Groups Urge State and Federal Officials to Make Health Care a Human Right by Adopting a Single Payer Health Care System
Single Payer New York
www.singlepayernewyork.org
Media Release
For More Info: Mark Dunlea, 518 434-7371 xt 1#
A hundred single payer universal health care advocates rallied in the rain today at the state Capitol today as part of a national week of action to make healthcare a human right in America. (www.healthcare-now.org)
The groups, in town for a statewide lobby day on single payer health care, called upon the Governor and state legislative leaders to enact a single payer health care system for New York. A majority of state lawmakers, including the Governor and State Comptroller, have sponsored single payer legislation. The Governor long delayed report on universal health care is due to be released in the next few months; the groups want Paterson to recommend a single payer system.
The groups also urged the State Senate to join the State Assembly in passing a resolution introduced by Sen. Neil Breslin urging Congress to adopt HR 676, the federal single payer Medicare for All bill. So far the White House and top Congressional leaders have refused to allow single payer to even be discussed, despite the fact that has more sponsors in Congress than any other universal health care proposal. President Obama, who advocated for single payer as a State Senate, continues to say that single payer would be the best health care system for America “if we were starting from scratch”. A single payer option is supported by a majority of doctors, nurses, general public and health care experts.
“President Obama and Senator Baucus keep saying that people want to keep the health insurance they have. Where did they find such a putrid pearl of political wisdom? Here’s a real pearl for you, Mr. President: we do not want health insurance. We want health care, comprehensive health care — for everyone!,” said Dr. Andy Coates, Secretary of the Capital District chapter of the Physicians for a National Health Program.
“We are fed up with the health insurance we have, fed up with health insurance we can’t afford, fed up with the insurance that doesn’t cover the care we need and completely fed up with the fact that the top insurance company executive took home $24 million in 2008. $24 million for one profiteer in a year when about 5 million of us lost our health insurance. Enough! It is time for a public single payer system,” said Coates, a co-chairperson of Single Payer New York..
The groups said that the elimination of the present system of for profit private health insurance was essential to any meaningful universal health care reform.
“Insurance companies are a root cause of the failures of the American health care system. They are a principal reason why the US spends far more money on health care than other countries but have a sick care system that performs worse than all the other industrial countries. Health care will never be a right in America as long as private for-profit insurance companies continue to exist. Insurance companies and their demand for profits literally kill tens of thousands of Americans annually. Democrats in Congress are killing the chance for real reform by insisting that insurance companies continue to play a dominant role in our health care system,” added Mark Dunlea, co-chair of Single Payer New York and Executive Director of the Hunger Action Network of New York State.
The groups pointed out that the various other universal health proposals being discussed in Congress, including the public option, would all fail to actually provide health care services to all Americans and would do little if anything to control costs. Single payer also provides Americans with the ability to choose their own doctors and health care providers.
“Americans can not afford to continue to waste hundreds of billions of dollars annually for a health insurance system that adds nothing of value while denying essential care and imposing enormous expense with their paperwork, marketing costs and profits. The US already spends more public dollars per capita just on Medicare and Medicaid and yet all the other industrial countries manage to provide health care to everyone. The various reforms being advanced by our national leaders are ‘control health care’ costs are little more than an elaborate con game to protect the profits and campaign contributions of insurance and drug companies,” said Rebecca Elgie of the Tompkins County Health Care Task Force.
“As young people are graduating from college they are faced with the prospect of not having a job but also losing their health care coverage. They are being forced to apply for medicaid to protect themselves from unforeseen medical expenses and many are faced with the prospect of not being able to cover prescriptions and care for existing illnesses. They are scrambling to find any job that will offer benefits and those who have jobs are desperately trying to hang on to them. We need a single payer system which guarantees health care for ALL,” added Elgie, Co-Chair of Single Payer New York
Senate Finance Committee Max Baucus, who keeps insisting that Single-Payer is off the table, took $183,750 from health insurance companies and $229,020 from drug companies in the last two election cycles. Many of his fellow Senators and Representatives have taken similar contributions (http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=F09).
Sponsors of the event include Single Payer New York (www.singlepayernewyork.org), Capital District Alliance for Universal Health Care, Capital District Area Labor Federation; Faith and Hunger Network; Hunger Action Network of NYS: New York State Nurses Association; Physicians for a National Health Program; Students for a National Health Program; Tompkins County Health Care Task Force; Troy Area Labor Council and Citizens for Universal Health Care.
The groups said that the reform being push by Democrats such as public option and mandates that everyone purchase health insurance will fail, just as a variety of similar state-based incremental approaches to universal health care have all failed in recent decades.
According to PHNP, the public option proposal forgoes at least 84 percent of the administrative savings available through single payer. The public plan option would do nothing to streamline the administrative tasks (and costs) of hospitals, physicians offices, and nursing homes, which would still contend with multiple payers, and hence still need the complex cost tracking and billing apparatus that drives administrative costs. A quarter century of experience with public/private competition in the Medicare program demonstrates that the private plans will not allow a level playing field. Despite strict regulation, private insurers have successfully cherry picked healthier seniors, and have exploited regional health spending differences to their advantage. They have progressively undermined the public plan - which started as the single payer for seniors and has now become a funding mechanism for HMOs - and a place to dump the unprofitably ill. A public plan option does not lead toward single payer, but toward the segregation of patients, with profitable ones in private plans and unprofitable ones in the public plan.
The California State Legislature has twice in recent years passed a state single payer health care program only to have it vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. A study by the national Lewin group estimated that the State of California would save $34 billion annually through a single payer system. Estimates for savings in New York range from $10 to $25 billion annually.
“In this moment of economic crisis, single payer health care is needed more than ever. It would save enormous amounts of money for taxpayers, employers and consumers. It would provide a major economic stimulus. If NY did it first, it would be a great incentive to attract jobs to our state. It would allow companies like the auto industry to compete on a more level playing field with their international competitors, all of whom spend far less money on health care costs. It would make Americans healthier.,” added Dr. Richard Propp of the Capital District Alliance for Universal Healthcare.