"The special interests have spread lies about universal health coverage," Harrison said at a press conference outside Victory Memorial Hospital in Brooklyn, which is threatened with closure. "They say it's too expensive. They say single-payer is socialized medicine. It's neither."

Harrison said that GOP Rep. Vito Fossella, whom he hopes to face in the fall, "will never support" single-pay, because members of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries who have donated to his campaign are opposed to it.

"The insurance and pharmaceutical industries control this country's healthcare policy agenda by using their purse strings to influence lawmakers like Fossella," he said.

Quoting the New England Journal of Medicine, Harrison said that single-pay could save Americans $300 billion a year by cutting administrative and staff costs for doctors and insurance companies, and by limiting paperwork. These costs eat up between 11 and 30 cents of every health-care dollar spent, he said.

"There will be one form for doctors, no forms for patients," Harrison said. "Show your card, give the healthcare provider your number and walk out."

High costs have imperiled facilities like West Brighton's RUMC, he said, which is facing a fiscal crisis and has been forced to close three clinics.

"There is only one right solution," Harrison said. "To lower the cost and increase the availability and quality of health care."

He said insurance companies and other special interests want to perpetuate the current system because it's profitable for them.

"The health and comfort of no American should be held hostage to the profit motive," Harrison said.

Fossella campaign spokeswoman Georgea Kaye responded that Fossella had fought to save the RUMC clinics and to get the city to spend more healthcare money in the borough.

Harrison, an attorney from Brooklyn, is facing Brooklyn City Councilman Domenic Recchia in a Democratic primary. The winner will take on Fossella (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) in the fall.

Tom Wrobleski may be reached at wrobleski@siadvance.com. Read his polit.bureau blog at http://www.silive.com/newslogs/politics/.