House Health Bill Ditches State Option to Create Single Payer System

In July, single-payer health care advocates won a prominent victory when the House Education and Labor Committee approved legislation empowering states to adopt Medicare-style health care systems. The 25 panel supporters were a rare mash of liberal Democrats who support the policy and conservative Republicans with a history of advocating for states rights.

Neither group will be pleased that the $894 billion health reform bill released yesterday by House Democratic leaders cuts the provision out altogether. Indeed, here’s Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who sponsored the Education and Labor amendment, reacting yesterday to the news:

If a state wants better health care than can be provided by the federal government in the health care bill we are seeing today, the federal government should not stand in their way. The removal of the Kucinich amendment constitutes yet another capitulation to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries who are already reaping billions of dollars from the bill.

Not that many states have the budget surpluses at the moment to adopt single-payer health coverage for their residents, but that only makes the decision to pluck the provision from the final bill that much more inexplicable.