This is Week of Action on Single Payer Health Care

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On March 10th, 2009, a series of activities are planned in support of the single payer health care bill, HR 676, The United States National Health Insurance Act, ("Expanded & Improved Medicare for ALL").

We ask that you join with thousands of others to call Congress and also fax your health insurance bill or letter of denial to Congress. Click here to take action. We also urge you to contact the Health and Human Services Secretary-designate, Kathleen Sebelius. In addition to congratulating her on her nomination, click here to let her know you support HR 676 and single-payer national health care.

Campaign for HR 676

Ask your representative to be a co-sponsor of HR 676. See a list of co-sponsors. If your representative is a co-sponsor, thank him or her and urge them to make HR 676 a top legislative priority. Call 202-224-3121. Ask for your representative's fax number to send your health insurance bill or letter of denial.

Talking Points:

1. Everybody In, Nobody Out. Universal means access to healthcare for everyone, period.

2. Portability. If you are unemployed, or lose or change jobs, your health coverage stays with you.

3. Prevention. By removing financial roadblocks, a universal health systme encourages preventative care that lowers an individual's ultimate
cost and pain and suffering when problems are neglected and societyal cost in the over-utilization of emergency rooms or the spread of communicable diseases.l

4. Choice. Most private insurance restricts your choice of providers and hospitals. Under the US National Health Insurance Act, patients have a choice, and the provider is assured a fair opayment.

5. Cost savings. A guaranteed healthcare systme can produce the cost savings needed to cover everyone, largely by using existing resourses without the waste. Taiwan, shifting from a U.S> private health care model, adopted a similar system in 1995, boosting health coverager from 57% to 97% with little increase in overall healthcare spending.

2) Contact the Office of Health and Human Services Secretary-designate, Kathleen Sebelius. Call [phone] (please call between 9AM & 5PM).

More information here

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1. If you are in DC or nearby, demonstrate against insurers at the Ritz Carlton

Health Insurance NO! Health Care YES!--Protest in D.C.

The American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) is hosting a conference in Washington, D.C. AIHP is the trade group that develops the policies which keep profit first in our health care system while leaving over a third of the population uninsured or with completely inadequate coverage.

Join with HR 676 advocates for a demonstration outside of the conference.

We encourage you to RSVP below.
https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/309/personalopt1.asp?formid=meet&c=4385577


When Tuesday, March 10, 2009
11 AM

Where Ritz Carlton Hotel
1150 22nd Street N.W.
Washington, DC

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2. US Is One Of Only Three Developed Nations Without Healthcare For All, OECD Report Shows

People in the US have been snowed by propaganda peddled by right wingers and insurance companies.
Most developed nations have health care for all.

Posted over at MDD.

US Is One Of Only Three Developed Nations Without Healthcare For All, OECD Report Shows
by architek, Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 06:27:07 PM EST

Salon has a good article about the ugliness of the US healthcare situation and how it could possibly be this way.

It's entitled "The questions our healthcare debate ignores".

"Last month, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development issued the latest in a long series of reports on our wasteful and cruel practices that ought to awaken a sense of national embarrassment."

DEPRESSING fact that is mentioned NUMBER ONE: "Among the OECD's 30 members -- which include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom -- there are only three lacking universal health coverage. The other two happen to be Mexico and Turkey, which have the excuse of being poorer than the rest (and until the onset of the world economic crisis, Mexico was on the way to providing healthcare to all of its citizens). The third, of course, is us."

(Here is the actual report from the OECD web site)

"The story gets worse as the details emerge. Although the public share of health expenditure in the United States is much lower than any other OECD country except Mexico, the public expenditure on healthcare is much higher per capita than in most OECD countries. So we pay a lot more in taxes devoted to medical care -- not including insurance premiums, co-payments, fees, and other health costs -- than taxpayers in those 27 countries that have universal coverage. Our public expenditure provides coverage only for the elderly and some of the poor (through Medicaid and the SCHIP program for children) while other countries provide universal coverage while spending less."

http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/3/9/18277/26800