CNA walked Golden Gate Bridge in support of HR 676
Single Payer Activists led by 1000 convention delegates from the California Nurses Association walked San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in support of HR 676 and California’s SB 840.
Members from the California Association of Retired Americans, AFT 2121, Health Care for All and Single Payer Now marched with the nurses.
See more photos on CNA’s Flickr Page.
I think the public needs to become more educated with the facts and figures concerning comparative costs of the current system vs single payer. The public needs to know how much they currently pay in insurance premiums and the cost of single payer. There is an overwhelming sense that taxes will go sky high. Congress people like Rep. Rangel of New York are concerned that the American people don’t want a 19% tax like the French and he has not sent HR676 to the Congressional Budget Office for evaluation or “scoring”. Congressman Rangel has NO basis to say that HR676 would cost the tax payer 19% while economists who have studied this issue say it would be about a 10% tax. Data from the Health-Care Now web site indicates that the average annual premiums for families covered uder an employee health plan is $11,000 (National Coalition on Health Care). For a family whose income is $40,000 a $11,000 tax bill would be 27.5%. This family pays the entire 27.5% because employers pass their share of the costs of health insurance onto consumers. It’s part of the cost of doing business. In contrast (from the healthcare now site) a study by nationally recognized economist Dean Baker, of the Center for Econimic Research and Policy concluded that under HR676 the family above would pay about $1900 or about 4.7% per year for health coverage. If Congress and the President REALLY wanted to, they could educate the public that in lieu of outrageous for profit insurance premiums of 27.5% of income they would be paying a reasonable health tax of 4.7% (based on the data above) that in no way was the scary out of control tax that opponents of HR676 say it would be.
we need to expose the high profits insurance companys make . We also need to let the public know even if they have insurance now ,their carrier can find a way to drop them when they get sick