Posts Tagged ‘healthcare’

New Single Payer Alliance Seeks Name Suggestions

April 16th, 2013

A New Phase, a New Name for California’s Fight for Universal, Single Payer Healthcare

Dear California OneCare Supporters,
We are moving ahead with detailing and implementing a Five Year Plan to win healthcare justice in California by 2017. This is the date the federal Affordable Care Act allows states to apply for a State Innovation Waiver to set up their own health care systems.

To better align our focus and strengthen our impact, the single-issue, single payer grassroots groups are forming a new alliance.

The new alliance, which so far includes California OneCare, Physicians for a National Health Program–California and the California Health Professional Student Alliance is already working on a plan to enlist individuals and organizations into the single payer cause in a way that broadens and diversifies the movement.

The new alliance has invited Georgia Mae Brewer to be our statewide coordinator, and she has accepted. Georgia is a member of Health Care for All–California, PNHP CA and has served as the co-coordinator of the Los Angeles Regional Single Payer Coalition.

Next Step: We need a name for the Alliance!

Our identity as a campaign will play a key role in our success as we reach out to inform, educate, recruit, and build a movement. We’ve decided to “crowd source” the naming of the new alliance to the single payer grassroots. Who better to ask than you, our long-committed California OneCare supporters?

Do you have a great idea for a name of our Alliance?
Send it to georgiabrewer@gmail.com.

Here are the contest ground rules:
- Do not use “single-payer” in the name
- Do not use the name of an existing healthcare reform group or campaign.
- Submit your entry no later than Friday, April 19th!
- You may submit as many names as you like!

The prize for winning the contest is knowing that you helped the movement for single payer take another step toward quality, affordable health care for all!

Remember, with your help, WE WILL WIN!

Andrew McGuire

Executive Director, California OneCare Campaign

The American healthcare racket

March 12th, 2013

If you haven’t yet read Steven Brill’s comprehensive investigative piece for TIME Magazine about why healthcare costs are so high, it’s well worth taking the time to digest the 80-plus pages. The article is an indictment of our for-profit healthcare system, shining a spotlight – not on insurance companies – but on supposedly “not-for-profit” hospitals. According to Brill’s investigation of patients’ bills, hospitals are vastly overcharging for routine tests and basic supplies, costing patients and taxpayers billions of dollars and stuffing the hospitals’ bottom line. Pharmaceutical and medical device companies are also dining at the trough, their obscene profits kept afloat by Congressional lawmakers who receive fat campaign contributions by those same companies.

Unfortunately, the Affordable Care Act, Brill writes, won’t do anything to rein in these costs. Instead, Brill predicts the ACA will eventually cause insurance premiums to soar. Brill’s investigation is more proof that the American healthcare system is a racket and is no longer sustainable. The healthcare industry’s insatiable greed is stripping the meager resources of Americans who have seen their wages stagnate over the last 30 years. Our nation will soon become bankrupt if we don’t reject the idea that health care should be up for sale. Expanding Medicare to everyone in the United States is the only way to stop the gouging.

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

 

Activists gather in Sacramento and Los Angeles to support Medicare for all

February 22nd, 2013

On Feb. 11, 2013, single payer health care supporters rallied in Sacramento and in Los Angeles in support of the California Professional Student Alliance’s Annual Lobby Day.

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

Americans under 50 are sicker than people in other rich nations, according to new study

January 16th, 2013

Our inadequate, for-profit healthcare system is taking a heavy toll on America’s well-being. Americans under 50 are sicker and have shorter life spans than people in other wealthy nations, according to a new study by the National Academies, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services. And this health disadvantage affects all races and classes, even high-income Americans and the insured. However, in one exception, Americans who are fortunate enough to reach 75 tend to live longer than their counterparts in other rich nations. The report says the United States ranks at or near the bottom in several key areas, including:

infant mortality and low birth weight; injuries and homicides; teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections; prevalence of HIV and AIDS; drug-related deaths; obesity and diabetes; heart disease; chronic lung disease; and disability.

What sets the other rich nations apart from the U.S. is that they all have some form of universal health care: from government-provided coverage to heavily-regulated insurance models. They also have lower rates of poverty and higher rates of social mobility. The important thing is, people shouldn’t have to wait until their golden years to have access to affordable, quality health care. People shouldn’t have to spend their most productive years sick and in fear of bankruptcy from illness. It’s past time to allow everyone into Medicare.

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org