Hawkins Supports "Medicare for All" National Health Insurance
Howie Hawkins for Congress
25th District, New York
www.howiehawkins.org
Media Release
For Immediate Release: Friday, September 5, 2008
For More Information: Howie Hawkins, 315-425-1019, hhawkins@igc.org
Challenges Opponents to Stand Up to Insurance Companies
Howie Hawkins, the Green Populist candidate for Congress in the 25th District, challenged his opponents today to stand up to the insurance lobby and join him in supporting HR 676, the "Medicare for All" bill that provides health insurance through a single public insurer. HR 676 currently has 91 co-sponsors in the US House of Representatives.
Hawkins, who will be attending meetings of single payer advocates in Syracuse on Sunday and Monday, called upon his Democratic and Republican opponents to join him
in supporting HR 676.
"It is time to eliminate private health insurance, which creates such a huge waste of lives and money by rationing health care on a pay or die basis. It is time for the US should join the rest of the industrial world and treat health care is a human right, not a commodity to be rationed in the market according to who can pay and who can't. The pay or die system of for-profit health insurance is fundamentally immoral. The US has the worst health care system in the industrial world for patients, even though our doctors, nurses, and medical technology are among the best in the world," noted Hawkins.
Hawkins said it was ironic that the Democrats are backing Republican Mitt Romney's Massachusetts approach to universal health care by mandating that people buy private insurance and providing public subsidies for private insurance for lower income people.
"The Massachusetts plan is already a disaster, with the public costs of subsidies way over projections. The Democrats' plan to mix public and private insurance systems will give us what that mix already has. The private insurance industry will use their enormous campaign contributions and lobbying resources to make sure that costs are shifted to the public and profits channeled to the private insurers," Hawkins said.
"The Republicans' plan is even worse. They would tax workers' health care benefits and shift deductions to private Health Savings Accounts. That will destroy the employer-based health insurance system we have, which does not provide universal health care but does cover by far the most people who do not qualify for the public systems of Medicaid or Medicare," Hawkins added.
HR 676 would finance health care for the entire population through a single government program, with funds collected through progressive taxation of citizens and businesses. Health care would continue to be delivered privately and citizens would be free to choose any health care provider.
The New York State AFL-CIO recently endorsed HR 676. Among the numerous groups in New York supporting HR 676 are Physicians for a National Health Program, New York State Nurses Association, New York State Academy of Family Physicians, Healthcare Now, Tompkins County Health Care Task Force, Hunger Action Network of New York State, the Healthcare Work Group of Otsego, Delaware, and Chenango Counties), and the Green Party of New York State.
"The US spends more than twice as much per capita on health care as any other industrial nation, all of which boast universal coverage. Yet close to 50 million Americans have no health insurance whatsoever, and most others are underinsured, in the sense that they lack adequate coverage for all contingencies, including long-term care and prescription drug costs. Why is the U. S. so different? Our politicians have been bought off by the health insurance industry," said Hawkins.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a system that eliminates the paperwork, bureaucracy and profit margins of private health care insurance could save up to $300 hundred billion annually, allowing the country to spend less money while provide quality health care to all. With private health insurance, over thirty cents on the dollar goes to pay for the insurance company overhead, while forcing each doctor to hire on average of 2.5 staff people to deal with the paperwork of some 1500 different insurance companies. 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 have an immoral system where profits come before the well-being of the patients," said Hawkins.
"National health insurance was first proposed by former President Theodore Roosevelt in his 1912 Bull Moose Progressive campaign for the presidency. Since the 1940s, when Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Truman called for it, public opinion polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans have supported national health insurance. Today 59 percent of physicians, who are sick of having insurance company account executives overruling their medical decisions, support a single-payer system, according to a survey published by the Annals of Internal Medicine last April. National health insurance is a reform that is long overdue," added Hawkins.
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