Health care advocates: Obama can fix system
9:19 p.m. Tuesday, August 26, 2008
The problem that has defied a solution for decades and has left nearly 50 million Americans without health coverage is on a trajectory to getting fixed, advocates for a public-run system said Monday.
“The only question is how long will it take to get there,” U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., told about 100 people at a meeting of the Progressive Democrats of America.
Standing in the way, he said, are “just a few filthy-rich corporatists who are making vulgar profits.”
Conyers, who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has a bill that would establish a universal health insurance program with a single-payer system.
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Advocates for expanded health care meeting at the Democratic National Convention say they believe that their presidential hopeful, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., can accomplish the task, but they said he is going to have to be pushed and helped.
They said the Obama campaign was prodded to include language in the Democratic Party platform on an iron-clad commitment that every American be guaranteed affordable, comprehensive health care.
“We have to keep the pressure on,” said Dr. Rocky White, who has pushed for a single-payer system in Colorado. “It is going to happen. Where is the dam going to crack first?”
Dr. Vernon Mills, a pediatrician who practices in Leavenworth, said he believes Obama has the wherewithal to move Congress forward on getting health care to those who need it.
Mills said Obama’s upbringing — as the child of a economically struggling single mother, and his work in helping poor neighborhoods in Chicago — gives him experience in knowing the plight of working families.
“He has empathy,” Mills said.
But just as importantly, he said, he believes Obama can motivate people to work on the issue.
He said presumed Republican nominee U.S. Sen. John McCain’s proposal, which includes a tax credit to offset the cost of insurance, is not enough.
“It doesn’t fill the gap,” Mills said.
Kansas state Sen. Marci Francisco, D-Lawrence, said it will take the work of many people to improve the health care system.
“I don’t see it as Obama doing this. I see this as the country doing this,” Francisco said.
She said once more people realize how important health care is, including issues of nutrition and living healthy lifestyles, then there will be reform.
“All of us can’t continue on a path that we are on,” she said.
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