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PNHP Minnesota
Website: http://www.pnhpminnesota.org/
E-mail: pnhpminnesota@gmail.com
The Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition
Website: http://www.muhcc.org/
Media Contacts
Ann Settgast, M.D.
(612) 387-7914
settg001@umn.edu
Dr. Settgast is an internist in St. Paul, Minnesota at the Center for International Health where she provides primary care to an immigrant and refugee population. She also provides inpatient medical care at Regions Hospital. In the summer of 2007 she co-founded the Minnesota chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program.
Elizabeth Frost, M.D.
(612) 724-3995
libbess@gmail.com
Elizabeth Frost, M.D., is a family practice doctor working at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After graduating from residency at the University of Minnesota, Elizabeth spent almost a year volunteering with Doctors for Global Health in Chiapas, Mexico. She currently works with a heavily Latino and mostly uninsured population in Minneapolis, and is confronted daily with economic barriers to basic care. She is currently the co-chair of Physicians for a National Health Program - Minnesota and national board member of Physicians for a National Health Program.
James F. Hart, M.D.
(612) 626-6573
hartx013@umn.edu
Dr. Hart serves as the Director of the Executive Program in Public Health Practice in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. Prior to that he worked for 26 years in primary care medical practice and management both independently and with HealthPartners Inc. He was on the faculty of the Regions Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program from 2002-2005. Dr. Hart has also had a long interest in global health issues – he served on the board of Minnesota International Health Volunteers for 13 years and now serves on the board of Global Health Ministries.
Susan Hasti, M.D.
(612) 702-0559
schasti@usfamily.net
Dr. Hasti is chair of the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition (MUHCC) and a member of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). MUHCC includes Minnesota Nurses Association, Senior Federation, SEIU, MAPE, Minnesota Farmer’s Union and several other organizations. Dr. Hasti is in her 10th year as a family practitioner at Open Cities Health Center, a federally funded community health clinic. Previously she worked for several years in private practice in Bristol, Connecticut. She received her MD degree from the University of Minnesota Medical School.
Local Unions Endorsing HR676
- Duluth AFL-CIO Central Labor Body, Duluth, MN
- AFSCME District Council 5, St. Paul, MN
- Minnesota AFL-CIO
- Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE)
- Southern Dakota County Labor Council, Apple Valley, MN
Minnesota State News
By Dave Dvorak, M.D., M.P.H. | Minnesota Medicine
As Minnesota’s physicians, health care leaders and legislators grapple with the complex changes brought by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), many are concerned that even after the law is fully implemented, hundreds of thousands of people will remain uninsured while health care costs continue to spiral.
By Bonnie Blodgett | Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Dr. David Dvorak is an emergency room physician. He supports a single-payer system for Minnesota and wants to make one thing clear: “single payer” doesn’t mean socialized medicine.
By Jacob Wheeler | The Uptake (St. Paul, Minn.)
If Minnesota ever adopts a single-payer heath care system, the work of Dr. Elizabeth Frost will be remembered as one of the key reasons for its passage.
By Kip Sullivan | Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
So UnitedHealth Group has figured out a way to cut Medicare's costs "without cutting services"? That is how the Star Tribune characterized the organization's self-serving claims in a recent story ("UnitedHealth says Medicare can save big without big cuts," Jan. 20).
By Andrea Parrott | Twin Cities Daily Planet
After daily witnessing situations in which patients suffered or had to make decisions detrimental to their health due to difficulties in accessing health care, Dr. Elizabeth Frost and Dr. Ann Settgast had enough. They felt they had to do something that would allow everyone to have health insurance and so, access to health care. The two decided to found the Minnesota chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP).
By Ann Settgast, M.D., and Elizabeth Frost, M.D. | PNHP Minnesota
“Above all other issues, Minnesotans have expressed concern about affordability of care, and they believe the best solution to this problem is a single-payer system.”
By the editors | Minnesota Physician, September 2012
The work of the Minnesota chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) will continue in earnest. While the ACA will be helpful for some patients who gain access to insurance coverage, the legislation will not fix the health care crisis facing our state and nation.
Minnesota Health Care News
The U.S. has much to learn from other wealthy democracies, all of which have truly universal health care systems, most at less than half the cost of ours. There is a constant search in American medicine for the "holy grail" of cost control.
By Ann Settgast, M.D. | Southside Pride (Minneapolis) The day the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was upheld by the Supreme Court was ironic for me as a physician. Two of my patients asked me to prescribe medication for uninsured family members: A mother asked me for an inhaler for her adult son with uncontrolled asthma, and another asked me if I could refill her husband’s blood pressure medications for a month or two until he is able to find another job following his lay off. He cannot see his doctor due to his uninsurance.
By Dave Dvorak, M.D. | Minnesota Medicine
"How much will this cost?” he asks. It’s the question at the heart of any business transaction: Is this new car, this plane ticket, this iPad worth the asking price? But the man sitting before me is not a customer in an automobile showroom or an electronics store. He is my patient in the emergency department, and he is weighing whether to undergo the chest CT scan I have just recommended.
By Elizabeth Frost, M.D. | The Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.), Letters
I think it is interesting that the Supreme Court has upheld the idea that the individual mandate as a tax is constitutional. What does this mean? First of all, it means that we as a nation have decided that health care is a “greater good” -- that everybody deserves health care. Second, we have decided that everyone pays in to health care. We have already decided to do this in Medicare, but now we are extending the concept to everyone.
By Joshua Faucher | Post-Bulletin (Rochester, Minn.), Letters
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is anything but a complete solution to our health care crisis. The bill still will leave at least 26 million devoid of insurance coverage. Equally worrisome, it will force many into a relationship with private insurers for coverage that is too expensive and often incomplete. We must react by implementing the non-profit, single-payer insurance system our country needs and deserves.
Elizabeth Frost, MD | Southside Pride (Minneapolis)
I am a family practice physician and a supporter of single-payer health care for all. There are nearly 1000 doctors and providers in Minnesota that advocate for this kind of public financing of health care. I am not alone. As you know, single-payer has been popular in Minnesota for years. In fact, it has been endorsed by the DFL for over 20 years and is supported by Governor Mark Dayton.
By Ann Settgast, M.D. | The Star Tribune (Minn.)
The need for our hospitals to provide uncompensated care to uninsured and underinsured Minnesotans will continue to grow if we do not fundamentally change our system. Assuming the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented, more than 250,000 Minnesotans will remain uninsured, while hundreds of thousands more will rely on skimpy insurance that does not properly protect them from serious financial strain if they fall ill.
By Sam Baker | The Hill
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is continuing to argue for a single-payer health care system, saying it would not raise the same constitutional questions that have dogged President Obama's health care law.
By Amy Lange | Star Tribune (Minneapolis), April 2, 2012
Minnesota would not be alone among the states if it forged ahead to provide a universal and unified health system. Governors, legislatures and citizens groups are pushing similar reforms in Vermont, Montana, Oregon and Hawaii. And Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton favored a universal system for Minnesota in his 2010 campaign.
By Josh Moniz | The Journal (New Ulm, Minn.)
Physicians for a National Health Program-Minnesota hosted an informational presentation for business owners on single-payer health care Friday at the New Ulm Country Club.
By Rick Kvam, M.D. | Letters, Rochester (Minn.) Post-Bulletin
Guided by evidence, not ideology, one finds that in health care, the unbridled free market returns a very poor value. We boast the most market-driven health care in the developed world, and, not coincidentally, far and away the most expensive. Our per capita costs are double those of other industrialized nations (in spite of 50 million uninsured!), but our outcomes (life expectancy, infant mortality, etc.) are nevertheless worse. Workers' inability to switch jobs for fear of losing health care coverage (“job lock”) is a major drag on our economy.
By Mark Liebow, M.D. | Rochester (Minn.) Post-Bulletin
Well, Vermont beat us to it. The people of Vermont decided correctly that the advances of the Affordable Care Act weren’t enough. They looked at Massachusetts and found that with that state’s plan, which serves as the model for the Affordable Care Act, costs continue to rise and the rate of medical bankruptcies didn’t go down.
By Elizabeth Frost, M.D. | Twin Cities Daily Planet
Medicare is an efficient, effective way of health care financing. It is what we all want for our parents and ourselves as we get older and heck -- it probably is a good idea for the entire nation. If we had Medicare-For-All maybe it would be so popular that Michelle Bachmann would be forced to defend it, too.
By Ann Settgast, M.D. | Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Whether the debt ceiling is raised or not in the days ahead, Minnesotans and the nation have reason to celebrate this weekend. Saturday marked Medicare's 46th birthday.
By Lisa Peterson-de la Cueva | Twin Cities Daily Planet
Senator John Marty contacted the TC Daily Planet after he read our June coverage of health care, specifically a Q&A with Senator Dave Durenberger on his support for federal health care legislation. Senator Marty let us know that he respectfully disagreed with Senator Durenberger’s view of solutions for our health care system. This is to be expected, since he’s the chief author of the Minnesota Health Plan, the only proposal for universal, single-payer coverage in Minnesota.
By Joe Kimball | MinnPost.com
The St. Paul City Council passed a resolution Wednesday supporting the Minnesota Health Plan, a proposal that's floating around the Legislature (but not yet close to passing) for single-payer, universal health care in the state.
By DR. RALPH S. BOVARD | Star Tribune
As a physician, I agree that we must get health care costs down if we're going to achieve universal coverage, but I strongly disagree that the only way to do it is to ration. There is another viable and proven option: a single-payer or regulated multipayer health care system, such as exists in every nation in the Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development except the United States and Mexico.
By EDWARD P. EHLINGER, M.D. | Minneapolis Star Tribune
Insurance is a great mechanism that people can use to offset their risk of losing some material thing of great value like their house, boat, car or jewelry. It can also be used to protect a valuable personal occupational asset like a voice for an opera singer, a hand for a surgeon or a knee for a football player. And it can be useful in providing protection from a singular catastrophic event like a malpractice suit or the premature loss of life. But for something that is predictable, ongoing, needed by everyone, or necessary for the welfare of our community, an insurance model makes absolutely no sense. That's why we don't use an insurance model to provide police or fire services or to provide an education to our children. For these we use the tax model. Basic essential health care should also be in this category.
By JOHN M. BRYSON | Minneapolis Star-Tribune
The emotional debates over health care reform in the United States last fall and again this election season are puzzling to my wife and me. We are professors who were on sabbatical leave in London from August 2009 through August 2010, so we missed last year's debates. While in the United Kingdom we were automatically covered by the National Health Service.
By Elizabeth Dunbar | Minnesota Public Radio
Dr. Elizabeth Frost, a family practice physician and a member of Physicians for a National Health Program, said the groups would like to see all Minnesotans covered by a plan paid for by state government.
By Nick Coleman | Minneapolis Star Tribune
After she was diagnosed with kidney cancer, my mother was given a prescription for a daily chemotherapy pill that has been shown to extend the lives of patients with that cancer. When I went to pick up the medicine, the pharmacist asked if I had received financial counseling. No, I said, wondering why we were talking finances, not health care. Just how much is this prescription?
By David Swanson | OpEdNews.com
California keeps passing bills for state single-payer healthcare, but Ahhhnold won't sign em, and Jerry Brown who wants to be governor doesn't seem to want it badly enough to make a commitment on healthcare. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania is encouraged that their current governor has said he probably will sign a single-payer healthcare bill, and the legislature just might pass one. But Minnesota has an angle neither of these other states can claim: a serious candidate for governor who is the state's leading advocate for single-payer.
By John Marty | MinnPost
Please, restore the hope that you raised in all of us, bring back the inspiration that made the American people so excited by your inauguration. I urge you to step back, reconsider, introduce a health care plan that is truly universal, and fight for it.
By Mike Rose | Austin (Minn.) Daily Herald
When the current health care debate began in earnest last year, one potential topic of discussion was largely left out — “single-payer” insurance.
By Ann Settgast, M.D., and Elizabeth Frost, M.D. | Minnesota Medicine
As physicians, we are troubled by the direction of federal health care reform. Whether via a public health insurance option or an insurance mandate, the proposals on the table build on the structure of our broken system—the most costly, fragmented, and bureaucratic in the world.
By Ann Settgast and Elizabeth Frost | Opinion | Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.)
The health care reform debate is reaching a feverish pitch. As physicians, we are troubled by the direction the debate has taken. Whether via a public option or a mandate to purchase insurance, the proposals on the table aim to cover more, but not all Americans. They build on the structure of our broken system -- one that ranks as the most costly, fragmented and bureaucratic in the world.
By Kathlyn Stone | TC Daily Planet
The American Medical Association has come out against President Obama’s “public option†for health care reform, but the AMA doesn’t represent all physicians. Some physicians’ groups support the public option but others think it doesn’t go far enough to fix changes in a badly broken system. Dr. Oliver Fein, president of the progressive Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), found a warm welcome in the Twin Cities last week. Fein was here to present PNHP’s vision for a national single payer health program. PNHP has 16,000 members, including 300 in Minnesota.
BY KIP SULLIVAN | Southside Pride, Minneapolis
SF 118, the Minnesota Health Act, which would guarantee health insurance for all Minnesotans under a program called the Minnesota Health Plan, passed out of the Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee by a party-line vote of 7 to 3 on Feb. 10. The lopsided vote was a sign of the growing support for the single-payer approach. This is the first year since 1991, the year single-payer legislation was first introduced in the Minnesota Legislature, that a single-payer bill has cleared two committees in the Senate. The bill has never been heard in the House. It will get its first hearing in the House on Feb. 25.
By Robert Wolfington III | Marshall (Minn.) Independent
Dr. Ann Settgast, co-chairwoman of the Minnesota chapter of Physicians for A National Health Program, said a single-pay insurance program would provide care for all U.S. citizens, while at the same time save money compared to the current multi-payer system.
by Ann Settgast, MD | Twin Cities Daily Planet
The upcoming change in administration has brought optimism and hope to the American public. Now is the time to demand meaningful healthcare reform rather than a replay of past failures. As a physician, I know that offering a placebo in place of known effective treatment is unethical. Hence, while I applaud the good intentions of Senator Tom Daschle, the Healthcare for America Now (HCAN) coalition, and others, I advise against their proposals to extend a system that is fundamentally flawed. In these times of economic uncertainty and crisis, single payer is the only fiscally responsible option for reform…and it is the only solution that will actually work.
By Elizabeth Frost, MD | Pioneer Press | Letter to the Editor
As a family practice doctor who works with the uninsured in St. Paul, I have recently become involved in health care reform. I believe single-payer national health insurance is the only way to provide quality affordable care for all.
When you hear that the AMA is opposed to single payer reform, keep in mind that it represents only a minority of American physicians, and within their organization there is a diversity of opinion.