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TALKING POINTS for Single-Payer National Health Care (HR 676)

• Everybody in, nobody out: Single-payer covers every American regardless of employment, income, ability to pay, age, and prior medical condition. Under single-payer, everyone is guaranteed quality health care, including prescriptions. Currently, 50 million Americans have no health coverage and millions more have inadequate coverage. Single-payer makes health care a human right.
• With single-payer, no American will face financial ruin because of illness or injury. Private HMOs and health insurance companies make their profits by denying treatment to those who are 'high-risk' because of existing health problems, age, income, and other reasons. They often refuse to pay claims or cancel insurance for those who need treatment. Private health insurance is designed to fail people who need health care the most.
• Single-payer is less bureaucratic than private insurance. Health care decisions will be made solely by patient and physician. Single-payer will allow us to choose our physician, health care provider, and health care facility -- without needing an approval from government or from a health insurance company.
• Single-payer will cut national health care costs by as much as a third and reduce what we pay for coverage. Single-payer will be funded at the federal level and administered at the state level. Americans will pay for single-payer the way we now pay for Social Security, but the amount working Americans will pay will be far less than for private health coverage, because single-payer eliminates profit-making insurance and HMO 'middle-men.'
• Single-payer reduces paperwork for physicians and hospitals, one reason why thousands of MDs, other health care professionals, and medical students have endorsed single-payer.
• Physicians, hospitals, and other health care providers will compete to serve the public in a single-payer system, raising the quality of health care.
• Health care rationing? Under private insurance programs, treatment is rationed according to ability to pay for coverage. Under single-payer, the insurance company profit motive is removed and health care is rationed according to need, with medical emergencies and serious illnesses receiving top priority.

• Single-payer makes economic sense. At 3% administrative cost, Medicare (which would become universal under single-payer) is very efficient compared to the 15-30% administrative costs of for-profit insurance.
• Single-payer will boost the ailing US economy and provide relief for businesses large and small, because it will cancel the high expense and administrative burden of employer-based health care benefits.
• Single-payer will relieve cities, towns, and school boards from having to bear the cost of providing health insurance to employees, allowing responsible officials to reduce their budgets and lower local property taxes.
• Single-payer gives government and citizens a stake in preventive medicine and promotion of good health habits to keep costs down.

• Polls have demonstrated popular support for a national health care program that guarantees universal coverage. In 2008, the US Conference of Mayors endorsed Single-payer.
• The US is the only industrial democracy that does not guarantee every citizen health care. Compared to other nations, America has the best medical technology but poor access to medical treatment. Single-payer will correct this outrage. (In 2004, Canadians voted Tommy Douglas, the Baptist minister who led the movement for their country's single-payer system, as the 'Greatest Canadian' of all time in a CBC poll.)
• The insurance/HMO industry has given millions of dollars to Democrats and Republicans to maintain their control over health care (http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=F09), with a total of $46,002,881 in insurance lobby contributions in 2008.
• The Green Party endorses single-payer in its national platform and all Green candidates support it. The Democratic Party endorsed national health insurance in 1948, but removed it from the Democratic platform during the Clinton Administration. Democrats and Republicans continue to embrace failed 'market solutions.'
• Barack Obama, before he launched his bid for president, supported single-payer. President Obama admitted in July 2009, said "Now, the truth is that unless you have a what's called a single-payer system, in which everybody's automatically covered, then you're probably not going to reach every single individual." Al Gore opposed Single-payer when he ran for president in 2000, but admitted two years later that single-payer is the best plan. Dennis Kucinich was the only Democratic presidential candidate in 2008 to support single-payer.
• What's wrong with the health care reform plans supported by President Obama and Democratic leaders? The only winners under these plans are the insurance companies, HMOs, and drug manufacturers. Democrats want Americans to spend billions of dollars extra every year for health care, rather than just eliminate the bureaucracy, paperwork, waste, and high CEO salaries of for-profit insurance. The Democrats' proposed 'mandate' would mean massive taxpayer subsidies for the insurance industry. The 'public option' won't reduce health care costs, and would only cover 10 million people out of the 50 million without insurance. President Obama and the Democrats have already caved in to drug industry pressure on reimporting Canadian drugs, on negotiating for lower drug prices, and on generics.

WE DEMAND universal health care under the SINGLE-PAYER NATIONAL HEALTH CARE PLAN (HR 676)!

WE DEMAND that single-payer be placed on the table in the health care reform debate. (Senator Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, says that single-payer is "off the table.")

WE DEMAND that Democrats, Republicans, and the media stop telling lies about single-payer universal health care. (Single-payer is NOT "socialized medicine"!)

WE DEMAND a televised national debate between advocates and opponents of single-payer, so Americans can hear the truth about universal health care.

WE DEMAND new studies by the GAO and Congressional Budget Office on the cost of single-payer. In the 1990s, analyses by these offices showed that single-payer would save billions of dollars in health care expenses.

MORE INFORMATION:
Single-Payer FAQ at the Physicians for a National Health Program