Time for More Single-Payer Truth Hearings
By the depth and amount of your response to our website, the National Strategy Conference, and the various videos and other resources offered from Healthcare-NOW, it is clear that we are growing in numbers and in commitment to a national, single-payer healthcare system in this country.
In addition, president-elect Barack Obama continues to commit to healthcare coverage for the whole nation as an early part of his economic recovery plan—a commitment that we know can only be fulfilled by the savings promised by single-payer system.
About one-third of public spending on healthcare goes to private health insurance companies. If we put that money towards a national healthcare system, we will save more than $300 billion while getting a wonderful, universal healthcare system that covers everyone.
It should be said that President-elect Obama has not yet committed to that kind of system, but it is only a matter of time, AND IT DEPENDS ON THE AMOUNT OF WORK WE DO in support of HR 676 in Congress.
Do you remember two years ago how we held Citizen Congressional Hearings in our towns and cities nationwide? Our activists invited members of Congress to come home to meet with their constituents in a hearing where they were able to speak and convince them to sign on as co-sponsors of H.R. 676, the single-payer bill in Congress.
Well, now is the time to do it again. We have a lot of new members of Congress who haven’t heard from us on this subject, and it is also time to get re-commitments on the part of the old ones. It is really important to let these new members of Congress (both Republicans and Democrats) hear from us right at the start of their term.
One of the most important byproducts of these Citizen Congressional Hearings is that they form new Healthcare-NOW activist groups—last time in about 300 cities. Now is the time to do that again too.
If you’re interested in holding a Truth Hearing in your town or city, please visit our Truth Hearings Page for more information, and contact Katie Robbins at info[at]heatlhcare-now.org or 800-453-1305.
Thanks so much for being a part of Healthcare-NOW. If you can do so, please make a donation too. Get your free gift, and join us in our work.
Yours truly,
Marilyn Clement, National Coordinator
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.”
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
So glad to see you are still writing Marilyn,
I agree with you that we need to work with our new President. Let’s enlist John Conyers in this effort too. Obama is flexible enough that he will listen to people and if we show that there is a groundswell for single-payor, Obama may well work toward that.
With the economy in a shambles, we may not get it right away but we can still keep working steadily behind the scenes to make it happen when the time is right.
I hope you are doing better.
All my best–Billie
We must keep in mind that single payer is not more expensive, it is less. Think of all that money that comes out of your paycheck if you are lucky enough to have insurance at all. Most of it goes to private insurance companies, not to health care.
Single payer is the best way to stimulate the economy from the ground up. If our paychecks were relieved of the cost of corporate insurance, we would each have more money immediately to stimulate the economy.
We are experiencing an economic emergency, the response should be single payer universal health care, to both ensure the health of the people so they can prosper, but free their resources for stimulating the economy directly.
This would be far better than a tax cut. For most working people, it would mean hundreds of dollars each month freed for other needs.
It is obvious that single payer health care would put money in everyone’s pocket. If we had guaranteed health care, people would have much more to put back into the economy. Also all the money that was collected by hospitals and doctors would go to them, not some paper pusher who has crowned him or herself the great decider.
What I don’t understand is why lawmakers cling so furiously to please and cater to these insurance companies that make their money off the suffering of the masses. I know the medical insurance companies make huge campaign donations,but it seems that something more is going on here. Something that is not being seen or reported on. I mean, everyone can see it would benefit everyone, stimulate the economy indefinitely, and would help older Americans keep their job as health care insurance is the cause of age discrimination in the work place. Why do our law makers insist on coddling these parasites? Why do they refuse to even acknowledge the message that is being put out to them by great numbers of people. And why in the hell did Obama pick pretty boy Gupta, the darling of the medical insurance industry and Big Pharma, to be our Surgeon General. I voted for Obama and think he is the greatest, but where Gupta is concerned I am PO”d.
We need this. Believe this or not I have awesome healthcare that I pay through the nose for. It shouldn’t be like this. My primary care supposedly manages my health but since I have been seeing her I have become worse with no positive results. I hope that if we can get single payor through it will restructure how care is provided. I agree with Leslie about Gupta. Every doctors office I go into he is on their little tv in the waiting room preeching away. He is like the poster child for Big Pharma. My vibe on him is not good.
A NEW STUDY SHOWS THAT SINGLE-PAYER REFORM WOULD BE A MAJOR STIMULUS FOR THE US ECONOMY and would provide:
** 2.6 Million New Jobs,
** $317 Billion in Business Revenue,
** $100 Billion in Wages, and
** $44 Billion New Tax Revenues
You can find out more about this study here: http://www.CalNurses.org/
The press release is here: http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2009/january/nurses-to-congress-expanding-medicare-could-reverse-job-losses-and-repair-our-broken-healthcare-system-and-safety-net.html
The health insurance companies have played a major role in our current healthcare crisis. They make huge profits and their CEOs make millions, while the rest of us are denied care.
ANNUAL COMPENSATION OF HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY EXECUTIVES (2006 and 2007 figures):
• Ronald A. Williams, Chair/ CEO, Aetna Inc., $23,045,834
• H. Edward Hanway, Chair/ CEO, Cigna Corp, $30.16 million
• David B. Snow, Jr, Chair/ CEO, Medco Health, $21.76 million
• Michael B. MCallister, CEO, Humana Inc, $20.06 million
• Stephen J. Hemsley, CEO, UnitedHealth Group, $13,164,529
• Angela F. Braly, President/ CEO, Wellpoint, $9,094,771
• Dale B. Wolf, CEO, Coventry Health Care, $20.86 million
• Jay M. Gellert, President/ CEO, Health Net, $16.65 million
• William C. Van Faasen, Chairman, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3 million plus $16.4 million in retirement benefits
• Charlie Baker, President/ CEO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, $1.5 million
• James Roosevelt, Jr., CEO, Tufts Associated Health Plans, $1.3 million
• Cleve L. Killingsworth, President/CEO Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3.6 million
• Raymond McCaskey, CEO, Health Care Service Corp (Blue Cross Blue Shield), $10.3 million
• Daniel P. McCartney, CEO, Healthcare Services Group, Inc, $ 1,061,513
• Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555
• Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825
• Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751
• Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555
• Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825
• Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751
This executive compensation could be used to provide quality healthcare for thousands of Americans! GET THE INSURANCE COMPANIES OUT OF HEALTHCARE!
The United States National Health Insurance Act, H.R. 676. You can read about it here: http://www.healthcare-now.org/hr-676/
Ask your Representatives to co-sponsor HR 676.
If you want to learn more, go to:
http://www.insurancecompanyrules.org/learn_more/the_roster/