NATIONAL SINGLE PAYER

BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS A RIGHT TO HEALTH CARE

ABOUT US

 

National Single Payer is a national, grassroots organization that organizes locally in the struggle for national single payer health care.

We are united by the common principles that health care is a human right, must be free from corporate profit, and must be achieved through national legislation.

We are a 501(c)(4) under the fiscal sponsorship of Americans for Democratic Action. Your donations keep our work alive!

WHAT IS NATIONAL SINGLE PAYER?

In 1989, Physicians for a National Health Program proposed a national health program that would fully cover everyone under a single, comprehensive public insurance program and contain costs through savings on billing and bureaucracy, improved health planning, and the ability of the national health program, as the single payer for services, to establish overall spending limits.
Introduced by Representative John Conyers from 2003 to 2017, the bill established comprehensive health insurance coverage for all residents in the U.S. within one year of its passage and called for the conversion of all for-profit health care entities to not-for-profit entities.
Last introduced by Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal in 2023, the single payer bill establishes comprehensive health coverage within two years of its passage but allows for-profit health entities to function in the system.
Initially introduced by Congressman Ron Dellums, and last introduced by Congresswoman Barbara Lee in 2007, this bill established a national health service in the U.S. with public funding and public delivery of health care services.

NSP PRINCIPLES

Principle #1

We believe health care is a human right, and nothing less than the enactment of a national, not-for-profit, single payer program can make that right a reality in the United States.

Principle #2

We believe coverage must be inclusive of all needed medical care with everybody in and nobody out and that all people deserve the highest level of quality health care.

Principle #3

We believe the health care crisis calls for urgency in building a broad, powerful, bold, and nonpartisan movement that can make possible the enactment of national single payer legislation.

Principle #4

We maintain hope based on our nation’s history of building dynamic movements to abolish slavery, expand voting rights, establish unions, and take on corporate power.

Principle #5

We believe that neither a state by state nor an incrementalist strategy is an effective approach to winning national single payer.

Principle #6

We believe that private equity, venture capital, insurance companies, and all profit-making entities have no place in health care as the prioritization of profits over people is the cause of high costs, delays, denial of care, poorer quality of care, and premature death.

Principle #7

We believe the conversion of for-profit hospitals and medical care facilities into non-profit entities is critical to serve the needs of people and communities.

Principle #8

We believe that the public funding must be progressive, shifting the burden from workers and those with modest incomes to the wealthy.

Principle #9

We believe that inequities in health care based on race, ethnicity, religion, immigration status, class, gender (including pregnancy and gender identity), sexual preference, detention or incarceration, disability, age, and geographic location must be abolished to assure social justice in health care.

Principle #10

We believe physicians and all health care practitioners must be able to practice free from corporate control and that patients have the right to choose their physician and other health care providers.

Principle #11

We believe that a just transition with jobs, education, and income provided for those workers whose work is eliminated by the establishment of a single payer system is imperative.

Principle #12

We welcome the discussion of a national health service and the possibility that such a plan can be placed on the nation’s agenda.

NSP NEWSLETTERS

October 2024

Financial Risks of State-based Health Reform

September 2024

Independent Political Action –
The Way Forward for National Single Payer

August 2024

Value-less Payment Schemes Hand Medicare to Wall Street

July 2024

Why Saving the VA Matters to the Single Payer Movement

June 2024

“Way Beyond Roe” with NSP this month

May 2024

Do we really want to destroy Medicare and hand it to the states?