Visit http://www.onecarenow.org for more details on Citizen HealthCare ActionThere are two powerful and informative videos about SB 840 at the middle and bottom of this article. Be sure to see them.
The Governor's "Health Care Reform"?
But wait, we already know
how to fix the health care crisis!
(SB 840 was officially re-introduced on
February 27th)
So what are we waiting for?
The OneCareNow Campaign supports SB 840(Kuehl) as the
one health care reform proposal in California that will provide
high quality health care for all and control health care costs. On February 27,
2007, Senator Kuehl re-introduced SB 840 with the broad-based support of labor,
community organizations, and millions of Californians eager for true health care
reform (watch a video
of this press conference).
After 12 years of fighting for reform, we welcome new calls for expanding
health care to the uninsured (Nunez and Perata). But
while it's a start, we and a swiftly growing coalition in California and
nationwide, believe this is no time for small steps.
On this website, you'll learn how one bold change will bring full care for
all, for life, for less. Health care should not be a nightmare. It should
be real care - just as it is in every other developed nation.
Controlling health care costs?
Our argument is simple: all plans
that expand the business of the private insurance industry are doomed to fail
because they won't control costs. How can they when their profits, marketing
costs and duplicated, look-alike plans currently waste 30% of every health care
dollar they handle in California? Click here to
compare Schwarzenegger's plan to Kuehl's SB 840
"Administrative cost limits?"
Governor Schwarzenegger wants to cap
the "administrative costs" of the insurance companies at 15%. This is a whopping
12% more than Medicare's 3% administrative cost which is roughly the same as the
estimated administrative cost under SB 840 and in the health care systems in
virtually every other developed nation!
We don't believe it's in
our best interest to sustain an insurance system that cannot control costs or an
insurance business whose primary financial incentive is to deny health care to
people.
Universal health care?
The proposed plans cannot control costs and,
more to the point, cannot provide so-called "universal" coverage - care for
everyone. Specifically, Governor Schwarzenegger's proposal claims universal
coverage through an "individual mandate" (a favorite insurance "reform" proposal
for the past 30 years) that has absolutely no chance of actually covering
everyone.
Individual
mandates?
An "individual
mandate," a law that requires everyone to purchase insurance one way or
another, has proved to be an utter failure in the state of California because it
is essentially unenforceable.
For instance, there is an "individual
mandate" to purchase auto insurance in the state, yet 25% of California drivers
are uninsured, according to the insurance industry's Insurance Journal. Why should we
expect everyone to buy health insurance, which is even more expensive than auto
insurance, when 25% of the drivers in the state ignore the existing "individual
mandate" for auto insurance?
Insurance market reforms?
The proposed plans, while claiming to
control costs through "insurance market reforms" will actually add new layers of
bureaucracy onto the current overly bureaucratic system because all of them
feature multiple
insurance risk pools.
A 2005 nonpartisan Lewin Group
report estimates that we would save $20 billion a year in California by
cutting the wasteful private insurance industry out of the equation and
establishing a single payer system. America is #1 in cost for health care,
spending twice the amount per capita as any other nation, but ranking 37th in
results according to the Institute of Medicine.
Why "single-payer" is the answer.
Only a universal single payer
system provides true universal health coverage and controls
costs by consolidating the enormous bureaucratic waste. A universal single payer
system saves employers money.
Explore these pages of our OneCareNow campaign website or visit www.healthcareforall.org to learn
more about the single payer concept and why it will work - as it already does
in virtually every other developed nation.
Thank you for your
interest. The OneCareNow campaign is inspiring and attracting more people to
this essential movement every day! Join their passion and join our cause.
We know how to fix health care. What are we waiting for?
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