Login to Change.org
Create an Account
HM Seiler
Louisville, KY
Educator, single-payer activist
Recent Activity
-
HM signed the petition | -
HM commented on the article |
While stalled health reform may harm women and families, the real culprit will be passage of a flawed and discriminatory bill.
Economically disadvantaged women have been promised subsidies to buy policies they won't be able to use. With high deductibles, co-pays, and co-insurance, they will opt not to go to the doctor for needed treatment because they need their wages to pay for rent and food.
We need a publicly financed single payer plan--everybody in--nobody out. Choose your own doctor. No HMO to intervene. And if we get rid of the profiteering insurance companies, who take 20-30 cents of every health care dollar, we will be able to afford it. In fact we could cover everyone regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, health or employment status, or ability to pay. We could cut costs and save our economy doing it!
Read HR 676, the single payer bill--just 15 pages long!
As to Bart Stupak, I respect his religious beliefs, but his beliefs should not be imposed on all the women of this country. Let's focus on filling the health care needs of our women and children--prenatal and postnatal.
-
HM commented on the article |I just posted the following on a mature women's web site. After the Dems lost the election in Mass, the discussion leader asked "Where now on Health care?" :
"What next--indeed! . . . Everyone is in a quandary about health care reform. I join other progressives who oppose the bill(s) being discussed in Congress. I''m a Medicare-for-all advocate--a member of a single payer group in my state. We just sent a letter to our local membership: Here's an excerpt:
'Whether or not the current reform legislation passes in Congress, millions will remain without coverage, premiums will escalate, and high deductibles in proposed "basic" plans will keep families from needed early care. Gender and age bias will persist. The private insurance and drug industries will continue to siphon off the funds needed to expand and improve care for all.
A Kaiser Health Tracking Poll of July 2009 found that 58% favored "Having a national health plan in which all Americans would get their insurance through an expanded, universal form of Medicare-for-all?" Only 38% were opposed. Medicare, our homegrown single payer plan for seniors, is widely popular. Our job is to translate this popular support into legislation—to make what is right and just also politically possible.'
The Senate bill is modeled on the Massachusetts plan. Some think that's a good plan since it has expanded access. But this morning I got an e-mail from a MA resident:
"Those in favor are not the ones who have to buy insurance under the
mandate. 50% of those find it too expensive. . . ."An expanded and improved Medicare (properly funded) could be easily implemented--and since it would be publicly financed, it could be passed by reconciliation (which only deals with money/budget issues). We would pay a little more in taxes (progressive taxes--according to income), but we'd pay no premiums, no deductibles. We could choose our own doctors. Pre-existing conditions, gender and age discrimination, employment status would all become non-issues! And we would save our economy buckets of money.
. . . if you want more info go to the web site of Physicians for a National Health Program www.pnhp.org. For links to community groups in your region, go to Healthcare-NOW www.healthcare-now.org
http://www.vibrantnation.com/conversations/51449-where-now-on-health-care/
-
HM signed the petition |
-
HM signed the petition |
-
HM commented on the article |
Thanks to Jeff Muck. I agree completely. I’m an Obama supporter, but aphorisms such as the perfect being the enemy of the good are a cop-out. I feel the same way about “political feasibility” and “pragmatism.”
In today’s (03/12/2009) New Republic, E.J. Dionne, Jr. argues “Against pragmatism.” He cites historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who believed that “democratic government should be about ‘the search for remedy.’” Dionne suggests it is time for “liberals and progressives to press their larger arguments on behalf of more economic equality, in defense of government's necessary role, and against utopian views of what unfettered capitalism can achieve.”
HCAN wants Single Payer (SP) advocates to focus on a shared mission—improving our health care system. But SP proponents are reluctant to settle for less than meaningful reform. We want a truly universal, affordable, nonprofit, cost-effective single payer plan.
I recall an Italian expression: “ I ask for fava beans, you give me chick peas.”
SP advocates want cost-saving reform that will help individuals, businesses, and our struggling economy. Well- meaning incrementalists may settle for (an undoubtedly skimpy) public option priced so as to create a level playing field with private for-profit plans. The price of the private insurance won’t come down out of the bleachers. The price of the public option will have to come up out of the dug-out. And who will underwrite/subvene insurer profits? Taxpayers! We’ll continue to pay more, get less.
A compromised public option will work like Medicare Advantage which costs taxpayers 12 to 14 percent more than regular Medicare. Senators Bunning and Grassley express fear that their rural constituents won’t have access to Medicare Advantage anymore. In Kentucky, most Advantage plans are sold by Humana. According to the Lane Report, the CEO of Humana received $973,558 in salary and over 16 million in stock options in 2007. Humana also reported $833 million in profits that year, a rise of 71 percent more than the previous year.
And if we allow the HMOs to manage a universal mandate plan (see the failed Massachusetts model), they will bankrupt the nation.
Single payer is not a band-aid. It is a remedy!
Stand with us. -
HM commented on the article |A good overview of Japan's system, but please pick up on Carol Tvaroh's comment above. To what extent are Japanese insurers for-profit? Are they simply selling "supplemental plans"? The co-pays look pretty high to me.
I question your description of the Japanese system as "single tier" if some people get basic coverage and others get a higher standard of care. Do some, for example, get increased access to high-tech treatment? Might the empty beds indicate that the comparatively high co-pays are keeping people from needed hospital care?
I'm a believer in visualization. Let's take a few sample cases and track them through the Japanese system. (a) an unemployed 20-something injured in a skateboard accident, (b) an low-income employee with a back ailment who works for a small tailor shop (c) a 52-yr-old factory worker with chronic diabetes, (d) a teacher diagnosed with depression, (e) a child from a disadvantaged family in need of a livertransplant and follow-up meds, (f) an elderly low-income retiree in need of a stent to correct an arterial problem, (g) a wealthy CEO diagnosed with a pulmonary disease.
How would those scenarios play out in Japan?
And what are the levels of bureaucracy needed to administer the varying levels of coverage and care?
Yet another question--How have the Japanese addressed the problems evident in the Massachusetts mandate plan?
I love our new President but I'm no fan of his team's public-private health plan proposal(s).
How about Medicare-Plan E, as suggested by Dr. Rob Stone of Bloomington, IN, a member of Physicians for a National Health Program (pnhp.org)
Medicare-E: Expanded and improved Medicare for Everybody!
Contact your Congressperson today. Call the White House.
E-mail Gov. Sibelius, the newly nominated candidate for HHS Secretary. Tell them all to enact HR 676, the single payer plan.
"We the people" can insure ourselves in a publicly funded plan. We can make what is morally right politically feasible. Yes, we can! -
HM commented on the article |Since attendees at the health care forums around the country have expressed strong support for a publicly-funded single payer system, please add the following book to your list:
10 Excellent Reasons for National Health CareEdited by Mary O’Brien and Martha Livingston
From the Foreward by Representative John Conyers Jr.:This insightful book will provide you with the information you need to be an informed participant in the public debate about how to achieve health care for all. This information is especially important now, during this election year.Within the chapters of this book and in the resource guide in the back, you will find cutting-edge information to help you work toward the only sensible solution to our health care crisis: a single-payer national health insurance program. Contributors to this book include doctors, nurses, patients, and an international union leader. They discuss the benefits of a single-payer plan: that it is cost-effective; will provide choice, quality, and better health for Americans; will help to reduce health care disparities; will make doctors and nurses better able to do their jobs; and will benefit both workers and businesses. They also explain why single-payer universal health care is the only approach that can guarantee Americans the health care that they need when they need it, and explain how, by working together, we can achieve the goal of health care for all.
The New Press: 10 Excellent Reasons for National Health Care
http://www.thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&task=view_title&metaproductid=1711
Harriette Seiler
Louisville, KY
Impact
5 Actions
0 Recruits
Top Causes
|
5 Actions
|
Organizations
-
CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS1 Action 0 Recruits
