for afternoon our first mini briefing today is about the s chip program and the introduction of the freedom to save act that's new legislation that mr conyers will be introducing within the next week or so we are in the process of obtaining co sponsors and this is an informational session to inform us to why this legislation is vitally needed on this program today we're going to have roark o'brien you've a policy analysts in the asset building program for the new american foundation he will be followed by carlo goodrich she was legislative assistant in john conyers jr's office who is the author of the bill and we'll have judy waxman from the national women's law center to photo put all of this into context and we could have your attention we will begin thank you oh we're going to change the order we're going to start with judy waxman thank you hi good afternoon i am judy lacson at the national women's law center at the law center we represent particularly low income women but all women on a whole range of issues i'm in charge of our health and reproductive rights agenda we also have education and employment and family and economic security issues that we pay attention to all of you of course are most interested in the area and that's what i'm here to talk about today i've been given two minutes to give a little context for why shift is an important issue that is under consideration in congress right now as i'm sure most of you already know and we will be talking about later and hearing from michael moore later that our current health care system is kind of bits and pieces put together right now most of us have coverage through the employer system but there are quite a number of very significant public programs that support the employer system as well for example medicare when you're sixty five thank you when you are sixty five and have worked a sufficient amount of time you get social security and medicare and also some disabled people qualify for medicare medicaid is more for low income people but it is not for all low income people unfortunately there are various categories of types of people types of qualifications that will get you on to medicaid and so that covers part of the population of the most vulnerable population in need what we found ten years ago after there was a move for health care reform is you know actually more than ten years ago now is when the health reform movement was underway  again and when that didn't happen people said well what can we do that at least would be a major start towards universal coverage and folks naturally turn to children because the elderly and disabled mostly had coverage and not that we all don't need verge of course we do but there was a feeling like well let's make the next big step children medicaid already covers about fifteen million children it covers fifty million people overall approximately and if you are a very low income child you can get on medicaid but that left somewhere between ten and twelve million children without any health coverage so the plan for  chip which actually stands for the state child health insurance program was to add all on to medicaid i always like to think of it as the icing on the cake with medicaid still does the lion's share but s chip could pick up maybe hopefully all of the children were still on insured but at least a major chunk and it does today cover somewhere around five more million children it was set up though on like medicaid and medicare that just keeps continuing and is what we call an entitlement program meaning if you meet the eligibility standard you get on the program chesed chip is a limited pot of money so after the ten years start rolling what happened was some states would run out of money and they'd have to have a waiting list is there wasn't enough money to cover all the kids in their state that came forward and so now and the program is only authorized to exist for ten years that was in one nine hundred ninety seven so the ten years are going to be up to temp or thirtieth so there's lots of activity in congress to extend or the technical word is reauthorize s chip program and to add money to it so that we can get all the children that are still on cover keep those on that we have and cover the rest i do want to say one little plug for some adults because some states have done a great job in covering their kids already and they had extra money in the s chip program and they got special permission if they'd already had as many kids as they could find and no waiting lists etc they asked special permission to cover some of those parents of the kids or some pregnant women or even what we call childless adults i hate that term but that is meaning any poor results in the state and quite a few states were able to stretch their money to do that so one of the big debates now as if you read the paper you will see is how much money is going to be put into the s chip program will we have enough to reach all the remaining children and will we still allow states to stretch their money and cover other populations if they can do so that's the state of the situation right now we understand that the senate is going to take up the bill next week and then the house after the july fourth weekend and we of course are urging them to fully fund the s chip program and to give the states the flexibility to cover as many people as they can and i'll leave it at that  that everybody i'm carolyn goodridge with congressman conyers office i've been working very hard on a new bill that he introduced this week is called the freedom to save act of two thousand and seven and what the bill will do is reform assets  such programs as an s s i ship and the food stamp program in the food stamp program will reform the limits raising them from two thousand and three thousand dollars to six thousand and eight thousand dollars and we're also indexing the  to try to tie this all together you know s chip in the freedom to save act the freedom to save act the goal here is to eliminate asset limits and public assistance programs or to significantly reform them and this is what is an asset limit so when you w for one of our country's income support programs such as tan af or food stamps you also you have to demonstrate that you're not only income for but in many cases asset poor that means you don't have savings or any other kind of liquid assets of to a certain amount depends on the program and some programs it can vary by state what this bill would seek to do is you limon aid those restrictions in some programs and significantly raise them in the food stamp program so you ask why is it something we need to worry about you know low income families you know they probably don't even have enough money in the bank account to disqualify them if they're only making you know say twenty two thousand dollars a year and they're qualifying for food stamps well  showing that these asset levin's present a clear disincentive to save for low income families so hardworking americans who are making perhaps less than twenty five thousand dollars a year are finding that it doesn't make sense for them to save money if they think in the future they're going to need to rely on public assistance because if they get to that point in order to qualify they're going to need to spend down their assets in order to get on the system and we have new america foundation and  think that makes sense it doesn't make sense for people to have to spend down their assets before we will give them assistance because in the long term as these people try to get themselves back on their feet back towards economic independence it's going to be these assets that they that they used to rely on in the face of an income shock due to divorce or temporary unemployment or illness and it's also going to be these assets of the use to invest in in productive  productive assets such as higher education retirement homeownership small business cetera so we're trying to fix this inherent contradiction that exists within our major income support programs that we're telling people we want them to be self sufficient  economically independent they are penalizing people who are doing the right thing saving their money being prudent about their purchases and trying to have a long term vision and just in my own research with applicants individuals who receive the  program in the d c area i found that not only do these people were they well aware of the rules around asset limits but a lot of them had horror stories or share about themselves or friends and family who were turned away from benefits because they you know told someone they had a bank account etc etc and a lot of this is misconceptions and that's why we're going for the you know the all out of limitation of these tests because even if the tests are set at five thousand or ten thousand or whatever we determine to be you know a reasonable amount of money to have people still feel they want to call my bank statements they're going to cut my benefits or i'm not going to be eligible for assistance so we really want to thank representative conyers office for making the bold statement in going all the way and pushing for the outright elimination amenities programs listening to us about that our vision and and our belief that this is an important aspect of our incomes or programs that is not being discussed in a lot of these reform debate we look forward to continuing our discussion about reforming us and including hopefully the medicaid program going forward yes we can open it up to question answers if you have any questions in the audience about our bill and what it will do sure and then s s i in particular you know there's a defenders say both in the short and long term in terms of you know if they match any sort of retirement savings while they're able to work for some period time in their life they have to spend that down to stay on assistance and sense as society so closely linked to the you know the health coverage that's we're hearing especially from the disability community we've been in conversation with and they feel like this is an issue that they for years have been and been struggling with but it's kind of something that you know maybe it takes too long to think about how do these rules work they really impact people the conversations never really got into a policy level and so they've been really thrilled that resident conyers as decided to bring this to the front at such a such a level as far as the health programs no i wouldn't not really sure and i can even kind of guesstimate you know the various also so much by state especially when you're talking about the s chip program in only a handful of states are still employing an asset test in the s chip program particularly which is one of the first things we decided you know we should be federal on the books that states don't have the option of having the acid test in medicaid you know twenty states have legalized it already there's a kaiser study from i think the year two thousand and three i think that was in the study took place that show that those states that did a limited you know experience administrative savings didn't have experiences of fraud so i don't know what the numbers are of the population that is affected by this but we have enough states that have tested the idea of a complete outright elimination and it's showing that it's working and that it's sound  policy i'm not sure yeah it's hard to know how many people don't show up because they know about these rules so i don't know that any estimates have been done but let me give you another example of the new barrier to medica and we have started to see studies and numbers which is kind of comparable and that is the requirement that everybody who comes forward for medicaid show citizenship documentation and what we have been finding and we've seen recent studies from a number of states that it isn't really keeping out people who don't have the proper citizen strip documentation has they didn't come forward before what it is who it is keeping out or people that maybe don't have their birth certificate or maybe never had a birth certificate in a lot of communities children are born at home and they don't have the birth to pick it so and it's obviously difficult and very administratively burdensome to go through the process so it's been adding a lot of administrative costs for states and keeping people who are legitimately eligible off and i see that as a comparable thing that should be changed like the asset test is to just a limb an eighth this new requirement that everybody bring in a passport or their b right well that we do have to look at the details when we do create and hopefully someday we will create a whole new system we do need to make sure that those barriers aren't put in and they certainly don't have to be and it would be great to get rid of them once and for all and just to give everyone an idea of some of the lessons we've learned in states from some of the other programs you know the tanach program virginia didn't outright lumination of their asset test and they found that you know less than one percent of all applicants was affected by the asset test and that they had a net savings so if you if you calculate all the people that all the additional people on the rolls you know but you factor in the administrative savings for not having to have caseworkers go through countless number of bank records and verify that people don't have assets virginia net claims that they net four hundred thousand dollars a year due to this change and you know we're working new america's working closely with legislators in california are trying to push a similarly progressive bill through and they're having also very low cost estimates so in some of these programs particularly tanna have such a change would be very costly but could go a long way in helping promote the idea that you know this government this welfare system does act we support self sufficiency and rewards positive economic behavior sure well the food stamp program of the major income support programs the food stamp program is a benefit towards the woods with the the highest income of everyone else sort of ever can effectively have to have an income significantly below the poverty line to qualify for food stamps you can have incomes up to one hundred percent of the poverty line so that's about twenty two thousand for a family of three so it those individuals it might are more likely to hold assets or any significant assets then individuals making half as much so the cost associated with that reform specially doing it all at once you know we thought were would kind of give people startle people little too much and kind of walk away from the bill so it is where it is  now it's very similar to this the shambling spill that is currently in the senate it and you know that it excludes retirement savings accounts education savings accounts but we goes a step further in also making sure we go ahead and increase the limit which hasn't been done in ok judy any less common any final comment well since i just have a platform here i guess i will say that the national women's law center has recently put out two issue bre on women and health coverage one called the affordability gap and the other one called a framework for moving forward so women do have different patterns of rich then men and obviously arkell's get every body covered but for those of you who are interested in looking at the problem from this particular angle i recommend you go to our website which surprisingly enough this n w l c for national women's law center thought or and were happy to answer any questions about these priests or about anything else in the health care system that you need to know and as far as the freedom to save seven we hope that this isn't the last time you hear about it we wanted to make sure that we got it introduced today especially to folks who work so closely with some of our major public health insurance programs but going forward we do have to have longer discussions in the following weeks and months about how do we make you know substantive reforms happen and we be very open to you know continue to work with represent conner's office and and other members who might be interested in taking a leadership role in this issue so thanks everybody for joining us this afternoon you can have more refreshments in the back and at one o'clock they'll be another discussion on universal health care well we'll have a full day of health care talk so just kind of stick around and q ok thank you good afternoon good afternoon we're going to began with our second mini briefing before the press conference because that will be starting in about a half an hour and on why single payer is the most effective way to create universal health care they will have doctors deathy wool wool handler who will talk about why single payer is the most cost effective and they will have  for you for your legislative assistant in office and the author of h r six seven six will talk about the legislation itself thank you all thank you i'm clinton young and by way of self description i'm a physician for some fifty four years and i still practice but mostly spend my time volunteering for physicians for a national health program which is who it is i hear it echoing in ok thank you i'm sure they can all hear me they'll ask you to turn it down if they hear too much but that lifetime of medical practice is the basis for my present activity volunteer in with the national offices coordinator for physicians or an ass national health program the first message i want to make is that it's a growing organization the fastest growing medical organization america as more and more doctors come to understand the nature of the problem they're facing in trying to deliver health care in a direct way without all the corporate intrusions and with the massive paperwork that bedevils the american health system and this indeed as you will learn part of the answer of how we're going to cover the forty five some million americans who presently have no insurance and perhaps and that many and more who have such poor insurance and any serious illness they're in deep trouble i came to this conclusion with many years of practice and i don't know how to tell you in a way that doesn't that fully describes the morass of medical practice these days those of you have seen a hospital bill kno that it looks like a telephone book and cause hundreds if not thousand dollars just to produce and in no way helps health care we know that that many serious tests or even operations are  foregone because of the social cost and patients have to make those kind of decisions indeed doctors do we have a situation that's unlike any other industrialized democratic country in the world where health care is far from a right it's a obstacle to humane life we were sitting with one of the authors of the study that said that when half of the two million bank sees personal bankruptcies that this country has ever used one half of them one million are due to unpaid medical bills and then some and see based on the cost of health care or the owners itself so we have a very desperate situation were we we are spending far more far more than any other country in the world to be explicit twice as much more as the next countries to us france germany switzerland come in at about thirty four hundred dollars us free to their citizens we're spending twice but getting far less for our investment and the other paradoxes beyond the monies that are there there's a huge health workforce some few of you in this room arguably the best health workforce in the world doctors nurses technician scientists caregivers at every level we have the workforce we have the money we have the plant we have hospitals we have clinics we have high tech machines in abundance sometimes in overabundant and y every standard that you use in the medical world to measure outcome life expectancy freedom from preventable disease infant mortality mother martelli all of these things we're not first second or third where it's seventeen twenty thirty seven this fight the huge investment despite the the huge resource well it's easy to see how to fix it we have to fix the finances in the american health system and single payer does just stephanie thank you can everyone hear me yeah ok well i'll be asleep most of us are in this room because we care about problems and access to medical care or we care about problems like the eight hundred thousand people who die every year in the united states due to lack of health insurance we care about the million american families bankrupted in every year by medical costs many of them who have private insurance at the onset of the all of the bankrupt them so those are the main reasons why many of us support national insurance but the key another key question is would national insurance be affordable and how would it control costs in fact a national health insurance system is the only way to expand access because it incorporates two types of cost control that are not present in lesser reforms the first type of cost control is administrative simplification by having a single public payer like social security paying for all health care bills it allows you to get rid of all the billing departments  hospitals all the complex paperwork the doctors and hospitals have the eligibility determination the enrollment if everyone in rolled the day they're born and disenroll the day they're die there's no complicated enroll and everybody would be covered for all medically necessary services so that means you could simplify your administrative system how much money could you say well according to a study that we've published in new england journal thousand and three the administrative costs in american health care are thirty one cents of every dollar nearly a third of total health been dingoes for billing in an ministration looking at comparable numbers for canada where they have national health insurance sixteen point seven percent for billing and administration so we could go from one in every three health care dollars i'm going him instructions to one in every six that would allow us to save three hundred  fifty billion dollars a year that's the money we need to cover the uninsured and to improve the coverage for people who now have partial coverage the type of people who have health insurance and yet get bankrupted by an illness because of gaps in that coverage so it's been a straight cost savings is a key aspect of how you save money under and national insurance system the second way you save money is by improved health planning there's lots of new technologies out there many of them are quite wonderful when you need them but they're often overused when you don't need them and one example would be the coronary stents those little bag that we doctors put in your in the arteries of your heart coronary stents of your having angina are an acute coronary syndrome you're bout to have a heart attack wonderful technology in that setting but eighty five percent of stents are used in a setting where they are not indicated that is chronic stable angina so what you need to do is allow the development of the new technologies make sure those technologies are you where they're helpful and useful and needed but not overused in situations where they're at wasteful or even harmful and that you do through real health planning that becomes possible under a single payer national health insurance program there's been some concern about waiting lines in fact there's actually an advertisement i'm not sure who paid for it in roll call showing people waiting in line implying that with national health insurance we'd all be waiting in line  it takes anything i just take a moment to talk about waiting lines canada does have a much more efficient health care system than the us because of those administrative savings they spend about one half as much per capita as we did on health care many of us in the united states don't think canada spins enough we think they get very good value for money they cover everyone they live two years longer they have better health statistics and we do but we still think they don't spend enough our group does not advocate taking the amount we're spending now and cutting in half to canadian levels what we advocate and what h r six seven six would do is have canadian style efficiency a canadian style system but with the higher levels of spending that we're used to in the united states over the long run the the costs wouldn't go up as fast but initially we would be spending the same amount and covering everyone and we've estimated and many other bodies estimated that would be candidates the lockset is the fission see and the fairness of canada but without any of the weights that they have had in canada that's not just our opinion and when the u s general accounting office did a study of the financing of a national insurance system for the u s it's an older study at this point they said that with a canadian style system in this country we would say a huge amount of money on administrative costs we would spend that money to improve benefits and improve coverage and there would be no waits for any type of care for at least forty years now i don't know how they got forty years but the g a o likes to do this kind of projections so we did not we think the waiting list argument is a phony argument it relates to the level of funding in canada which is much lower than in this country rather than the efficiency of the system itself i'm not going to take up any more time on economic arguments it is my field i'm the researcher and health finance and policy i'm also a primary care doctor but if you want any more information you're welcome to go to the harvard medical school website go to something called the white they just directly look up dr stephanie wall had a lot and i'd be happy to answer your e mails and for you information about the financing i think the payer health care national health thank you about two and a half years ago as i calculate we were invited by congressman conyers to come to this city and and we in that sentence is the physicians for a national program and present to members of congress  the vision that you're hearing discussed today we course eagerly accepted the invitation and out of the afternoon of presentations with some of the most distinguished doctors in this country presenting we went on to form the physicians working group for single payer national health insurance which labored labored for a number of months and came forth with the what you could describe as a precursor to six seven six congressman bill with dr doctor congressman kucinich and dr nick dermot he's a doctor in that case that got published in jama the journal of the american medical association and at that time we had over seven thousand doctors join in and are seeing it that was noted in the journal of course that created a huge boost for the p and h p physicians for a national program and our membership in ai terms doubled  important thing people traveled far and why i have a here and faction so i cannot hear out of my left ear so slightly sick don't got to have health insurance because i was able to go to the doctor two days ago but for almost ten to twelve years i had a disability called sleep apnea and unfortunately i was not able to get the condo health care that i needed because you need insurance in order to get in to the hospital the doctor in fact when you go into a doctor's office or the hospital what's the first thing that you are asked if you have insurance now when mr conyers and members of congress go into the doctor here in the capitol they say comma help you that's big difference isn't it  we want a universal healthcare system where the first question that is asked is not do you have insurance and how may we exclude you but may we help you and let's talk a little bit about h r six seven six i want you to know these these are the pioneers of the universal health care single payer movement right here dr quinn young has been at this literally for decades he's organized fourteen thousand physicians to be in support of single payer universal health care dr stephanie will handler at harvard medical school has done most of the research on bankruptcies due to our for profit system she's done the cost benefit analysis but can we give them a round of applause because these are great people  and then also we have maryland clement who's in the front here who is organized in two hundred cities across this country and press i hope you'd notice this marvelous woman who called the rosa parks of universal healthcare she's organized over two hundred cities they've been conducting citizen congressional hearings with members of congress and people testifying about problems like i had missed a lot of life but marilyn can you please stand or raise your hand and then lastly the physicians for a national health program doctors in d c and the and as a group these are the future leaders of universal health care single payer will you please rise is literally going to show the the world and united states problems with our for profit health care system and all the members of congress who will be speaking so please stay if you can for them for one thirty two o'clock will be  a hearing on the problems with our healthcare system michael moore will show bits and pieces of the film here and at seven thirty members of congress have been invited to the uptown theater for the screening of sicko so you are part of a historical event because today doctors nurses artist movie makers members of congress are here demanding universal health care for this nation there's a woman who's in this audience right now who's let's say a significant other good possibility that his leukemia has come back and because of a little technicality with his health insurance he can't go to a doctor it's the wealthiest country in the world do you guys have a problem with that  and then she who happens to be my best friend an attorney with the best well the best organized in this country just had major surgery has had some internal bleeding and guess what she can't go to a doctor either that's why we're here today and i'm glad you know this bill and we're proud of our bill but we're here today because of the one underlying concept and theme health care must become a human right in america not a privilege let me let me as it is in every industrialized nation in asia and in europe so what is h r six seven six is very simple we take the medicare system as we know it that's our single payer system for those who are sixty five and older and those who are disabled and actually it's one of most efficient programs and not only in the country but in the world and the single payer just means you have one pair the government the system remains private under r six seven six the delivery is private it's the financing is public so you take the medicare program and you deliver a national health insurance single payer system that's all our that's what our bill does everybody gets a card at birth or you can fill out a two page form at a hospital or doctor you won't be turned down for care once you go to any doctor that you want to or any hospital that doctor or that hospital will be reimbursed electronically by the medicare for all program but there's a few differences that we have an expanded and improved medicare for all program under our bill there are no co pays and there are no deductibles allowed and that's a real obvious reason for that because that's often a barrier to getting care and how do i know because i a one hundred thousand dollars in co pays that's a lot of money isn't a hundred thousand dollars and get a cell phone in my name i can't get a car for my lovely twenty one year old daughter could take off a lot because my medical bills got i'm sorry i was born with the sleep apnea i can't get if i want to get an apartment i have to put in someone else's name but this goes on with millions and millions of people going through the same math because of our for profit system we want to convert this to a nonprofit single payer universal healthcare system insurance companies are going to have a different role under our program anything that's medically necessary insurance companies would not be able to cover that they would be able to cover non medically necessary services like cosmetic surgery but under our system insurance companies are going to have a different role furthermore hospitals would receive what's called a global budget and long term care centers and community clinics and migrant clinics so instead of having to leverage capital from the bank or sell stock which is the really that's why you have a inflationary spiral of health care cost that's why when i just got  northern virginia hospital for pneumonia they only charge me twenty six thousand dollars i got i got away cheap and my co pay under the federal employee benefits program the gold standard according to many people i six hundred dollars for that hospitalization i went out of network for sleep apnea and now i owe seven hundred eighty dollars for that then i was hospitalized for something sleep apnea related and i owe eight hundred dollars for that now do the math is this the best we can do so already a one hundred thousand dollars what we're going to a six seven six when it gets passed and is going to get passed is we're going to make sure that it's a right it's not a privilege you get your card you go anywhere you want to go at any time you want to go t called universal it's open to anybody as long as their feet are on u s soil and let me close because i want to want to get some questions here is because it's another profit system and because we're going to have global budgets that's how you contain the cost you cannot contain the cost of our health care system because there's no cost containment mechanism that hospitals have a blank check to charge whatever they want right when the insurance companies have a blank check to do what they want they hire what's called utilization reviewers they and their date these people are being paid by insurance companies to deny you treatment well there's something wrong is there something wrong when you have a system that's premised on denying you treatment we want to encourage people to go so you take europe european systems of single pair you take the time lonnie system which is probably the best most of the world have medicare deliver the single payer system will be funded by the taxes be a payroll tax four point seven five percent unemployed four point five percent on employer small stock and bond transaction monies that are already going to health care right now would be put into a pull like a medicare for all people and then what do you have you have a way to pay for it in terms of the two or three biggest questions against six seven six is well how are you going to pay for it we're going to break the bank not under nonprofit single payer system will probably save about three hundred fifty billion dollars per year just in health care and redirect it for single payer universal health care so we've got the money issues that most of it is going to the for profit hospitals and for c e o salaries you know the the c e o of i think it was united healthcare willing mcguire made a billion dollars was that a year ago that's not a bad gig actually a pretty good job billion dollars but that's why they had to deny other people reimbursements for their health services but let me close and let's just see if we can take some questions and this is supposed to be interactive so you know raise your hand you'll be recognizing any questions that you may have we have seventy three co sponsors on our bill fourteen thousand doctors supported over two hundred seventy eight labor unions now support our bill it has more co  unlike the current system where you have restrictions you can't go out of network under our bill just as it is in medicare and europe and ever but this country there's no restrictions complete choice now under the bill it's medically necessary services so if it's experimental we don't have that under the bill but everything else down to long term care drug and alcohol mental health preventative screenings hospital stays it's all covered i see if you got the questions the first what are we doing to garner support because that and the other is the pay scale compared to medicare now i get it yeah ok well to the first question p h p every moment is dedicated to that cause with varying success we think things are going our way in a very real sense some of that is indeed the good reason that the public's finally overcoming the this misinformation and lies that have characterized the opposition but most of it i'm afraid is due to the collapse of the system people losing coverage that historically had businesses saying they can't compete and actually going under so those forces are at work and we think that will happen but the way i want to respond your question is people want to see this happen have to understand it will happen when the majority in both houses here and the sitting president signed the bill at the end of the day that means real grassroots democracy what makes our constitutional guarantees meaningful we think things are better this season and incidentally not like even mention the main reason you're here we're just the warm up act there's going to be put the director  sure you'll see clips from this magnificent movie which i've seen which i really think will make a big difference in the debate in this country the question about reimbursement in in a single pa situation the physicians and other groups negotiate their ward and i know in canada they have that and they call it a pit bull negotiation meaning the doctor's representatives reimbursement level i guess a generalization that's useful doesn't directly address your question is that doctors are doing well in these countries i would say in general the highly rewarded procedure lists people who do surgery and high tech things make more in this country than they would under a single payer system on the other hand well ok primary care doctors are better rewarded and that's a problem incidentally we haven't touched on that the paucity of primary physicians compared to the specialized ones but that can be fixed by single payer system by intelligent graduate education programs with traditional medicare where it was a government insurance program it did not go to the middleman did not go through the private h m o that was just a direct government payment that something of a model some people have described single an expanded and improved medicare the problem with medicare which was too much that it didn't happen but the basic payment structure that is you paid your taxes into medicare and then medicare paid all the bills is a very e nt payment structure allows you to get those administrative saving doing everybody here in the back good well let me just say that the statistics are critically important the policy arguments are critical and crucial but the main reason that i am a very active enthusiastic supporter the house five six seven six single payer system is because a loving nation should care for the health of its people we should have a country that believes that each in every individual is in doubt with dignity and therefore we should care for their health and if thirty six of the countries in this world can do it certainly we can do it too it's a national national will and priorities and so i just want to say that i am strongly and very excited very clear wisdom behind the bill and i think it's time that congress catch up with them and so that's all i want to say right now because of course we're start we're going to get started in a moment but i just want to say that we need we need really really i believe that this is an organizing challenge i believe that that the folks who understand the statistics in the numbers and the payment systems they've done their work and they've done a fine job but those of us who understand something about community organizing have got to get out there in minneapolis in britain paris texas and land all over the globe all of the country and really sing the praises as a single payer system and talk about how it's going to benefit all of us it's really an organizing challenge it really is a situation where you don't have to be a big expert in this stuff you just have to know that this country should and must care for everyone and get out there in organize and knock the doors and drag people into  this conversation so that we can truly have a country that lives up to its great creed and that is that all people are created equal and they're equal in their need for health care and should be equal and their ability to get it thank you good afternoon ladies and gentleman who are so happy to see you oh sorry we don't have a bigger place i've got a special guest but before i bring him on i just want you to know that for many of us this is the most important issue that we're working on in congress outside of getting out of iraq we have a great number of members that are supporting us but there's one that we are especially grateful for and he is on the ways and means committee chairing the subcommittee on health and his name is pete stark from california and i'd like him to bring a greeting and as we begin this program welcome congressman chairman pete star well thank you john as usual you're in the forefront of important changes in our society and in our country and i'm proud to stand here today with you michael moore my colleagues from across the country all i think in agreement please anybody pull on my coattails of i'm wrong but that the u s health care system is broken and the dramatic change is needed forty seven million people lack health coverage and it's not only those without coverage but those even those with health insurance often find themselves without coverage they thought they had or without the money to pay the co payment it's probably the most important message that michael moore will bring to us is none of us is secure or in this country today in the provision of medical care for us or our families and as the wealthiest nation in the world it's reprehensible that we haven't been able to accomplish what every other industrialized country has done and that's make medical care a right now many of you would suggest to me that the constitution denies us a right to medical care but that's not true one small group of americans is guaranteed better ical care under the constitution or is ours so i say what's going on now for martha stewart is good enough for me so want to say that what michael moore is doing with sicko which i hope will be widely viewed across this country will drive a large public outcry for change i remember i'm probably the only one old enough here to remember when we had a movie some years ago that talked about h m o s and how one line in that movie had people in the audience cheering for movies and led us to pass a bill the patient protection bill for people had managed care so it is now we may not be able to overhaul the health system with the private special interest fighting against us but we're on the road to making these changes as the public begins to recognize at all levels the large corporations the auto companies from detroit's pay t n t are coming to  we need some kind of universal coverage and is it now just those of us who work for the poor or and the less advantaged it is the entire country that is coming together unions with manufacturers and i think that this is the most pregnant time to have this movie come out and focus the attention of the american public on the problem that exists thank you for joining what you ladies and gentlemen i knew michael moore before you did that's because he wasn't making movies then but he was an activist in flint michigan where king with the unions and doing everything that he could to make this a better balance country and he came to me  one day i flew in and he said john i'm going to hollywood i'm going to start a new career and i've sold my for michael moore when he gets off the bus in hollywood in his first movie his first documentary was a success and then he went on and on and on and the film that we will be saying tonight is now one of the most acclaimed documentaries of all time michael moore has not changed well a few pounds here and there but michael moore or has not changed his belief system since he started working with the unions and the factory workers and the retirees and he's with us today and we wanted to just hear from michael moore and then i would like to present the members of congress to bring you  you thank you very much congressman conyers and all the other members of congress who are standing here and thank you dennis kucinich for running for president and at each of the debates each of the debates bringing up this very important issue and requesting that our fellow democrats state the specific positions of how we're going to bring health care to all americans and remove the profit incentive from health care has to be removed and thank you for saying that over and over again and and all the rest of you for supporting congressman conyers bill h r six seven six and i've been traveling the country with this film it's going to open it all up in new york  this friday open around the country a week from friday and june twenty ninth and i have been encouraging people to get behind h r six seven six and i believe that there is going to be a groundswell of support because you're right congressman stark the american public is ready for this they've been waiting for the opportunity this is an issue that affects all americans regardless of their political stripe when you get sick sickness doesn't know democrat or republican  it's not a political issue it shouldn't be made a partisan issue we should find common ground with people across the political spectrum because i can't imagine anyone in i would hope in this body at least that doesn't believe that every american has a human right that when they get sick they have a right to go to a doctor and not have to worry about whether or not they can afford it so i i so appreciate the work that you are all doing with this bill and i ask americans across the country who are asking me what can we do this is something you can do right to your member of congress and say get behind h r six seven six  you know we live in a great country our fellow americans we know this they have a good heart of a good soul they know right from wrong and eventually when they're told the truth they do the right thing and what's hard is getting the truth out there fourteen years ago mrs clinton tried to do something she stuck her neck out there to to at least put the issue on the table it wasn't necessarily maybe the right plan you know we can have that deba had but but what happened was is because of what happened to her in those fourteen years few political leaders have been willing to step forward and say we need to address this because they were afraid of the same thing happening to them and so while they were afraid to have the courage of their convictions the american people suffered for fourteen years but what's happened is that the health insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry through their tactics through their price gouging through their denial of care to our fellow americans they've done the organizing for us they've turned the american people against the private health insurance companies and you know the very first word the very first american word actually the very first american word was we the first word in our founding document we the people not me the people and and this will only work when we realize that we have to operate from the way that we're all in the same boat that we sink or swim together and when we have companies pharmaceutical companies the greed that's involved  here these companies need to be regulated like a public utility they shouldn't be allowed to get away with what they get away with let me just give you a just a little sophistic thirty years ago there were twenty five pharmaceutical companies working on cures and vaccines twenty five of them today there are five now why is that because they realize there's no profit in finding a cure for something because once you cure the disease you can't sell pills for the disease for the next thirty to forty years for that individual and so they stop working on the very things that would lead us to a place where we wouldn't have various diseases or illnesses and we've stopped working on the environmental factors that cause a lot of these diseases  illnesses and as a result now we have a country that's told every night on the nightly news because that's were right virtually all the ads on the nightly news are pharmaceutical ads they're being told to take this pill that pill whatever all all meant to line the pockets of of the halliburton's of the pharmaceutical industry and we need to do something about this industry we need to regulate it the  one other thing i want to say while i was here you'll see this in the movie tonight there are hundreds of nine eleven rescue workers who ran down to ground zero on nine eleven to help well they weren't city employees or state employee yes some of them were volunteer e t some of them were firefighters from new jersey that got across the river and came down there to help and they ended up with very bad illnesses ailments diseases mostly a respiratory as a result of their work done at ground zero and they are not covered they are not covered they are not receive the medical care that they deserve and i would hope that this congress would somehow take up this issue and say that heroes of nine eleven deserve to be at the front of the line for the of the people who should be getting help and the fact that they don't get help and the fact that i had to take them to guantanamo bay to our naval station down there to try to give them the same free universal care that we give the detainees get mel the irony of that to me was incredible and sell i'm hoping that perhaps these members and others can do something to help our nine eleven rescue workers who aren't getting the medical care that they deserve finally the last thing i want to say is that you know we hear a lot about the canadian system and you're going to hear a lot of the health insurance industry dentist knows this they're going to be full force on me in this film in the next couple of weeks and you're going to hear this story and that story about the canadians and they've got to wait and whatever  go to the internet go to my website go to dennis's go to johns go to other people find out the truth about this because we've been told so many myths about these other systems that actually do work yes they have their flaws all human systems do but ask a canadian if they would trade their national health care card for your h m o card you will find a canadian willing to do that or a brit or anyone from ireland or france or you know pretty much pick the western industrialized country because we're the last one that's willing to say that it is a human right to be able to see a doctor and not have to worry about paying for it so thank you very much for having me here today michael is quite right the there was a dad in one of the papers today showing a line of little children say if this happens you'll have to wait for bed ical care don't this is what happens again and it's true people do wait canada for medical care but do you know who are sides who wait and who goes first physicians it's a clinical decision not a pocketbook decision we have people waiting in this country forever because they don't have the money but in canada the doctor decides who goes first and who gets the head of the line i'm more comfortable with that right  also and there is one line in canada that i actually wouldn't mind waiting in if we had that line in this country that's the line where canadian citizens live three years longer than the average american because there's health care for everyone that's the line i want to be in well i thank first of all i want to thank congressman stark and congressman conyers for being our backbone on this issue of health care for ever and i want to thank michael moore for giving us a kick in the butt we're going to make we are in the majority it is time that we move and when mr moore talks about you don't know the difference between sickness if you're a republican or a democrat it doesn't have a one of the other i tell y sickness knows a difference between rich and poor in the united states of america where the wealthiest country in the world and we provide the least for our members our constituents our american folks it's an embarrassment it's time we do something about it and we are up here to pledge that we will  that we move this bill this year it's a shame and disgrace that in the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world we have nearly fifty million people uninsured it's a shame and disgrace that millions of people use emergency rooms as their primary care facility and just look at what is happening in our emergency rooms here in this country people are dying and we must take the profit motive out of this health care industry health care should not be a big business in america and so michael i want to thank you for once again speaking truth to power and bring in really illinois a congresswoman thank you john conyers thank you pete stark and thank you michael moore or you know if we were each of us a town to filmmaker we could probably also  story from our own family and our own circle of friends about the tragedy of the lack of health care and god really is just right in this richest country in the world we still can't get health care for everyone yet and and zambia can do what we could do it to thank you right the only candidate running for president that's on six seven six dennis c and of course it was pretty easy because i actually had the honor of working with the physicians who for health care and john conyers in the direct testing it was easy because i had the honor of working with the physicians and with john conyers in the drafting of this bill and in helping to organize support among members of congress for this bill and of traveling the country on behalf of the bill behind it not only fourteen thousand physicians but hundreds of labor unions and hundreds of community groups are supporting this michael moore's artistry as a documentary filmmaker is going to provide a tremendous boost for this legislation because it's going to help create the climate of awareness that the american people need to be able to see reflected their own aspirations this issue affects one out of three americans forty six million americans without health insurance fifty million americans under insured one of three americans is affected by this and h r six seven six is the best plan to reform the health care system and provide federal coverage to everyone it addresses many of the deficiencies that our system has an very quickly focus on three of them first the problem of administrative waste thirty one cents on the dollar spent on health care goes to something other than health care and that's a problem this happens because people are hired specifically to prevent their employer from paying the bill in fact entire industries based on a task that called insurance companies they do not deliver health care they do not heal they do not prevent disease they make money not providing health care they are merely they merely compete with each other for the most profitable patients and in doing so they drive up the cost of health care to the point where it's inaccessible any serious proposal reform health care or to cover everyone must address the cost issue and that cost issue is that there are too many unnecessary middlemen second h r six seven six covers everyone for all medically necessary procedures fail coverage for life period no more uninsured no more partially insured no more bankruptcies for medical bills normal foreclosures as a result of medical bills normal and no more work or walk outs of report health care benefits no more ball and chain for american businesses like the auto manufacturers who have to compete with businesses in other countries where health care is that than half of what it cost here and finally this bill reigns in the power of the pharmaceutical companies and always the price of drugs by negotiating drug price and broke for the entire nation prices could only go down michael moore's right we need to regulate these these companies as utilities but this bill h r six seven six finally a stablish is that health care is a basic right in a democratic society it is not a privilege there is a national movement here and i believe that two thousand and eight is the year where we're going to make this happen i can see it gathering right now today thank you very much and congressman stark and i were just talking and we're saying you know you wouldn't you wouldn't expect the fire department to post a profit you wouldn't you wouldn't privatized your city police force and bring in the rent a cops to do the job and we need to look at health care in the same sort of way that health care is a life and death issue like the fire department like the police department i was on  the view yesterday show that's on in the morning and they had the co host on and she said you know she was a born again christian but she was against coverage for all americans and i said to her i said i said actually well i said you know i think we need to quite stop calling it socialized medicine i prefer to call it christianized medicine because it is what jesus would do his his mandate to to those of us who are who are christians and it's not just the christian religion it's the jewish religion it's the muslim faith congressman here well we all faiths really teach this this issue that that we will be judged by how we treat the least among us and we will be asked when i was hungry did you feed me what i was homeless did you give me shelter and when i was sick did you take care of me right isn't that somebody somebody i remember that i was going to be the good the good sisters of st joseph i think taught me well and i think i remember that lesson when jesus was asked somebody asked me said how do you get to heaven and he said well actually tell ya'll there's going to be a guy at the pearly gates and he's going to ask you a series of questions and these are the questions and if you didn't do these things for the least of my brother and you can come into the big house  well you know i want our insurance company executives to be able to come into the big house and and so i think that to echo what's been said here and you'll see when you see the movie that there will be we've essentially there's a new villain on the screens across america this summer in the movies but it's not the villain that you'll see in spider man or harry potter it's the villain is called the health insurance industry of america and it's i and i have to i just want to say this and ice and i will i just say two things john if that's ok one thing is actually this is in defense of the health insurance industry i want to say a word on their behalf our laws require because they are publicly traded companies our laws require that they maximize their profits for their shareholders they fiduciary right that's what the law says a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits for their shareholders the only way that they can maximize those profits is to deny care to keep people off the rolls who might get sick to remove people from the rolls once they have a serious illness and to try and fight doctors and hospitals to deny care so they don't have to pay all claims in other words they're required by law not to pay out claims because the more they pay out the less profit they make so our system essentially says that there's no room for health insurance companies in this equation because they have to ask that question what's best for the bottom line with the start asking that question they stop asking the question what's best for the health of the people so i think that because we don't want the health insurance executives to go to jail which they could do if they didn't try to maximize profits and because they shouldn't be maximizing profits by denying care they have to leave and i can guarantee them i mean they can still have fire insurance and car insurance you know there's still a little work they can do but the no room for them in health care because we're human beings we're not automobiles and i can guarantee them i hope lease that when my film opens next week that millions of americans after they see this movie are going to be coming after them we're going to coming after them and they should run for the hills because their day is over and the american people are going to want to support this bill and they're going to ask the candidates and i say this with all due respect to our fellow democrats who are running for office  it's not going to be enough in the next twelve months just to say i believe in health care for everyone that's not enough that's not enough you're going to have to tell us you're going to have to tell us very specifically what you're going to do to remove profit and greed from the system and put the system in the hands of the people of the united states of america that's what we want to hear and that's what we expect we've invited every member of congress and every senator to be there tonight we have many of them coming it's going to be a packed house at the uptown theater and we're very excited about that it'll open in new york this friday how many doing and and then and then will be in theaters across america june twenty ninth but i have to say that the that the premiere the screening that's most important to me perhaps the most special screening is the one that we're having at four o'clock this afternoon you might have seen the full page invitation in the washington post over the weekend we listed the names in that ad of every single healthcare lobbyist for the health care industry for the pharmaceutical companies for the health insurance companies for the hospital cooperate actions we have set up on capitol hill for today a special screening just for lobbyists over at the a union station theater and they can come in free of charge we've got popcorn for them goobers coke there will be a live webcam so that everyone across america can see the faces of the people who work on the hill here every day guaranteeing that forty seven million americans don't have health care in this country but they're going to be are welcome gas and we think it will be perhaps a nice going away present because it will be well for for everyone for every member of congress there's four health industry lobbyists all right they've got for on each one of these people i mean it's like it's they they rival the oil companies in their control of this town and and and and we are committed to finding them all good new jobs once h r six seven six this past cell thank you very much all right before in a deuce the next congressman i just saw marilyn clement of new york who's been working on health care as long as any of much i just want to really say i appreciate what you and pete have done and i appreciate what michael has done visualizing the cry in this country make two quick point six years ago i went to cuba and there i saw national health care and it was amazing to me that this country that we disparage all things they don't have good with that the one thing that we don't have which is health care and it seemed to me a real shame that our country can't provide universal health care for everyone second point my step daughter twenty five works has a three year old son no health insurance this is very real she is one of thousands of young women who are raising families and when the chap has an accident or when she gets sick it's a major family crisis because this country doesn't provide health care this is a question of political will that political will is emerging today i'm glad to be a part again john thank you for your leaders i heard your brother quote matthew but the i want to thank you for using your ability to paint a picture for america alwynne and i can tell you about a little boy  and mr moore he merely made needed some regular to care and he was unable to get his thirty dollars worth of care and he ended up dying because the infection spread to his brain that happen in america within about fifteen miles from where we're standing right now he died he's dead and so what we're about today is very very serious and we can do better and another point in i've had more members of congress say you cries of god a great bill but you know you can't win and i remember three days after martin luther king was assassinated i enter dues a bill to make his birthday a national legal holiday and people came on it and they said i'm joining you john but you know you can't win so we're going to take that i know you can win and turn it into i know we can all win and we're going to win we're granite to win this is not a show this is the most serious business of the mastic policy in the united states congress and now i present to your stark's michael moore i long for the day in my country where the only requirement you will need for getting health care is that you be sick that's the only requirement i tell you there is a story that i have a recent story that's occurring right now i pastor a church in chicago and one of my members talked to me yesterday i called her i asked her why she was had not been to church for a couple of weeks so i was calling to check on y pastor you know i've got a brain tumor you know my mother died prematurely because she had a brain tumor i'm working now but i don't have health insurance and i was so ill that i couldn't get up out of bed i'm under stress and i have to monitor my stress because it affects my brain she doesn't have we will win we will win here let me thank you so much i just want to say this that i hope this film inspires people all over this country in every town every village every neighborhood to have town hall for us to have organizing rallies to have meetings to have marches to have demonstrations to do everything we can do to make sure that universal health care single payer system is reality thank you very much cohen from memphis tennessee member of congress and a member judiciary committe thank you mr chairman it's my great honor to serve in congress and to serve on the judiciary committee with mr conyers and with these other distinguished members of congress it's important to six seven six pass and when we're in this room and i think what mr stark mr dingell's done in the past and they've done so much to bring it to this point i have to think of hubert humphrey who said to governments our societies are judged by what they do for people in the dawn of life the young the twilight of life the old and then the shadows of life the sick hubert humphrey knew this over a half century ago this congress will hopefully make it his dream a reality thank you sir thank you oh thank you now then oh i do see california california nurses a new york oregon michigan pennsylvania ok from maryland congressman jim moran who works with us on   an even better country than it is there's no other country on this planet that has the potential to heal and to extend and improve lives and chooses not to use the resources available to us as the united states way you know there was a time when the doctors and the teachers were the most revered professions from the shamans to the medicine man a doctor at one point would come to your home they knew the family they knew the community  they were healer and psychiatry and then after world war two it became much more of a science and now it is a business and people are making life and death decisions based upon risk assessment who will never see that patient i have a personal experience i just had lunch with my daughter down the members dining room thirteen years ago we were told that she had the flu and even though we knew it wasn't flow we went for six months being told it was the flow and finally we heard our two pediatricians arguing over the fact one of them said we really need to get an m r i and the other were saying i've called and our h m o says they won't pay for it we're going to have to pay for it ourselves well we insist d they did an m r i and found that she had had a massive brain tumor could never recover from it and all that time they trauma was growing while they were making business decisions  save the money that would have it would have taken for an m r i this is happening to families every day all over this planet but particularly and this country who should be leading by example that's why this legislation needs to be passed and why we appreciate all of you being here to be the grassroots that will insist upon its passage a new day is coming and it can't arrive soon enough thank you all you have been hearing personal stories and so i simply want to say to you that health care is personal it is a personal story of americans on and uncles mothers and fathers sisters and brothers each and every one of you doctors nurses nurse practitioners ok no nurses or at least people who are in the hospitals one way or another this is a personal story and if i can compare this to the words of fannie lou hamer who said she was sick and tired of being sick and tired i believe she come here today and say she's sick and tired of being sick and america is sick for failing to acknowledge the importance of universal health care and i agree that we want to make health care wroth fair that is what this is all about we want to make health care and not rule fair for mr chairman i simply want to say this i started out by saying this is personal and i'll settle just in iraq have come back from the war much has been said about how they have survived and the chairman is through new medicine completely different from the vietnam war at that time as they are enlisted men and women they have what you call universal access to health care many people believe well it's ok when they come out they go to the veterans a ministration well let me tell you of the countless homeless veterans that may not be in the veterans system spend and women who've been on the frontlines don't have the opportunity to go to a hospital to be able to coordinate their care and they don't have the ability to be cared for as they have stood for us i leave you on this note of the many people who are in the cemetery is of america because we had no preventative care and no universal care we heard the stories of members of congress we don't stand here as separate from you we're not trying to be special but my father as we'll see jackson an elderly black man who went to a doctor who didn't understand that you needed to engage in preventative care or you needed to allow someone who happened to be different from you to examine  who got told that you needed this examination but he denied it when he said something that required them to say denied service nobody bothered to call back when nobody bought the same thing you know you're an elderly person you're not used to having women examine you if you will i'm being very real here and in the end on this note and they just said denied service is an h m o they said pacific if you will all they had to do was check them off and that's what they did they checked his life off because ultimately he was diagnosed with massive cancer which could have been diagnosed if he had been taken in and if someone had been concerned and said we're not putting ourselves up above anybody else but what we're saying is there is no losing attitude in this room it's all about victory not a process als but for the american people michael moore thank you if you're still back there because  alive today talking about if he was you think i'm tired of being sick but michael moore has come to the rescue john conyers and this bill we are going to win thank you all very much thank you i have never heard so many personal stories from members of congress as i have here today michael moore this has been transforming experience for all of us and we haven't even seen the movie and we're going to see it let let me know bring forward a lady that knew me before i went to congress and i knew her before she came to congress she was on the west coast and i was in michigan but should we were all fighting in the civil rights movement her name is maxine waters let's welcome her thank you chairman john conyers thank you for your leadership thank you for always fighting for universal health care we here today in support of your legislation but we're also here to honor michael moore young people let me tell you why it is important to recognize what michael moore has done michael moore did nine eleven he placed the light on the congressional black caucus in ways that people never knew never understood before as a matter of fact people didn't know we had oppose the electoral college and what they were doing on the day that he recorded that and put it into the movie and people opened their eyes and said now i understand he was attacked by a lot of the right wing media the corporate media bill o'reilly on fox news said he don't normally support the death penalty but he would support the death penalty for michael moore and the right wing took him on they tried to stop his career they called for people to attack him they did everything possible but they didn't stop him he went on doing his work because he's a genius with a creative min brings us to call and he has done a great day for all of the american people and because of him a new light is being shown and shined on this issue of universal health care are like ob ladies and gentlemen i did a pop visit to my emergency room at martin luther king ospital last week and i want you to know they were rolling people and who had heart attacks and car accidents gunshot wounds they were lined up throughout the hall this is a house for where there was an unfortunate accident where a woman lost her life just a few weeks ago on the floor about hospital but the real victim the real victim of all of this the people who are depending on health care looking to their government to do something about a failed health care system understand that until we get the resources to deal with universal health care a lot of people are to die our ambulances are diverted away from martin luther king hospital because they can't get in and there's not a bed there's no room and all the hospitals in the area on diversion and so the ambulance drivers drive around with sick people in a man till space can open up in the emergency rooms thank you michael moore for not going away thank you for not letting people say i'm sick and tired of him we wish he would go away thank you for not letting the right wing media and bill o'reilly stop you from your work it's a lesson for all of us for you young people don't stop don't give up don't let them kill your spirit members of the congressional black c i like matter present the chair person of the congressional black caucus and her name is carolyn kilpatrick from michigan welcome unemployment access to capital to our schools and we've got a brave prince warrior and mr moore who said sicko and when taken at no more america we have to stand up you've got to stand up yes we're talking to you today but we need you to go home and then your family in your church in your neighborhood and say we aren't taking it any more i'm a member of the appropriations committee the federal budget is two trillion nine hundred billion of your dollars we are the only industrialized country in the world that doesn't have national health care aren't you sick and tired of that then you got to stand up and join to speak out and donate and make sure your voices are heard a bipartisan issue is not one of the other but thanks to chairman john conyers my leader thanks to michael moore who does th nobody asked me just looks out and sees something wrong like rosa parks did an ordinary person doing extraordinary things that's what each of you have to do if we're going to save america for your children and grandchildren things we grow things but it's america who must stand up this man michael moore from michigan i might add a michigan man that's what we call him healthcare now not warfare and when you can spend six hundred billion of your tax dollars in the war since march of zero three and he wants another six hundred billion that's one trillion two hundred billion dollars that has not gone into america will you rise up will you speak up i think it was a great name for a movie but it only works if you're sick if you're tired so rise up and we will work with you as members of the congress of the united states of america thank you mr moore we grow great people in michigan he is one of our examples let's rise up and do this th thank you mr chairman my friends we have a health care crisis in this country and the president's response is to veto the stem cell research bill and do nothing about the forty five million americans that have no health coverage whatsoever we are attempting to change that i'm honored to be an original co sponsor of chairman conyers bill and working together with michael moore and all of us here we will not stop by promise you on till we have a single payer plan until we have national health care for this country until we ensure that every american has the right to health care it is a right it is not a privilege it is a right when we took surveys of the american people and us them what are their priorities health care was always i'm a top three and very often the very top one so i just want to assure you that we in congress will leave no stone unturned our new majority is making health care a priority and as long as one child or one senior citizen or one citizen of america does not have health care none of us have health care and that's why we need to fight to make sure that mr conyers bill passes and i pledge to you i will not stop until it does thank you and god  bless i have been are going to china after a twenty year hiatus with this wonderful lady we had a great experience in understanding that this superpower is a fragile superpower and her name is diane watson california welcome  we owe such a great debt of gratitude to john conyers who has labored in the venue for decades for health care for every one that's given him my h but i want to make this very personal those that saw fahrenheit nine eleven you might have seen michael moore approaching the steps to the capitol remember that scene and behind him was a young marine his name was abdu hinder soon abdu him to send his on my staff here in washington d c his father is on my staff in los angeles the significance about abdu is that he was in school and he was a member of the coast guard and he was called out he was going to go to the marine academy to become an officer and he was called up into service he went down to camp pendleton and they shot him up with all these various shots if they give you and he got deathly ill was allergic to them spent two weeks in the hospital and then was put on a plane and flown to iraq he was put in charge of a brigade of britishers and said take them in to baghdad which way is baghdad what do we have to defend ourselves and the kind of equipment that they gave them often didn't do the job and he wrote back to us and he said war is hell and he also said that i am tired of seeing my buddies go down around my feet and we don't even know where the bullets are coming from michael picked him up and said you have to be in the movie and mike i don't know if you know this but because he was in uniform they threatened a court martial they called him to come down on duty and i told his father i said you take him down there you go through the gate with him you let them know that you are there i said i don't stay on the base you go across the street and get a motel but you tell us that the congresswoman is watching because they'll give you an assignment that would take a week and you have to do it in forty eight hours i said i want to see him come back alive michael moore had the brilliance to identify this young man and bring  into that scene that's reality and michael you don't know what a service you have done for this country and i want to say this to you you know all health matters a personal because it's your health and the health of your loved ones it is not about homeland security it is about people on the land and when they said to my niece a few months ago that her brain cancer had grown back again it was completely taken out about three years ago it reappeared on this side of her brain and the doctors in sacramento said we're going to have to take her in to surgery at mediately take part of the brain she will be disabled in some ways for the rest of her life i said oh no way i brought her down to los angeles my sister said well you know they don't take her insurance by the way and so the doctor said i will open her up and we can take care that you and myself but i'll have to have someone to close her brain up who takes her insurance that is the issue and i dramatize it but it's reality in this country that you could die you could be come a disabled person because you don't have insurance he is bringing the attention to something that could wipe out a whole nation and that is if you catch a disease that's incurable it could wipe out millions of people we must have an insurance that will cover every single american and michael moore you're taking this film far and why preaching that we owe you the biggest debt of gratitude i want everyone up on their feet and that share him how much we appreciate what he is doing he had to run a meeting but i am happy to close this down with a dear friend of mine from the judiciary committee he works in year every day and he is a republican and he understands why we are here and i'm very honored to have him just say a word  said of california give him a warm front of a i don't know i don't know how it happened that my my scheduler didn't get this on the schedule mr chairman but i'm glad i was able to find out about it this is a bipartisan issue the solutions are not always identical but health care is and should be an issue that we all work toward common goals and diane watson there we go and i oddly enough are the co chairs for the entertainment caucus she represents hollywood i like to come up from san diego so i think if anyone's going to be here to say that in fact this movie had every right to be made has every right to be seen and it's part of the dialogue that americans enjoy that the rest of the world doesn't and i'm glad that it's being made and i'm not sure when i'm going to see it it all depends on whether we get a free viewing or or whether it whether tonight ok well i've got tonight to hear regardless of whether single payer health care occurs we can all agree that we need to take steps in a direction of universal access it's very clear i'm a californian several of the speakers here including diane and and maxine waters are californians that even even the governor of california has very clearly said that we have to get to universal access that isn't the emergency room we have to get and he has offered legislation that mandates that employers live up to the responsibility and not shift it by simply not insuring and then having people show up at the emergency room so this is a bipartisan issue this is one in which we may agree to disagree on some of the nuances but congress must act the president must see it my governor has seen it our governor has seen it and so i look forward to seeing sicko and i look forward even more importantly to us getting to some common sense solutions as quickly as possible because the epidemic will not end in america until we have universal access and i thank the chairman for holding this shoot ladies and gentlemen you've been great we're going to take seven minutes in recess and then dr quinten young of the physicians for a national health plan is going to bring a few people to you you'll be amazed with what you hear as if your already thank you so much seven minutes drink and be merry but we'll start the this is actually going to be a briefing on sic what you have up here are people in the movie are talking about their experiences in our health care system  good afternoon friends i just wanted to do that so you know how the committee starts off normally had no logic we're here now  begin to understand some of the significance of this film which of course can't really be fully appreciated until we see the whole film and so i'm going to ask michael moore to take us through this next part of our program michael moore thank you thank you congressman conyers and thank you for holding this briefing here in this historic hearing room where the nixon impeachment hearings that took place  actually i might actually even be sitting in fred thompson's chair now i think about it have first of all we are very grateful to you and to the other members of congress for allowing the voices of the people in our film to be heard here in the halls of congress when i decided to make this film i went on the internet and i asked the american people to please send me their health care horror stories i received over twenty five thousand e mails within the first week or so from american citizens telling me one shocking story after another and congressman conyers these were not just people who were without health insurance which i sort of figured i'd hear many of those stories from the forty seven million who are uninsured in this country but yes thank you very much for being here that's ok they were the majority the letters actually came from people who have health insurance from the nearly two hundred fifty million citizens who are as we call covered and i thought that we would be making a film primarily telling the stories of the forty seven million without insurance but i was literally stunned by what happens to people when they think they're covered when they think they're insured how often have we said those of us who've had various jobs in our lifetime when we've been lucky enough to have health insurance and we tell our friends or family i've got health insurance i'm covered this job has benefits that's the word we use is not benefits the reality is is that the health insurance industry can't make the billions of dollars in profits that they make if they we actually agree to provide care to people who are sick they can only make the obscene profits that they make if they deny care as much as they allowed to get away with it you'll see a scene in the film tonight a very small scene almost an insignificant issue a young woman from kalamazoo michigan is in a car accident she's unconscious on the street the police come they send for an ambulance the ambulance takes her to the hospital she lives and a couple months later she gets a bill from her health insurance company blue cross blue shield of michigan by the way that's what we call a nonprofit company saying that they will not pay for the ambulance right from the car accident to the hospital because quote she didn't get prior approval for the use of the ambulance as she says in the film when was i to get this prior approval while i was unconscious maybe i should have looked for by cell phone on the street while i was bleeding when was i to call blue cross to get approval while she fought for it back and forth phone calls letters etc and eventually group blue cross paid the bill now the little trick that these insurance companies use is that they know a certain percentage of the american public would doesn't have the time and will not fight them so they go ahead and just not approve things from the get go knowing that they may have to approve it later but hoping that and they the know we have statistics on this is what is so sick about this they know what percentage of you americans won't bother to fight it don't have the time working you know your jobs to jobs people have you know are working and then going to sleep and working out of time to spend an hour on the phone with the h m o so they know in this was this a millon spill was maybe one hundred dollars one couple hundred maybe at the most and and that's how they line their pockets like i said it's a small example what i'm about to show you in the clips from the film and the people i'm going to introduce to you from the film were not small examples like getting pre approval for an ambulance ride to the hospital they are individuals  who either wrote to me or i found out about their story from various people from all the good groups working on this issue the physicians for a national health program the california nurses association the various groups who are committed to bringing health care to every single american and removing profit from the system we came in touch with a lot of people who had to suffer as a result of the system the tartus part about making this movie is that how do you tell twenty five thousand stories in a two hour movie it can't be done if we had our own network and every day all day took a half hour an hour to tell twenty five thousand stories that network would probably have to run for i i can't do the math how many weeks months for you to hear these stories but the thing that we all know is that the american public knows these stories because everybody sitting in this room here today the people who will be sitting in the movie theater next week when this movie comes out and even our own members of congress who stood here and told us their personal stories just a few minutes ago everybody has a story to tell congress and conyers whether it's their own story or a story of a family member a friend a neighbor a loved one or these nurses and doctors who work on the front lines and see this travesty every single day of their lives and we don't have to instruct him american people about the injustice of this because they live it every single day and i am proud and honored to be able to share a few of their stories with you here today so what we're going to do is we've put together three clips from the movie three scenes actually these aren't clips these are just three scenes from the movie  detailing the stories of the three individuals here who will be testifying today but first i'd like you to hear their stories so we're going to dim the lights to get care for her husband tracy who was suffering from kidney cancer julie works in the intensive care unit at st joseph's medical center in kansas city missouri which provided her family with health insurance every month there was a new drug that the doctor wanted to try neither one letter might say it's not a medical necessity one letter might say is not for this particular type of cancer and they denied it then we came up with the bone marrow it had shows to stop it sometimes to completely get rid of it tracy's doctor said that this treatment of been successfully tried on many other patients if one of tracy's brothers turned out to be a suitable donor there were promising bone marrow treatments for beating tracy's cancer two weeks later the bone marrow nurs called me and she goes we've got the results back his youngest brother is a perfect donor match we're phatic you know that's i think that's i have if i had seen him in a while so i submitted it and they denied it said it was experimental so i found out the there is a board of trustees over our medical plan that actually work at my hospital and they are the final decision makers on what gets approved and what doesn't get approved julie and her husband and their son tracy jr demanded a meeting with the health plans board of trustees the very people who had the power to approve their claim they told julie that they were sympathetic to her situation i said your something does me no good when i'm burying him next year and i told him i said if if i was when we got home i found him up in the ather and i knocked on the doors when you do and they're not and i open the door because usually he'll say what do you think i'm doing in here and i he was sitting there and he was crying and he said why me i'm a good person and i said but we're not done fighting this we're strong yeah and he  said you know he goes i can see now that i'm going to die he said but i can leave everything in the world and i don't want to leave you would tr the doctor told me he would die in three weeks and on january thirteenth which was my birthday he went to sleep together they took away everything that that matters i want to know why why my husband why wasn't he given a chance to live you preach these vision values that we care for the sick the dying the poor that we're a health care th leaves no one behind you left him behind you didn't even give him a start it was as if he was nothing and i want them to have a conscience about it and i don't think they do i don't think it has faze them one bit tracy sitting down there in the in the front row and i would like to this time turn it over to julie pierce for her testimony tracy piers died january eighteenth two thousand and six at home after a courageous battle with kidney cancer tracy was thirty seven years old african american man from mission kansas a journeyman carpenter the local number sixty one in kansas city he was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma in two thousand and four the cancer eventually spread to his liver lungs lymph nodes adrenal gland renal cavity and his brain tracy pierce is the father of a fifteen year old boy a brother a son a friend and he was my husband on april tenth two thousand and four one day before his thirty sixth birthday tracy went to the emergency room for an m after an appointment with our family physician our worst fears began that day and the nightmare only got worse the m r i showed a massive mass on his left kidney which needs to be surgically removed immediately five days later tracey had surgery that was followed by complications that kept him in the hospital till may twelfth we found an excellent oncologist at the university of kansas medical center dr peter van veiled who's and we were fully insured through my employer st joseph medical center which is part of carondelet health and ascension health so we felt certain that the road to recovery could be promising along with additional treatments and therapy aiding in prolonging his life so we thought we thought wrong drug after drug treatment after treatment that our dr saw for him was denied despite the fact that our doctor provided detailed scientific information and evidence for these treatments are insured deemed it not medical necessity scuse me not medically necessary or spare a mental we along with our doctors appeal again and again spelling out that my husband would die without these treatments the only treatment approved were two rounds of interleukin infusions in september of zero four which was months after his diagnosis and they were not successful our doctor recommended a bone marrow transplant tracy and his two brothers got a bone marrow work up and his youngest brother came back a perfect donor match but then the insurer denied that putting my husband through false hopes by sending him  brothers for testing how heartless and ruthless is this we found out that the responsibility for these denials rested with the board of trustees of my employer the hospital where i continue to work on april twenty fifth two thousand and five our doctor appealed the bone marrow denial noting research based evidence supporting this necessary treatment and then i demanded a meeting we met with the board face to face begging for approval submitting a twenty seven page appeal letter from the bone marrow physician noting research based evidence and that the treatment excuse me the twenty seven appeal letter from the bone or a physician who pleaded with them to approve the necessary treatment they did no good with them in months tracy was dead we fought a long hard battle for tracy's right to receive the treatments that the physician had ordered and his right to live tracy deserves every opportunity to receive those treatments as prescribed or ordered by his physician i promise tracy that after he was gone i would continue to fight that is why i was honored to be able to tell tracy story to michael moore in his movie sicko and why i am here today we need to change this insurance system so that people like tracy get the chance to live the life they deserve thank you  that in some respects he will not have died in vain because what he went through that story will be told to millions now and i'm confident that our fellow americans will not sit idly by and let that happen to another individual so thank you very much for that i just want to add to it still amazes me that here you were fully insured and you work at a hospital and that the hospital's board of directors would participate in this denial the insurance plan absolutely stunning if we could dim the lights i would like to show the next scene from the film and introduce our next speaker thank you maybe we could start it over again so we could hear the moment if you just stop it for a second just started and thank you kaiser permanente is the largest h m o in the country and donal keyes was fortunate enough to be fully insured by them it's a good thing because one night or eighteen month old daughter my shell developed a fever of over  hundred in four so like any responsible mom she called nine one one and the ambulance took my show to the closest hospital the hospital checked with their h m o and they were told that kaiser would not cover the tests in the the doctors to not listen to kaiser and to treat her daughter i was exported out of the hospital because they felt that i was a friend after hours of delay she was she had expired i think most americans believe that if you go to the emergency room of the hospital they have to take care of you right is now we've always been told  and it is until you find yourself in that situation where you realize that it's not the doctor's decision it's not the hospital's decision it's the decision of the insurance company in this case ambulance which took her to the nears emergency room at martin luther king jr medical center in los angeles the doctors believe she probably had a bacterial infection which could be treated with antibiotics but he did not conduct a simple blood culture or treat her with antibiotics because our health plan kaiser told him not to you see more than that the king hospital was not a kaiser facility kaiser said the simple tests and treatment had to be done in a kaiser hospital but my shell became sicker and sicker she became looked for jake and responsive i pleaded for them to treat her and still know what would give her antibiotics over two and later my shell had a seizure finally an hour after that my show was transferred to kaiser by ambulance within fifteen minutes of arriving she died i went to court to hold accountable those who were responsible for my shells and death as my attorney put it my shell died not because a doctor didn't know what to do but because of our health care coverage we want our case but sadly the jury award was cut to a fraction of what they felt was fair because of the horrible california law that caps damages in these cases call micra my case is good example why we need the guarantee universal health care in america no one should ever have to go through what my family had to go thorough i hope the movie sicko which i am proud to be a part of be happy my daughter help achieve that goal my daughter was not treated and died because she was in an e r that was not affiliated with her health plan this should never happen in america if this had not happened my daughter would be fifteen and a half years of age and then join high school thank you need right after the scene in the movie where dawn l tells her story you meet another young woman who has a baby that was my shelves age who also had a horrible fever and they actually went unconscious and she tells her story in the film except her baby lived she her name is corinne and she's actually from my hometown of flint michigan and i asked her how was it that your baby lived and donald's baby died and she said well because i live in france and my baby got sick in france and so when i went to the hospital no questions were asked no health insurance card was necessary they took her in and they not only took care of her and brought her back to health they wanted to stay a few extra days in the hospital to observe her to make sure or that she was ok and i said how much did that cost you and she said not a dime and her baby is alive today as an american i i don't like to believe that the only reason that someone loses a loved one is simply because they hold american citizenship and they live in this country that just seems completely crazy and our own governments statistics congress and conyers show that that the eighteen thousand people a year that die simply because they don't have a health insurance card because they don't have health insurance they died eighteen thousand a year that's six nine eleventh's each dannielle had insurance julie had insurance but these companies again are set up not primarily to provide care they are set up primarily to do what all business has to do make a buck making a buck in taking care of someone when they are near death are two things that should not be spoken in the same s our final clip and then we will have our next speaker after this clip  going meanwhile back at home hospital that found a new way to deal with patients who didn't have health insurance and couldn't pay their bills i was standing up against the wall and i saw a cab u turn and pull up to the curb and i watched to see what was happening because i had a feeling what was going to occur because it's not a new thing the pulled up right here by this yellow fire hydrant and drop carol off and immediately pulled away and as soon as they pulled away she walked out into the street about outta here she then walked all the way down to the driveway down here completely confused not going out has no shoes on wants a lever and just in a hospital gown they're going to hospital gals are thin and our hospital had put her in a cab and directed them to bring her to this drop off point but the names of the hospitals have been taken off of both bracelets before she arrived here and i have seen others here that have have come through our doors and got i v still in their arms they told me that at their shelter alone over fifty patients had been dumped there by hospitals the options are very few we either open the front door and let them out which is not the humane thing to do and something we don't want to do or we try to find some place for them to go and right now skid row is the best bed in town in fact the night before we were there the county hospital run by the university of southern california one of the richest private schools in the country dumped another patient off on the curb a woman unable to pay her hospital bill me i take a minute to ask a question that's been on my mind who are we is this what we've a nation that dumps its own citizens like so much the genocide of the curve because they can't pay their hospital bill please welcome from the union union rescue mission near downtown los angeles an individual who decided to sit by and watch this happen any longer he called the police kaiser and these other hospitals the police came and the city attorney in los angeles filed criminal charges against kaiser for doing this thank you congressman conyers thank you michel for inviting me i'm the c e o of union rescue mission and unlike the unfortunate souls in the video who have been dumped on skid row i've worked my whole life to end up on skid row and i finally made it a couple years ago and now i'm working to make sure that no human beings are left on the streets of skid row three years ago a woman was dropped off by a local hospital through an ambulance and she walked into our mission she had an i v in her arm she sat down in our guest area and ten minutes later died from pneumonia and our my predecessors set up a camera out in front not to not for security but they called it the hospital dump cam in order to catch hospitals dropping off patients so we could see who was bringing sick people are away and  that camera caught several episodes we had a man dropped off by a hospital ambience you can see the ambulance pull up to the camera the man pulled into into our lobby in a gurney and he's shaking from seizures from alcohol withdrawal and the ambulance drivers actually trying to leave him in our lobby but the captain of the police force andy smith was in our building and we sent him down to greet them and he made the ambulance driver put him back in the ambulance and sent him back to the hospital shortly after that and this was in the fall of two thousand and five day labor walked in covered in blood not from a beating that he's just taken but from the day before he was beaten and robbed taken to a hospital and then delivered in those bloody clothes to our mission and before we could even set him up for a bed we found him to be so ill and so badly beaten and such bad shape we had to call the medics from the busiest fire station in the city to come and rescue him and take him right back to the hospital those those episodes made the news they were widely publicized eleven hospitals were mentioned as dropping off patients still in need of medical care dropping off patients downtown l a and yet in the spring of zero six i was standing out in front of the building waiting waiting for our children to return home their moms were waiting out there frantic worried about the children they were late home from school and i saw this cab pull up i saw this little lady step out of the cab and wander the streets and i was in shock i couldn't believe my eyes and i called andy smith again captain andy smith asked for help i sent one of our young ladies you saw her in the video regina who went out and took carol ross by the hand and le her in to our mission we found her to be very ill the hospital records show that she had a fever high blood pressure dementia so badly that in her in her forms from the hospital it says she didn't doesn't know time or place and yet she was dropped off on the meanest streets in the u s and just around the corner if she would have gotten around the corner who knows what would have happened to or an elderly lady was stomped to death shortly after that time period well captain andy smith made things happen we had a press conference every news crew in the world was out in front of our mission the video went around the world and  after that after the news went around the world carol reyes got everything that she deserved before the news went around the world she was set up with the public guardian she was given a lawyer she was given great medical care for several more days she was in need of medical care for several more days at the hospital and finally placed in a group home where she's living very well and healthy today but everything she got after it made the news as what she should have gotten before she made the news it was interesting seeing james and mr lott from the hospital association on dateline sunday night this sunday night there was a story about this on dateline and they said they're doing everything possible to make sure that the hospitals aren't dropping people off and yet yesterday they were at the california state assembly their whole team was there fighting against a law that would make it a crime to drop people off on skid row there have been over thirty five hospital drof since carol ross including a paraplegic man who was dropped out of a van not helped out of the van dropped out of a van onto the street crawled to the curb tearing his clothes in his mouth and it's cost me bag ruptured leaking on the ground and the only good thing out of out of that story was that twelve homeless witnesses came forward and testified said enough is enough we're not going to take this kind of treatment for human beings anymore i just like to share a scripture from the old testament that talks about israel rebuilding a new community from the prophet isaiah and its instructions on what how they should build their new community as they come out of exile says i'll take joy in jerusalem take delight in my people no more sounds of weeping in the city no cries of anguish no more babies dying in the cradle or old people who don't enjoy a full lifetime one hundred birthdays will be considered normal anything less will soon seem like a cheat that's why i'm here to encourage you to day that that's the kind of community we need to build where there's no more infant mortality and people feel cheated if they don't live to one hundred i want to steal an idea from michael moore we need to move away from the put pull yourself up by your bootstraps winner take all me centered society and move to a we centered society that's what i want to share with you today thank you thank you andy and again i don't want to just make it seem like because the last two stories were about kaiser a nonprofit by the way which is why when we talk about removing private insurance we want profit and the so called nonprofits out of the way because it's not about just whether you call yourself a nonprofit and we need to make sure that in this legislation what gets passed that  we clarify these terms and we set up the right procedures but the irony of this room of the i referred to mr nixon the impeachment hearings in this room you'll see tonight congressman conyers in the film for the first time a tape that we dug up out of the national archives from the famed watergate tapes but there's nothing about watergate on these tapes that tape that no one noticed until one of our researchers in our film found it and we put it in the film and you'll hear president nixon and john ehrlichman discussing on feb seventeenth hundred seventy one five twenty three p m their idea of how to create these modern day h m o's they had met privately with edgar kaiser and kaiser it explained to them how they put this into their new legislation they could create these health maintenance organizations that and then nixon stops ehrlichman and he goes he says i don't want to hear about in these damn medical programs and ehrlichman goes no no wait this is a private enterprise one and nixon goes ok good i want to hear that then and and then ehrlichman says the genius of kaiser's plan is that they're going to provide less care so they can make more money all the incentives are providing less care so they can make a bigger profit and nixon says that appeals to me i like that and thus began the modern day h m o and you'll see you'll see it actually being born in the film in the conversation between these two officials that were to be representing supposed to be representing the people of this country before i turn it back over to you into the the testimony that you're going to have here from the physicians for a national health program i would see they've been they've been made honorary nurses they are from denver colorado donna was the editor of a small town newspaper larry was a machinist they both had good jobs they were part of the great american middle class they were fully covered and had health insurance but then larry had heart complications and two or three bypass surgeries donna then came down with cancer and as a result of their medical bills because of the extravagant oh co pays and deductibles that people have to pay before their insurance will kick in before the insurance will do the job that they say it will do all over a period of time these became so enormous that they were forced to sell their home file for bankruptcy medical bills are now the number one cause of bankruptcy in the united states medical bills are now the number one cause of homelessness in the united states and we're not talking about just the poor here we're talking about middle class people who have good jobs who have health insurance and are bankrupted by this system and in the film tonight you'll see they tell their story of of what they've been through to try and survive they end up losing the home and having to live in a storage room in their daughter's home i don't think that's the life that any of us would want for our parents people worked hard all their lives only to end up with nothing simply because they had the unfortunate bad luck of getting sick that's their crime they got sick and their punishment in this country is to lose everything and their story is representative of the stories of hundreds of thousands of people in this country who go through this day in and day out congressman conyers there's one other person  peeno testified here before congress eleven years ago eleven years ago she sat here and she told a very powerful story a story that that we show in our movie in sicko she told congress that as a medical reviewer athlone of the largest health insurance companies in america and later as a medical director she was encouraged to deny care to people who deserve care and in this what is now very famous testimony she told the story of how not only are our doctors and our health insurance companies expected to produce a certain percentage of denials every year the doctors who produce the most denials of claims receive bonuses you actually make more money as a doctor at an insurance company if you deny the most number of operations or care that doctors have asked the insurance company to provide and i would like she wasn't planning to speak and i don't mean to just but i i just think it is so right for her to be here today eleven years later i know it's distressing to her that eleven more years have gone by and we haven't fixed this broken system and what we saw earlier today with you and the other members of congress the commitment is on now to fix it and millions and millions of americans i know are after i think believe after next week after this movie comes out are going to be there on the front lines behind you and i would like to turn this you thank you very much and thank you michel mr conyers and i was actually sitting there thinking that this is all kind of deja vu because eleven years ago there was a lot of the same talk from the lot of you know similar  positions and if we have to have to wait another ten years we're going to be rolling me in a wheelchair to to repeat this performance it is very painful to hear these stories particularly because twenty five thousand stories i am there are days when i can't even stand to turn on the computer because i get sometimes two and three hundred stories a day people pleading for help telling me  tragic tragic things that have to happen to their loved ones so these stories are like snowflakes on the top of an iceberg of pain and and horror that many people or are going through the one thing that i think i would like to add that hasn't really been mentioned by anybody today is that there is this allusion and i encounter this with a lot when i talk that oh if things are so bad then you know donald talked about being able to get a lawyer and go to court and basically because of a congressional law statute called a risk h m o's managed care practices are protected legally and very few people have access to the court system i certainly don't think the court system is a solution but to have accountability legal can accountability would have prevented years ago some of the cavalier kinds of things that that occur on a daily bas so in the interim before we get any kind of radical reform i think we need to address patient protection seriously and urgently in the first thing we could do is to eliminate the risk the loophole the other thing too i think and and listening to these stories again today is that a lot of people say oh well i don't have an h m o i have a p p o or i have you know insurance everybody is subject to managed care practices today julie's story i think is very powerful her employer was a self insured plan which contracted with an insurance company assented like to manage their plan so in a sense this turns employers against employees and most employees don't understand this so i think that we are all going to have to work together and my favorite quote is from abraham joshua heschel who says if you are guilty but all are responsible so i hope that don't have to come back here with even greater hair ten peeno i agree what you said about the courts too and i i but i i would like i wish there were there were a lot though in this country that made it a criminal act for insurance companies to do what they did to dawn allen to her baby to julie and her husband to hospitals who dump patients these are crimes these aren't civil actions these are crimes because the decisions that get made the orders that are given are the orders to let someone die to essentially cause their death and i actually considered putting in the film at the end of the film a suggestion that if you are if you do go to the emergency room and they won't take care of you or the insurance company calls them and says no we won't pay for this or they're in the wrong hospital they need to be an in network hospital i think people should call nine one one like those individuals did in l a a couple of weeks ago and report an attempted murder i form of attempted murder when they deny this kind of care  and we are going to start in just a few minutes a special screening for all the health industry lobbyists that we've invited by name in an ad in the washington post over at the union station theater and they all get to see the movie for free there are four health care lobbyists per member of congress for every member of congress there's four people working for the pharmaceutical companies the health insurance companies the hospital corporations and we wanted them to be able to to see the movie first and and so as a gesture of goodwill to them we are sponsoring the screening and i am heading over there to start that screening but before i go before i turn it back over to you congressman conyers i want to introduce two nurses who are here representing nurses from all over the country as i said they're on the front lines of this battle and it is a battle it is a war it's a war against greed and they are leading that battle and there's three point two million nurses in this country they are organized there in every town city village in america and they've seen it firsthand and they i believe are going to be the foot soldiers who are going to lead the fight to guarantee health care for everyone in this country and to remove these private insurance companies from the equation so that we the people control our own health and the da the doctors and the patients make the decisions and the middleman who is trying to line its proper pockets is removed from the system so i want to before leaving here and turn it over to deborah berger who is the president of the california nurses association and an organizer for the national nurses organizing committee representing nurses here in this room from all over america deborah thank you so much for being  you michael moore and thank you congressman conyers for having this briefing today we represent nurses from all over the nation massachusetts maine new york new hampshire pennsylvania california illinois and too numerous to to mention but just be assured registered nurses in this country have their eye on a single payer publicly funded system that will totally eliminate insurance companies in this country we believe that that is the only answer sicko is a fabulous documentary that reflects the everyday lives of nurses the provide nursing care in our communities in our hospitals and in patients homes and too often we have had to deal with patients that have suffered as a result of the denial of care or lack of access to care because of ruthless cut throat insurance industry not to mention the pharmaceutical industry which is another problem and we all know that it's not the uninsured that are the problem but the tens of millions of our patients that have insurance that are system that system systematically denied care every day in america because our health care system is in disarray it is in total chaos and it cannot continue they make their decisions based on profits not based on the sickness or the need of the patient and we as nurses have made a commitment that we will fight tooth and nail to make sure that we have single payer the conyers bill passed in our lifetime hopefully within your congress must act now because we can no longer wait patients lives are at risk patients have died as a result and we need to pass h r six seven six we need the political courage will and leadership from the democratic majority in congress and the presidential candidates to stand up for american people and support the only system a system like medicare for all that guarantees real universal comprehensive health care for all and gets insurance companies out of the equation it is time for us to act now our patients expect this of us and we can do no less to deliver that thank you know it's very hard to to expand on what the marvelous to think event we've just gone through i want to make a couple points those who don't remember i'm crying young to mention in accord with the last speaker the solidarity between physicians are nationals program and the california nurses association we are collaborating as how is it possible to achieve th goals of this meeting and and so will genuine pleasure to have that collaboration i can tell you how we've bree's life into that we then tomorrow who is leaving and she has not left she's the executive director and she's joined the board of physicians or national program and we expect great leadership for her there i want to make one other observation i realize that the main job is over but it's worth noting the also we have the memory more recently of rachel carson whose profound book the see around us i would argue set forth the college e movement that is in full throttle now and many other examples but having seen the movie people here now say see that i haven't seen i saw it and i can testify and i pinioned politically it's going to be remembered as a turning point in the struggle for national health insurance the younger people here said remember that they'll tell their grandchildren they were physicians for a national health plan ph and pay the nurses went out because they're going with michael moore to the showing so they they wanted everyone to know that that was the only reason that they were leaving and like all of you i've been overwhelmed by what has happened today i can tell it was moving for the members of congress because we never had personal experiences related by members of congress before we now have  would like to add to this historic event that happened here in the rayburn building well it certainly has been a memorable day volved not as long as our wonderful quentin young or yourself but closing in on twenty years we have a lot of enemies of this program no not in this room but you know there is there is a reason why we have forty five million uninsured people and we have the terrible system that michael moore talks about and nobody is going to admit they're against health care for all i mean they're just numbers and say they don't mind if people die but somebody doesn't want to because we've achieved a lot as a country whether it's the land the on the moon doing other marvelously that we're very capable of but people are against it and you know we are the pro life movement i mean the people who use that term are interested in pro life from conception to birth but we are interested in pro life for the rest of the time also and we believe in the sanctity of life and that's the same to life doesn't stop after persons is born and you know the other side you know in the when the terri schiavo tragedy was playing in the president and his former fortunately former control the congress reconvenes the congress to to because of the terri shy one poem the plug comedian jon stewart said it shows you how sick you have to be for the president to take an interest in you and we own thing it has to get that bad for us to take an interest in a lot of people really really don't care and you just the average person does people on the street do and polls have shown that that conyers is supported by the american people and that's who we have to mobilize i thank you so much thank you very much dr i thank everybody for participating but i wanted to single out the american medical students association ems are with all of you stand up for here these are our foot hi everyone my name it's logic as i am jack rutledge fellow with the american medical student association for the last fifteen or so years the american medical student association the nation's largest independent medical student organization representing two thirds of medical students in country have been in favor of a single payer national health insurance program as a solution for the crisis for their health care crisis we face medical students have limited clinical  experience in the first two years and then a little bit more the third and fourth years but we see that we have to juxtapose the excellent medical education we receive with the reality of what our patients can get we see every day in the clinics  teaching hospitals how patients cannot receive the care that they need and that is evidence based and we know that in the future in the future we have to have a health insurance system that will actually provide care for our patients and i just wanted to give a special note to to the physicians who are advocating for a market solution or advocating for partial solutions that coming in the future are your replacements who stand for a system that actually actually will provide the care that the patients need i want to give a shout out to our  i mean something when we translate all of the commitment all of the new directions that we can inquire into and all of the determination that we have made to make this system work i have miss corn here from new york city and i had not entered duce chair before but would you just stand so that everybody knows that you're here gave her a round of applause she works night and day weather and i'm very pleased that that we have come together here we're closing this out you do not have to break for the door if you want to talk to somebody or just introduce yourself to someone you wanted to give a word of encouragement to to me it's very important because this is a curious struggle that we're in most people in america want the system that we're advocating most people in government do not want the system we're advocating most people in the health care system are ambivalent they've been changing a long time the a m a has fought us for years but more and more doctors are coming in to support the system because it's not just bad for them but it's bad for their patients and for the motives that brought them into health care delivery to begin with and so we're on the right side we have the most people behind us but in a corporate ties governmental system we have to realize and understand what we're up against and i say this not because this is unique this is the way this system works for lots of things you don't think we could have closed down a misbegotten war earlier than now if it were there we're not hearing the same kinds of horses that are resisting what again most people want to see ended are the same forces that are resisting what people want to see instituted in the health care systems of america thank you from the bottom of my heart we picked up additional members in the congress to support six seven six today as a result of your being here god there are a lot more are going to hear from you and from the many organizations that exist out here in the country we have members that join us and we don't know what impelled them and finally we learn that they were visited by and revisited by groups of concerns of their citizen constituents who have been pushing the bill and the goal that we have and we don't even know about it getting ready to correct that we're starting a national office and this is going to continue to grow until finally like the civil rights movement we shall overcome thank you very much