We are a lay group working together with Physicians for a National Health Program, major labor unions and the faith-based community.

Physicians for a National Health Program has played a major role in inspiring and leading this campaign. Since they launched a new campaign with an article by Doctors Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein of Physicians for a National Health Program in the Journal of the American Medical Association on August 13, 2003, literally thousands of doctors have signed onto their position.

The group helped to launch H.R. 676, the universal health care bill, earlier in February, 2003. (See www.pnhp.org)

The United Steelworkers of America have a position calling for universal health coverage for all. In their Health Care Bill of Rights, they state that “Everyone has a right to quality health care regardless of financial standing. The government must insure that no American is denied needed health care services because of inability to pay. …The government must see that health care costs are brought under control. …Everyone has a right to affordable prescription drugs.” www.uswa.org

The United Methodist Church, one of the largest Protestant denominations in the U.S., has formulated policy that says “Private health insurance, in all its forms, continues to increase its premium cost while limiting care and/or increasing deductibles and co-payments for care…Now is the time for a comprehensive single-payer health care program that will provide adequate health care to all without placing further barricades to access.” The Book of Resolutions (2000), p.257

The other primary components of this new campaign are faith based groups, labor unions, senior citizens and women’s organizations, responsible business leaders, and poor people’s, human rights, students, economic justice, disability and homeless and worker’s rights groups.

Faith-based organizations comprised over one-fourth of the 500 national state and local organizations that endorsed the Health Care Access Resolution in the House of Representatives in 2002, HR 99.

The National Health Care for the Homeless Council says “Single payer promotes a single system of health care for all Americans, severing the relationship between wealth and health care. …It permits the flexibility required by especially vulnerable people… children, teens without parents and the mentally ill.”

The Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) in its October 2003 convention resolved to “wholeheartedly endorse Congressman John Conyer’s bill HR 676, “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All” and urged its members and unions to build a groundswell of support.

People for a National Health Program, a Senior Citizens group based in California, say “Overall, the problem with health care is not a lack of money. It is that money is not spent wisely. Health care expenditures in the U.S. are twice as much as the average of other wealthy nations, but we don’t get any more days in the hospital, office visits and medications than they do – nor do we have a lower infant mortality rate or a longer life expectancy.”

The Labor Party, creator of Just Health and advisor to the Conyers bill H.R. 676 says, “As health care costs soar, workers find themselves shouldering more and more of the burden. The Labor Party has been unifying and assisting the broader health care reform movement to work for comprehensive change and an alternative to the incrementalism that has dominated the movement since the demise of the Clinton plan.” www.thelaborparty.org

PACE International Union has identified national health insurance as a key goal and is using Just Health Care materials in its educational efforts. The United Mine Workers of America have incorporated the fight for national health insurance into their political and educational agenda.

Ron Gettlefinger, President of the United Auto Workers has said we must have a national single payer health care system.

The National Organization for Women supports a single-payer national healthcare system. So does Public Citizen, the Communication Workers of America, the Unitarian Universalist Church, the National Urban League, the California Nurses Association, the Massachusetts Association of Nurses, MASS Care, Health Care for All California, Vermont People for Change, and thousands of other important national organizations.

Why is the climate changing toward a single-payer national health care system?
We believe that many labor unions and churches and other important groups who have felt that single payer was out of reach in the past will begin to join this campaign because it looks more possible, because health care insurance is more inaccessible than ever, and because there is a growing movement on the part of the general public for a single-payer national health care system.

Winston Churchill once said, “The American people always do the right thing, but not until they have tried all the other options.”

The time has come for all of us to work together NOW to achieve the kind of national health care system other countries enjoy as a matter of course.

The above examples are just a few of the constituencies who are already engaged in this broad campaign that promises to finally bring the United States in line with the rest of the developed world in providing health care for all its people.