The Finance Committee is discussing options for changing healthcare.
We need to tell them to vote for single payer, the only solution known to work in country after country.
Internationally, studies have repeatedly shown that adverse selection will kill public option like halfway measures by raising premiums.
Therefore, any hybrid Public Option IS AN EXPERMENTAL PROCEDURE AND IT SHOULD NOT BE "COVERED" BY THE TAXPAYERS.
WE SHOULD ONLY PAY FOR TREATMENTS WE KNOW ARE PROVEN TO WORK, LIKE SINGLE PAYER, NOT WASTE DECADES AND TRILLIONS ON UNPROVEN EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES.
The Senate Finance Committee will be meeting next Tuesday, the 12th, to discuss options for financing "Health Care reforms". The last meeting was ominous in that the indications seem to be that whatever solution emerges may easily not be one that helps most of us, or even the chronically ill who cannot get insurance who have any assets or income, many people here.
(the core group who will probably get help of some kind eventually are those below the Federal poverty line who also have children,)
The Finance committee is discussing solutions like expanding Medicaid to cover more poor folk. It is essentially a loan.
None of the options discussed last Thursday even distantly resemble the kinds of things discussed here as what people expect from an Obama administration. The Finance Committee wants to lower Federal expenses from what they are today, while AT THE SAME TIME covering more of the poorest people MINIMALLY.
-PLEASE CALL AND FAX THE SENATORS AND TELL THEM YOUR STORIES. THE HEALTHCARE ISSUE IS ONE THAT STATISTICALLY EFFECTS MORE PEOPLE THAN ANY OTHER. THE HEALTHCARE SITUATION IN THE UNITED STATES WILL EFFECT YOUR FUTURE A LOT!
CALL/FAX THEM NOW!
HEALTHCARE EXPENSES TYPICALLY CAN PREVENT ONES EVER RETIRING. THEY ARE THE SINGLE LARGEST CAUSE OF HOMELESSNESS. Unplanned or uncovered costs (often to those who have inadequate insurance, like the options being considered to get more people "covered" under Obama's public option.) are the single largest cause of bankruptcy in America today. (MORE THAN MORTGAGE LOANS.)
Healthcare access often means the difference between people being able to afford to consider marrying or having children or not. Healthcare costs are destroying millions of families.
People born with chronic diseases become "uninsurable" once they reach adulthood. They find they cannot marry, or get jobs because of the crippling cost of insuring them under our barbaric United States health rationing policies.
People who lose or change jobs who are over 35-40 find that getting new jobs is very difficult. Employers, even progressive ones, OFTEN cite the skyrocketing cost of insuring any older worker as a strong deterrent to hiring. This effects our economy.
A large barrier to employment among those over 37 or so is the substantially larger cost to businesses of insuring those over 40. Obama's campaign plan description exlicitly states that it will not change that (see his faq on health care)
the only way to change that is single payer for all which would remove the burden of insuring workers from business because all workers would receive health care as a right. Health care would be given without rationing it based on one's ability to pay.
The United States is one of only three OECD (developed) nations without Universal Healthcare. The others are Mexico and Turkey. None of the options being discussed currently could even remotely be called "universal" healthcare. (available to everybody without regard to cost) "Obama's public option" is NOT universal healthcare. IT WOULD ONLY BE AVAILABLE TO THOSE WHO COULD PAY THE PREMIUM WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SPECIFIED AND WHICH OBAMA'S ADVISOR AUSTAN GOOLSBEE ADMITTED WOULD ALMOST CERTAINLY BE UNAFFORDABLE. It also does not make sense mathematically, because adverse selection rapidly makes the cost rise far above affordability if it insures the sick along wth the healthy
We currently spend 31% of every healthcare dollar on administrative costs (insurance companies and billing them) and the insurance industry seems determined to continue that. If we maintain the HUGE billing infrastructure that exists mostly to ration care, we will not be able to attain the savings needed to cover those who cannot pay average costs of $5-8,000 a year for healthcare (this is an average that includes the uninsured, so the real costs paid by payers currently is higher, the highest in the world, often the payers are employers so most of us who are insured currently dont know what the real cost of our healthcare is)
PLEASE CALL OR FAX (today is a good time to fax) THE OFFICES OF THE FOLLOWING SENATORS OVER THE NEXT THREE DAYS.
Senate Finance Commitee: 202-224-4515
http://finance.senate.gov/...
MAX BAUCUS, MT: 202-224-2651
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, WV: 202-224-6472
KENT CONRAD, ND: 202-224-2043
JEFF BINGAMAN, NM: 202-224-5521
JOHN F. KERRY, MA: 202-224-2742
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, AR: 202-224-4843
RON WYDEN, OR : 202-224-5244
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, NY: 202-224-6542
DEBBIE STABENOW, MI: 202-224-4822
MARIA CANTWELL, WA: 202-224-3441
BILL NELSON, FL: 202-224-5274
ROBERT MENENDEZ, NJ: 202-224-4744
THOMAS CARPER, DE: 202-224-2441
Single Payer Healthcare For All is the ONLY HEALTHCARE OPTION THAT WILL BRING ABOUT REAL, POSITIVE CHANGE.
Its not enough for one or two single payer healthcare advocates to be there in the audience or "at the table". That will not make up for their refusing to discuss change.
SINGLE PAYER NEEDS TO BE ADOPTED. THAT WILL TAKE A MIRACLE OF PUBLIC OUTCRY NOW. BIGGER THAN THE OUTCRY THAT BROUGHT THE BUSH ERA TO AN END.
The reason the politicians and their lobbyist donors wont discuss it is because its the only solution that works.
Their goal is to waste another few years of our time on a dead end that will fail due to adverse selection and its increased premiums. That wont do.
SCREAM LIKE HELL. THEY WANT TO TAKE OUR HEALTHCARE REFORM AWAY AND GIVE THAT MONEY TO THE BANKS.
also - unverified addition from docb
" toll free numbers are 1.800.828.0498 or 1.866.220.0044...Keep on them --- the lobbyists on spending MILLIONS on this EVERYDAY...We need to contact them at their local offices, too and get the names of the people fielding the calls!"
Thats a very good idea. Get the names of those who answer your call, and keep calling them and/or faxing them.
Tell them your stories. In my own case, I have not been able to get decent health care because of the way they ration care here. Ive been sick for years and its stolen the last five years of my life. The issues I have are treatable, but I can't afford the out-of-network doctors who actually do.