Single Payer Conference Huge Success!

Single Payer Conference a  Huge Success!

On January 29, over 600 single payer advocates from around the state of Oregon gathered at the First Unitarian Church in Portland to network and advocate for an improved, expanded Medicare for All program to fix our broken health care system.

Congressman John Conyers of Michigan was the keynote speaker and spent the whole day at the conference. The sponsor of HR 676, national single payer legislation, he was honored for his long-term commitment, through 23 terms of Congress, to making this change.  His speech was funny and insightful, ranging across many issues.  He also took questions from the crowd.

The conference opened with a plenary talk by Dr Margaret Flowers, Physicians for a National Health Program’s Congressional Fellow .  She presented the basics of what a single payer plan does and explained why the recent federal reform, while making a few positive changes, further entrenches the for-profit insurance industry, while failing to provide universal access to good care or to control skyrocketing insurance and care costs for individuals, families, businesses, governments and society as a whole.  Flowers outlined the evidence from various states that shows that incremental reforms have not worked, as well as documenting the US’s shameful inernational standing in health outcomes.

A panel on health disparities within the U.S. and Oregon came next, digging deeper into the inequities faced by communities of color under our broken system. Jessica Lee of the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, Alberto Moreno of the Oregon Latino Health Coalition,  and Michael Ware of the People of Color Health Equity Coalition presented statistics and analyses of the impact of health system inequities on people of color, and the particular challenges faced by specific sections of our larger community.  Lee, with the concurrence of other panelists, also stressed the importance of connecting those racial and ethnic disparities to economic class inequities affecting Oregonians of all races in building coalitions to advocate for equity.

Morning breakout rooms filled to overflowing as groups looked at single payer’s meaning for different constituencies:  the faith community, labor, undocumented immigrants, persons in homelessness and poverty.  Another group stayed in the sanctuary and heard Margaret Flowers and the Mad as Hell Doctors give more basic information about single payer.
The afternoon was given over to networking, activism, and connecting people around various pieces of the work moving forward.  Katie Robbins, national organizer fo Health care-NOW!, kicked everyone off with lessons from building networks in other states. We then moved into another round group discussions.

A rural breakout group connected people from around the state to address the distinctive health care problems and needs of rural communities.  A large building-the-network session talked about how to reach people, drawing on Katie Robbins for expertise.  The legislative breakout was packed -- many signed up to help organize a lobby day on the single payer bill being introduced in the state legislature by Representative Michael Dembrow and Senator Chip Shields.  Another group met to strategize around educational materials and a speakers’ bureau.  The youth and student breakout focused on reaching out to and organizing young activists.  How to message single payer in this time of budget cuts and retrenchment was discussed in another breakout, and the final afternoon session provided information on working with the media.

Portland Jobs with Justice was proud to be one of the key organizations that pulled the conference together, along with Physicians for a National Health Plan, the Mad as Hell doctors, and Health Care for All Oregon. The committee that worked on the conference met weekly from October through the January conference.  Portland Jobs with Justice is particularly grateful to the Presbyterian Church, USA (Office of Social Welfare Ministries) for the substantial initial grant to us that provided seed money for the conference, as well as to other financial and in-kind sponsors.

Oregon Single Payer Conference Sponsors, Saturday January 29, 2011

Generous grants and in kind donations:

First Unitarian Church of Portland; Health Care for All Oregon; KBOO Community Radio; Mad as Hell Doctors; Morel Communications (formerly Witham and Dickey, Inc.); Physicians for a National Health Program: Corvallis, Portland and OHSU chapters; Portland Jobs with Justice; Presbyterian Church, USA (Office of Social Welfare Ministries)

Speaker Sponsors:

Dr. Nancy Crumpacker, proud sponsor of Katie Robbins; Mad as Hell Doctors, proud sponsor of Mark Dudzik; Jay Thiemeyer and Family, proud sponsor of Dr. Margaret Flowers; Anonymous

Sponsoring individuals and organizations:

Alliance for Democracy (Portland); American Federation of Government Employees Local 2157; American Medical Students Association, OHSU Chapter; International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 206; Dr. Kris Alman; Laborers Local 483; Mark Sturbois; Nurses for Single Payer Health Care; Sisters of the Road; United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 555