Action Alert

Advocates for a single-payer health care option will be allowed to participate in a roundtable discussion on health care reform, to be held by the Senate Finance Committee, on Tuesday, May 12.

This comes after a hearing on the 5th, at which several single-payer advocates, including doctors, were hauled out of the hearing room and arrested for rising to ask why single-payer advocates were not represented at the witness table.

Committee chair Senator Max Baucus, D-MT, while claiming to be respectful of those who support single-payer, did not explain why single-payer advocates are being excluded from the deliberations that will determine the general outline of health care reform legislation.

Donna Smith, of the California Nurses Association, wrote an account of this that was published on the Common Dreams web site on Tuesday (see http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/05-9.)

It is becoming increasingly clear that Democrats in the congress have no intention of permitting any legislation that might open the door for a single-payer system, and inclusion of single-payer advocates in the May 12 hearing, scheduled for 10 a.m. at 106 Dirksen Senate Office Building, is designed to placate and effectively marginalize organizations and individuals who advocate for this kind of reform.

Please contact members of the Finance Committee, including Senator Ron Wyden, to express your support for a single-payer option, and displeasure at the conduct of the committee with regard to the people who were arrested on the 5th. If you will be in Washington on Tuesday, consider attending the roundtable, and be prepared to share your observations, afterwards.

Senator Wyden’s Washington office phone number is 202-224-5244.