

Here Is A Reasonable Time Line For Healthcare

Let’s have some hearings this year, 2007. Let’s get a lot of Members of Congress to understand the bill so they can see how they could be the heroes of the American people for the whole 21st Century by passing this excellent legislation. Let’s get some Senators to write a complementary bill and, again educate our lawmakers to understand it in 2007-08. Let’s debate it and pass it in both houses with the support of caring Democrats and Republicans both. And lets urge President Bush to sign it. Or veto it. Whether he signs it or vetoes it, the issue will be part of a big election debate because we, the citizens and the people without a decent healthcare plan, will be out there to engage the debate. Then, lets get the president, either the one still lingering (if he hasn’t been impeached) in 2008 or the new one in 2009 to start implementing the plan and building a community of people working together for healthcare for all.

We can challenge every candidate who wants to be president. The litmus test for us should be to ask every single candidate whether he or she will support a national single payer healthcare system – and whether he/she will sign it if elected. That goes for Republicans, Independents and Democrats – all should be required to answer that question wherever they are holding town hall meetings and making campaign speeches.

If the candidate doesn’t understand how it would be funded, refer that candidate to the funding part of the summary of the bill on the Healthcare-NOW website site. Or urge them all to read the whole bill. It is so simple, as a New York Time story pointed out last week, “Even Steven Colbert Couldn’t Make it More Simple.” All of us who are employed would pay small premiums into the plan; we would be spending much less than we are now paying even if we have no premiums. How is that possible? It is our plan. We own it. Not some insurance company or HMO. Those premiums would be less than any of us are now paying for healthcare because there would be no out of pocket expenses, no denials of needed healthcare, no premiums, co-pays, deductibles. We would no longer have insurance companies stealing one third of every healthcare dollar we spend.

300 million of us would be in the same huge pool of consumers -- giving us an advantage to bargain drug prices and medical equipment and other costs. And we would reverse the Bush tax breaks to the richest of the rich. They probably wouldn’t even complain because they have gotten so rich during his eight years in office. This kind of funding plan is one of several ways we could pay for it. But the trick is for it to be publicly funded. NO private profit-takers.

How Can We Get There? It Is Not So Hard

We will talk to our neighbors and our friends and our colleagues and children and parents.We will rally them to the cause and get them to sign a petition, carry information to church or synagogue or faith group meeting, get endorsements, organize a small Healthcare TRUTH HEARING where people can talk to each other about the issue and the solution. Invite in a speaker. Go to a rally. Make a phone call to a Member of Congress. And sure as certain, we will come to that day when Congress members and presidential candidates have been told by their constituents that “This is what we want you to do". And they will finally have to do it. Remember, all of them will be running in the 2008 election. They need to do something serious on this issue before they start campaigning next spring. While our grammar-challenged president is declaring himself the “decider,” we can make clear that “No, in a democracy, WE are the deciders.”

The plan is available

It is an amazing bill that will help save the economy of this country, put money back in the pockets of families, and start the ball rolling toward becoming a healthy caring nation. How will it make us “caring?” It will be a moral statement that we care that all people have the healthcare they need – and it will be a tacit statement that we have become a community. And we’ll be glad we did it.

Marilyn Clement is the National Coordinator of Healthcare-NOW. Click here to contact Ms. Clement and Healthcare-NOW.

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