|
Back
|
Hawkins Blasts Clinton's Compulsory Private Health Insurance
Hawkins Supports A Single Payer Health Care Plan
Opposes Clinton's Support for "Compulsory Private Health Insurance" |
For Release: May 18, 2006
For More Information:
Howie Hawkins 315-425-1019, hhawkins@igc.org
Howie Hawkins, who is seeking the Green Party nomination for US Senate, criticized Hillary Clinton today for pandering to private health insurance companies. He faulted Clinton for backing initiatives such as the recent Massachusetts legislation that mandates that consumers buy inadequate private health insurance rather than provide all residents with health care services through a publicly-funded health care system.
"Clinton is beholden to special interests like insurance companies. It was Hillary Clinton's unwillingness to oppose the private health insurance industry that caused a 30-year movement for national health insurance to be derailed in 1993. She refused to even allow her health care advisors to consider a single payer system that is commonplace in the rest of the industrial world. Instead, she promoted so-called managed competition, which channeled even more money to the health insurance companies. Her legacy is the rise of Health Maintenance Organizations in our country, where insurance clerks, not doctors and patients, determine medical care," stated Hawkins.
"This is why she gets support from the likes of Rupert Murdoch today," Hawkins said.
As Sam Smith of the Progressive Review noted, what Hillary Clinton proposed was "a massive transfer of the American health industry to a small number of the largest insurance companies and other major corporations. These were companies that had the assets to play the game being offered -- a medical oligopoly that would dispense health-care under the rules of the Fortune 500 rather than according to those of Hipprocrates."
Hawkins instead supports providing universal health care through a Medicare Care for All program (HR 646), which is promoted by the Physicians for a National Health Program. "We need a democratic universal health care program, funded by a single public payer out of progressive taxes, and democratically controlled by elected local health boards that in turn elect state and federal boards to govern the system. When we are patients we will be able to seek the best possible care. Patients and doctors, not insurance clerks, should be free to decide when it comes to diagnosis and treatment," Hawkins said.
"This is the start of the solution to the present health care mess," he added. "Right now we're talking about getting everyone in the system. Once we have done that we can begin improving that system to guarantee quality care to all."
A system that eliminates the paperwork, bureaucracy and profit margins of private health care insurance would save hundreds of billions of dollars annually, allowing the country to spend less money while provide quality affordable health care to all. With private health insurance, as much as thirty cents on the dollars goes to pay for the insurance company existence, while forcing each doctor to hire an average of 2.5 staff people to deal with the paperwork. Medicare by contrast expends only 3% on administration.
"I want to spend less money, not more, on health care. Our country cannot afford to continue to spend one out of six dollars in the economy for a health system, especially one that is ranked only 37th in the world by the World Health Organization. The rest of the industrial world spends far less on health care than we do but they have longer life expectancies, lower infant mortality rates, more doctor visits per capita, better health care outcomes. We may have the best medical professionals and equipment in the world, but we have a fatally flawed system where profits are all too often come before the well-being of the patients," said Hawkins.
"The Massachusetts health care plan unfortunately looks like just another election year gimmick by a Governor wanting to run for President. Two decades ago, it was Michael Dukakis proclaiming that Massachusetts had enacted universal health care; the plan imploded two years later. Now it is Governor Romney with an eye on the White House, with a health care program that gives more money to hospitals and insurance companies, but only a pittance toward more health care to the under- and uninsured," said Hawkins.
"The Massachusetts plan is truly historic in only one respect -- it commands people to purchase a private product. It is really a fabulous gift from the politicians to the private health insurance industry. For the rest of us it just means more out of our paycheck toward health insurance -- and lousy insurance at that. The type of health care policies envisioned by Massachusetts just means high deductibles with many medical procedures uncovered. Many of those who survive will end up in bankruptcy court," noted Hawkins
"Clinton's praise for Republican Romney's compulsory private health insurance bill is another example of Clinton joining with Republicans in a so-called bipartisan consensus that is nothing but the agenda of the big business elite. It's the same as her long-time support for the 1996 Clinton-Gingrich welfare bill, Bush's war in Iraq, and raising campaign funds with Rupert Murdoch," declared Hawkins.
Hawkins said that health care reform has to start by discarding the concept that health care is just another commodity that corporations can use to maximize their profits. "We have a sick care rather than health care system in this country. It is much more expensive, and far less effective, to cure people once they are sick rather than keeping them healthy - but that is what passes for health care in the US. We need to focus more on preventive health care and public health measures that focuses on keeping people healthy," Hawkins said.
|
| |
 *Website by David Doonan, Labor Donated to Hawkins for Senate Campaign* |
|
|
