Action Alert: Demand Pres. Obama Save Medicare
Republicans want to privatize Medicare and slash Medicaid to reduce the nation’s deficit. President Obama says he wants to preserve Medicare and Medicaid, but his budget proposal looks to those programs to find savings.
We agree that healthcare costs are a serious problem, but cutting Medicare and Medicaid won’t help.
Instead, we need to take the corporate greed and waste out of our healthcare system, and make healthcare a human right by extending Medicare to everyone.
Join us in sending this message to President Obama and your Congresspeople.
The current fiscal crisis is a crisis of healthcare costs. Healthcare costs per capita in the United States are the highest in the world, yet we leave our population uninsured or underinsured without access to care. These high costs are due in large part to the use of a fragmented multi-payer (multiple insurance plans) model with associated high administrative costs (1).
One-third of our healthcare dollars are used for administration rather than direct patient care. Administrative costs include developing and marketing plans, determining eligibility for the various plans and then processing the claims for the various plans which each have different rules. Contrast this with the relatively streamlined administrative cost of Medicare which is less than 3 percent.
The private market fails to provide people in the US with adequate healthcare. For-profit health insurance companies have a fiduciary responsibility to make money for their stockholders, not care for the sick. They make money by denying care and raising out-of-pocket costs for patients. Government programs internationally and in the United States have a better track record of providing universal, comprehensive care and controlling health costs (2).
We want to remind President Obama that the way to control healthcare costs, and guarantee healthcare to seniors, people with disabilities, veterans, and everyone in the US is through expanded and improved Medicare for all. This will ensure healthcare is a right to everyone, and allow us to create a sustainable healthcare system that controls costs.
Send this message now to support Medicare for all.
While we the people are tightening our belts, the health insurance industry is making record profits. The big five health insurers earned $11.7 billion in 2010 – a 51% increase since 2008 (3).
With your help, Healthcare-NOW! and allies continue to keep this message alive. We need you to build the movement to win. Send this message today, and keep up the fight for the right to health care for all.
BAIL OUT THE PEOPLE, NOT THE INSURANCE AND DRUG COMPANIES.
THIS IS OUR MONEY WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. WE SAY ENOUGH!!!!
TOO MUCH ALREADY!!! MAKE THEM PAY BACK THE PEOPLE, BAIL OUT THE
HOSPITALS, GIVE CARE TO YOUR COUNTRY AND PEOPLE.
HEALTH CARE IS A HUMAN RIGHT. SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES-DO THE NEXT “RIGHT” THING. GIVE US MEDICARE FOR ALL
Please Mr. O’bama, please don’t let the worst legislature that money can buy screw up our Medicare that we payed into our entire working careers by their bogus privatization and voucher schemes. These are just a scheme to let their corporate overlords scam us some more.
If they destroy social security/ medicare, I for one will make it aq point to go to Washington to demonstrate.This will make the million man march look like a church social.I’ m ready!
It’s obvious that Washington is not trying to really get health care costs under control. They are just thinking in the short-term and trying to balance their budget. They are not thinking at all about how successful this new Medicare re-design idea of theirs is going to play out…
Putting Medicare recipients – the elderly, mentally & physically disabled, and those with categorical diseases (like end stage renal disease and dialysis) – into the open market to have to deal with private health insurance companies would be a disaster. And, that is what we are talking about when we talk about changing Medicare into a “premium support” plan. I am a 35 year old physician, and I have a hard enough time navigating the world of private health insurance for myself, my family, and my patients!
Anyone who has ever taken care of the Medicare population knows that most folks above the age of 70 need the simplest program possible. Do you know how many folks out there have early dementia or mental impairments? Difficulty reading? Difficulty making phone calls because of their hearing? They can’t deal with choosing between programs, complicated enrollment paperwork, interpreting health insurance statements, arguing with insurance companies, making sure bills got paid…
Medicare Part D was a disaster in this way. They offered an online tool where you could plug in your drugs to see which of the 20 private pharmacy plans was “best” for you. That’s cute. The idea that my 80 year old grandmother was going to go on line. She does not even know how to turn a computer on. I think the folks in Washington do not think at all about the realities of the program users – who exactly is in the Medicare or Medicaid populations…
Southeast Texas single payer advocates? RALLY Hands Off Our Safety Net! Save Medicare, Medicaid, & Social Security. Sat. July 23rd from 5-7PM. Walter Hall Park Pavilion, 807 Hwy 3 (Old Galveston Rd) League City, TX; U.S. Representatives: Al Green, Gene Green, Sheila Jackson-Lee; U.S. Senate Candidate: Rick Sanchez; Secretary-Treasurer of the Texas AFL-CIO: John Patrick; President, Health Care for All Texas: Dr. Margaret Nosek, National Nurses United, Union workers, care professionals, concerned citizens
Be there for speeches & strategies, letter writing to Congress & PresidentObama administration, Info tables/exhibits, BBQ ($5.) and Happy 46th Birthday Medicare cake for all! see healthcare-NOW.org local actions page; info@hcfat.org or Galveston County Democratic Party website.