Single-payer health care system is best way
Rochester For HR 676 formed in the wake of an event featuring Congressman John Conyers, sponsor of The United States National Health Care Act. We agree that a single-payer system — publicly financed and privately delivered — is the only way to cut and contain costs and provide comprehensive universal care.
We were especially moved when audience member Melanie Funchess spoke. Her husband’s cancer treatment, despite private insurance, led to bankruptcy, in part due to a policy technicality. Rep. Louise Slaughter’s response to the Funchess family demonstrates the piecemeal approach taken by our legislators: She will co-sponsor legislation providing resources to explain insurance policies to subscribers!
Rochester For HR 676 collected 1,300 signatures in support of a national single-payer system. We marched to the Federal Building and presented them to Slaughter’s aides. Copies were delivered to our senators. Although polls have shown 85 percent of Americans support major overhaul of our system, and 65 percent believe we should adopt a system that covers everyone “under a program like Medicare that is run by the government and financed by taxpayers,” our representatives say HR 676 won’t pass, and prefer to “piece this thing together,” as President Obama said.
He admitted single payer is the only way to ensure universal coverage, yet continues to push a Massachusetts-like plan, built on employer and private insurance-based system that is the problem.
Building on what works makes sense. HR 676 would expand and improve Medicare, adding long-term care and eliminating the privatized prescription program that doesn’t allow price negotiation. Drugmakers have offered $80 billion in concessions to the president, eliminating half of the doughnut hole! Under HR 676, they would have to concede more.
Adding a publicly subsidized private health insurance exchange, alongside plans offered by some 1,300 private companies, replicates the administrative overhead and profit inherent in the current system.
It leaves millions uninsured, includes a five-year waiting period for those who have insurance and fines those who do not purchase coverage. This “health insurance reform” only delays the implosion of an unsustainable system.
Rochester For HR 676 thanks Rep. Eric Massa for co-sponsoring HR 676, and calls on our elected leaders to:
Join us July 30 in Washington, D.C., to rally and lobby for a national single-payer health plan. For more information, call me at (585) 473-8724 or e-mail rochesterforhr676@gmail.com.
Frarey is a mother, Rochester City School District paraprofessional and health care activist in Rochester.
