What is "single payer?" Why is it the best option for health care reform in America today?

Dr. Martha Livingston explains the benefits of a single payer system -- H.R. 676, the bill now in Congress to establish “Medicare for All,” with everybody in, nobody out, choice of doctors guaranteed, and a sensible 15-year transition to better health care for everyone.

Unlike every other industrialized country in the world, the U.S. pays its medical bills with a system of private, for-profit health insurance companies -- the “payers” who buy and sell human health like any other commodity on the market.

In a SINGLE PAYER system, there would be only one payer -- the U.S. government. Without big insurance companies raking off the cream and driving up costs, and paid for by progressive taxation, a single payer system would solve most of our worst health care problems.

This event is sponsored by the West Queens Greens, West Queens Independent Democratic Club & Democracy for NYC.

Martha Livingston, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Health and Society at the State University of New York College at Old Westbury, where she teaches and researches U.S. health care, comparative health care systems, international health, health policy, medical ethics, and women's health. She is Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of the New York Metro chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. She has spoken widely on the topic of health care reform.

Dr. Livingston lived and studied for several years in the Province of Saskatchewan, Canada, and has researched and written on health care in Canada. She is co-editor with Mary O’Brien, M.D., of 10 Excellent Reasons for National Health Care (The New Press).