It is not good enough for members of Congress to cop out by saying it is not what people want. It is time for you to listen to the people and stop listening to the lobbyists and corporate interests. You are there to SERVE us, and you must not forget it. We hired you, and we can fire you. We can’t do that to lobbyists and drug and health insurance CEOs.

As an earlier poster, the health insurance industry adds nothing of value to the health care of Americans, they only take away from it. They are not acting in an accountable way, and Congress is literally letting them get away with murder. Let’s get rid of that whole industry, and put their employees to work in the new system.

It is time to change and correct this monstrous moral failing we have going on in our country. It is an absolute disgrace.

Sen. Kennedy, I am sorry to have learned you have an incurable brain cancer and I would not wish that on anyone. But at least you don’t have the worry of becoming bankrupt through it, as MANY of our citizens would if it had happened to us. We ALL deserve the same coverage you do.

Please do everything you can to implement a single-payer health care plan for this country. The insurance companies have played a large role in our current healthcare crisis. These companies make huge profits and their CEOs make millions, while the rest of us, patients, physicians, employers, and workers alike, face skyrocketing healthcare costs, impossible bureaucracy, and life-diminishing insurance denials.

CONSIDER THE HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY PROFITS IN 2007:

1. UnitedHealth Group — $ 4,654 BILLION. UnitedHealth Group owns Oxford, PacifiCare, IBA, AmeriChoice, Evercare, Ovations, MAMSI and Ingenix, a healthcare data company

2. WellPoint — $ 3,345 BILLION. Wellpoint owns BLUES across the US, including Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wisconsin, Empire HealthChoice Assurance, Healthy Alliance, and many others

3. Aetna Inc. — $ 1,831 BILLION

4. CIGNA Corp — $ 1,115 BILLION

5. Humana Inc. — $ 834 million

6. Coventry Health Care — $626 million. Coventry owns Altius, Carelink, Group Health Plan, HealthAmerica, OmniCare, WellPath, others

7. Health Net — $ 194 million

The huge insurance company profits—BILLIONS EACH YEAR—could be used to provide healthcare for millions of people, and to pay physicians adequately for their work. We could pay primary care physicians, the mainstay of our healthcare system, for the time they spend on preventive care and counseling patients about their health.

We need to get the insurance companies OUT of healthcare, so physicians can focus on the care of patients. The only solution is a SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE SYSTEM – and the single payer should not be an insurance company or a group of insurance companies.

So what is the added value the health insurance companies deliver to justify the annual $350 billion they add to the cost of health care in the US? How does the army of denial clerks they employ, and the costs they impose on health care providers, benefit those who pay for insurance premiums?

Answer: Zip. Nada. They deliver no positive benefit, and in fact mete out expense and tragedy with their denials of care.

$350 billion per year is a lot of money. It takes only a small fraction of it to buy the compliance of Congress to make single payer “politiclly impossible”, even tho it is what a majority of voters and physicians want.

It’s time for Kennedy to stand up for what is right: HR 676, true health care reform, Medicare for All that takes the useless insurance companies out of the picture and redirects the $350 billion per year we now waste on the insurance companies, to deliver decent health care to everyone.

That would be change we can believe in.

It sounds to me like we are already paying for healthcare -we just aren’t receiving it. I don’t want to be forced to purchase healthcare insurance under a mandate. If I could afford health insurance – I would already have it. Why would a law making it illegal for me to not purchase health insurance make it any more possible for me to purchase it? It sounds like a racket created to benefit the insurance industry rather than anything to help Americans get access to healthcare.

We need single-payer, universal healthcare coverage for all Americans.

Thank you, your servant,
Andrew Seaman
Fourth Year Medical Student
University of Washington School of Medicine

HR 676 is the most comprehensive health insurance coverage in the nations history. After the election, we must stand fast againt the profit-driven provider-pharaceutical-attorney lobbying complex.

http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/legislation/hr-676-conyers/united-states-national-health-insurance-act

Two great assets to HR 676:
1. Everyone will receive the same quality healthcare no matter if rich, middle class or low income.

2. HR 676 will effectively remove medical insurance coverage from the list of special interest campaign contributors.

The nation needs Single-Payer National Health Insurance to provide a system in which an objective public agency organizes health financing.