On Friday, Dr. Margaret Flowers was one of fifteen people to testify before the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee.

The subject: health care reform.

Dr. Flowers was the only one of the fifteen who spoke on behalf of a single payer health care system.

Does this mean that single payer is now on the table in the U.S. Senate?

“I don’t know if you saw the C-SPAN footage, but I was at the end of the table,” Flowers told Single Payer Action last week. “I didn’t really have much of the table. But I think that’s very symbolic of where we are.”

“We’re just starting to be at the table but it’s going to take a lot more pushing and a lot more grassroots movement and a lot more pressuring the Senators before we actually have a full seat at the table.”

Last month, Flowers was one of thirteen who were arrested for asking to testify before Senator Max Baucus’ (D-Montana) Senate Finance Committee hearings on health care reform.

Which does she prefer — being arrested or testifying?

“I definitely prefer to testify,” Flowers said. “It’s a little more comfortable. And the most important thing — and this is why we were protesting the last time — we need to have a seat at the table and have our voice not only heard but recorded, written in the record.”

Flowers learned last week that Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is a single payer supporter.

“Senator Harkin left early and basically said that he used to sell insurance and that he understood that the more pools you have, the more it costs. Thirteen hundred pools is very expensive and one pool is affordable and that was the way to go,” Flowers said.

Also last week, the American Medical Association made it clear that it continues to be strongly opposed to single payer — this despite the fact that the majority of doctors support single payer.

How could that be?

“Well the AMA — their membership only reflects about 30 percent of physicians nationwide so they’re not the majority of physicians,” Flowers said. “I view them as a more corporate, conservative type of body. There were four physicians at the table today — one was from the American Enterprise, one was from Harvard, one was from the AMA, and myself — and I have the feeling that of the four physicians at the table today, I was the only one who believes that health care is a human right. That’s very disappointing. It’s not reflective of most physicians.”

(For the complete interview with Dr. Margaret Flowers, see video here or below.)