Rep. Andrews Opens Dialogue to Examine Single Payer Option 

On Wednesday, June 10, Chairman Rob Andrews of the Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee held a hearing to examine the option of a single payer health care system. Rep. Andrews called on the following experts to help shed light on the pros and cons of a single payer system, Marcia Angell, M.D, Senior Lecturer in Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School; David Gratzer, Senior Fellow at Manhattan Institute; Geri Jenkins, R.N. and Co-President of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee; and Walter Tsou, M.D., M.P.H. and National Board Advisor at Philadelphia's Physicians for a National Health Program. Also joining the panel of witnesses was U.S. Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and longtime supporter of a single payer system.

Below is Chairman Andrews' opening statement from Wednesday's hearing, in which he invited medical and health care experts to join in this important dialogue:
 
"Welcome, our colleagues who are present this morning. Ladies and gentlemen who will be witnesses and members of the public and the press, it's great to have you with us. The United States is spending more of our national wealth, more of our business firms' income, more of our family and individual income on healthcare than any of our industrial competitors anywhere in the world. Now I do think there is an emerging consensus that we're not getting what we're paying for. We're not getting the quality that everyone wants and deserves and we're certainly not getting the coverage that everyone wants and, we believe, deserves.

There are too many people left out of our system. There's too much money spent within our system on other than providing healthcare to people spend on what many of us feel is wasted expenditures. At the President's urging, the country and the Congress have embarked upon a broad national debate about how to fix that problem and I would like to commend members of both parties in both the House and even the Senate, even the Senate, for moving beyond a simple recitation of the country's problems to a robust debate about the proposed solutions to those problems. It is long overdue. We believe that legislating on those solutions is long overdue as well.

This morning, for our subcommittee, will mark an important milestone in the debate in one of the more broadly supported and interesting solutions to the problem will be considered by the subcommittee in the form of a legislation proposed by the very distinguished Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Conyers. He will be our first witness this- you may applaud if you'd like- he will be our first witness this morning and will summarize and advocate for his legislation as I'm sure he will do forcefully and articulately. We will then proceed to a panel, of what you might call 'lay witnesses.' John, I guess that implies that you're a holy person but we'll proceed to a panel of lay witnesses and one thing I would ask our colleagues to consider, out of courtesy to the lay witnesses, is that once Mr. Conyers, Chairman Conyers, has concluded his statement, those who would like to ask him questions, obviously under the rules are permitted to do so, I'm not going to avail myself of that opportunity and believe that Mr. Kline either and we urge Members to consider not questioning Mr. Conyers, not because he's beyond being questioned but because the lay witnesses have traveled from far and wide to be here today; we'd like them to have maximum opportunity to interact with the panel so we can hear their views as well. So Mr. Conyers has proposed a solution to this problem. He argues it with great passion. It is a solution that, unlike some in the Senate, I believe belongs on the table for consideration and for vigorous and fair consideration; that is what the purpose of this hearing is this morning."

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