Join the fight - MEDICARE FOR ALL!
HR676.org,Inc. 
November 7th 2009 |
| "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die." Edward M. Kennedy |  |
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The Problem...
Under our private, for-profit health insurance system CORPORATE PROFITS are allowed to come before anything, including the health and welfare of the patient. America is the only country in the modern, developed, civilized world where this situation is allowed to exist.
Accordingly, millions cannot qualify for private health insurance because of “pre-existing medical conditions”. In other words corporations cannot profit by insuring them so they REFUSE to do so. Millions more simply cannot afford the staggering premiums that these companies charge for coverage. Once again, these ridiculous conditions are to be found ONLY IN AMERICA!
Never forget that the only way a private health insurance company can make a profit is BY DENYING YOUR CLAIMS and profits have never been better.
An even more insidious part of the problem is that multi-millions of policy holders that think that they have good coverage are not aware that health insurance companies will routinely bail out on them when a serious illness comes along. Huge co-pays and deductibles kick in leaving families with thousands of dollars in unpaid medical debt. In addition, 20% to 40% of all health care claims ARE SIMPLY DENIED by the various private insurance companies leaving the policy holder holding the bag for thousands more in medical debt. Finally, under a uniquely American practice called “rescission”, private insurance companies simply cancel your policy if you get so sick that they decide that they don’t want to pay your medical bills any more. Good Luck! There are over 47 million totally uninsured Americans today and that number grows by the thousands every week.
The Results…
While health insurance company CEO’s take home millions in salaries, OVER 45,000 AMERICANS DIE ANNUALLY because of no health insurance or because they cannot afford to use the insurance that they already have due to high co-pays and deductibles. Some call this a uniquely form of American genocide? Is that a fair conclusion? You must decide that for yourself!
So that private health insurance companies can enjoy record profits, one-half million Americans WITH health insurance will be forced into bankruptcy this year because of unaffordable medical debt. One half million more without any insurance at all will also be forced to do so as well. An unbelievable 60% of all personal bankruptcies in the USA are caused by medical bills. This makes it the #1 cause of personal bankruptcy in America. This problem exists in no other country on our planet. In other words, there is no other country in the world in which you can be forced into bankruptcy by medical bills… not one - only ours!
It is not surprising that America spends more money on health care per capita than any other country in the world yet we rank surprisingly low in some very important world wide health care statistics. For example:
Category America’s World Ranking
Life Expectancy 31st
Maternal Mortality 34th
Infant Mortality 37th
Finally, over the next ten years, the private, for-profit health care industry will drain between $3 trillion and $4 trillion dollars from our health care system to sustain their staggering profits, enormous CEO salaries and to pay for the blinding complexity and confusion of over 1300 competing administrative paperwork systems that every doctor’s office and hospital must contend with every day and yet insurance companies will return not one nickle of value in the process. That’s right, they contribute NOTHING WHATEVER to health care! They just collect money from you and then re-distribute it to the health care providers and keep a huge amount of it for themselves in the process. This represents a loss of money to our economy that is simply unsustainable and one that will eventually bankrupt this entire country completely if not corrected.
Small business, the real engine of job creation in America, staggers under the weight of this unsustainable burden and cannot grow our job markets and increase salaries largely due to the moneys that they must pay instead to the giant health insurance companies. Over the last decade average American incomes have gone down while health insurance profits have skyrocketed by an amazing 480%. Can you believe that? Really, can you believe that??
The Solution… Medicare for All - America’s Public Option
Every other modern, developed country in the world has created some kind of government run national health insurance system that covers all of its citizens and provides adequate and affordable health care for all. Are these other systems perfect and problem free? By no means, but the problems that they have are miniscule compared to the ones created by the disgustingly immoral catastrophic system that has America in such a suffocating death grip.
Our own MEDICARE is a very successful government run single-payer health insurance system. It is ranked as one of the top five medical management systems in the world. If we were to simply set aside the age 65 requirement to join and allowed every American citizen or legal resident to buy into it as a health insurance option at fair but adequate market rate premiums we would IMMEDIATELY accomplish several things.
- Provide real competition to private for-profit health insurance companies which would be forced to lower rates and provide better service in order to stay in business.
- End the problem of the uninsured in America because the government would provide subsidies to those legitimately unable to afford even low-cost Medicare premiums.
- Go a long way towards solving Medicare’s financial problems by bringing in billions of premium dollars from a younger and healthier population that could be offered special incentives for early enrollment such as long term premium caps and so forth.
- Eliminate the need for1900 page health reform bills as the competition provided by Medicare would solve most, if not all of the existing problems in our private system in a few short years.
SOCIALIZED MEDICINE – Medicare is NOT socialized Medicine. It is just a very efficient form of health insurance administered by the government. All of the doctors, nurses and most of the hospitals remain private. Government insurance is not a unique concept or is it some insidious threat to our freedoms or way of life. Did you know for example that ALL flood insurance in America is underwritten by Uncle Sam?
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD – Many have complained that the government imposes unfair competition in the insurance market because they do not face the same expenses as private providers. This may be a valid argument in other areas of free market commerce but where the health and welfare of the American People are concerned, this argument simply cannot stand up. In fact, the free market has proven itself to be completely incapable of providing adequate and affordable health insurance for all and it is time to wake up and realize that the situation gets worse every day and that a solution is desperately needed and SOON! Hundreds of Americans die every day due to lack of access to our health care system. THIS MUST STOP NOW!!
ECONOMIC AFFORDABILITY – Needed improvements to Medicare reimbursement rates will make it a much more fair system for all providers. The infusion of billions of premium dollars from a younger and healthier population of American citizens and legal residents will measurably improve the economic outlook of health care in America.
GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER OF THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM – This cannot happen unless and until huge majorities of Americans choose for it to happen by their selection of Medicare as their primary insurance provider. If such turns out to be the free will of the people, how can anybody legitimately object? Also, it is likely that private health insurance will continue to provide supplemental health plans for those more affluent members of our society who will want more in the way of special benefits than the basic Medicare policy provides.
CONSTITUTIONALITY - The Constitution of the United States in the very first paragraph admonishes the federal government to provide for the "general welfare". What could be clearer than that?
A THREAT TO OUR FREEDOM - Many fear that government run health insurance represents a mortal threat to our American way of life but in fact there have been many solutions to societal problems over the years that have included government participation without bringing about a gulag society in America. There are just some few issues that the government can handle more beneficially and more efficiently than the private sector can and health insurance is CLEARLY one of those issues. THE REAL THREAT TO OUR SOCIETY is to be found in continuing to rely totally on a profit driven private health insurance industry that has clearly demonstrated over the years their fundamental lack of concern for the welfare of the American people by willingly excluding millions and allowing millions more to die and go bankrupt simply to support their profits.
If you agree with this proposition then please join us today and help finance the education of the American public and their elected representatives as to the benefits of Medicare for All as America’s Public Option.
If you believe that adequate and affordable health care for all in America should be a right and not a privilege, then join us today and your voice will be heard!
Call or Write your Senators and Representative Today - Demand "MEDICARE FOR ALL"
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