[GPCA Updates] GP RELEASE Greens: Single-payer health care will boost the economy

[Green Party of California Updates]

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GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Thursday, December 18, 2008


Enacting a single-payer health care program will boost the ailing US
economy, say Greens

• Single-payer plan would remove the expensive burden of
employer-based health coverage

• Greens see danger that progressive groups, unions will acquiesce to
the Obama's 'life-support for insurance industry' plan


WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders urged Americans to take up
President-elect Barack Obama's call for discussion on health care and
demand a single-payer national health care program, also called
Medicare For All.

Greens said that the current financial crisis is an ideal time to
introduce single-payer.

"Businesses have been burdened for decades with the high expense and
administrative burden of employer-based health care benefits.
Single-payer will alleviate the burden and stimulate the economy.  It
will also cost working people far less than they now pay for private
coverage.  Businesses large and small, unions, and all middle- and
low-income working Americans will benefit from single-payer," said
Sanda Everette, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States.

Greens have taken the lead on single-payer in many states.  Party
leaders Gloria Mattera and Peter LaVenia are co-sponsors of Single
Payer New York, Mark Dunlea is one of the organizers, and gp.org
webmaster David Doonan manages the group's site
(http://singlepayernewyork.org).

"Mr. Obama asks Americans to send their ideas to him about how to fix
health care.  Now is the time for organizations and Americans who
support single-payer to tell the President-elect that single-payer is
the only acceptable solution," said Carl Romanelli, former Green
candidate for the US Senate and Northeastern Pennsylvania coordinator
for the PA single payer movement (http://www.healthcare4allpa.org).

"The greatest danger is that the sense of exhilaration and relief that
greeted Mr. Obama's election will turn into acquiescence to his
mandate plan for health care reform," added John Battista, MD, Green
Party member and Coordinator of the Connecticut Coalition for
Universal Health Care.  "That's what happened in 1993 after Bill
Clinton was elected, setting back the chance for single-payer for more
than a decade.  Like Mr. Clinton and every Democratic presidential
nominee for the past two decades, Mr. Obama would leave the private
insurance industry in control of our health care."

"Will Barack Obama stand with the American people and make quality
health care a right for all by saying no to for-profit health
insurance?" asked Mr. Dunlea, who attended a recent Healthcare Now
national gathering in Chicago and proposed placing 20,000 single payer
signs at the inauguration.  "Or will he allow health insurance
companies to continue to make profits by denying consumers access to
coverage?  Doctors say yes to single-payer, nurses say yes to
single-payer, and the American public says yes to single-payer in
every poll despite the denials from politicians and the media.  Will
Mr. Obama say, Yes we can?"

Green Party leaders urged progressive and consumer groups and unions
not to repeat mistakes made during the first Clinton term, when many
of them dropped their demand for single-payer and endorsed the Clinton
'managed care' plan, which would have herded Americans into coverage
under a handful
of the largest private insurance companies.  President Clinton
rejected single-payer, and support for national health insurance was
deleted from the Democratic Party platform during the Clinton
Administration.  As a result, health care reform languished while the
number of uncovered Americans grew and even those with coverage have
been increasingly denied treatment.

The Obama plan includes similar mandates and attempts to compensate
insurance firms and HMOs for heavy regulation by giving them huge
subsidies.

"The Obama plan is a scheme to sustain insurance companies and HMOs
with our tax dollars.  It reciprocates the hundreds of thousands of
dollars that these corporations contribute to Democratic candidates
every election cycle.  Insurance companies and HMOs have a financial
interest in excluding 'high risk' people -- the old, the poor, those
with prior medical conditions -- and limiting treatment for those who
have coverage in order to maximize profits.  Why should we pay off
insurance companies and HMOs to cover the excluded, when we can save
hundreds of billions annually by covering everyone with a single-payer
plan?" said Green Party co-chair Jill Bussiere.

Single-payer/Medicare For All would cover all Americans regardless of
income, employment, residence, age, or prior medical condition, while
allowing choice of health care provider.  In 2003, the New England
Journal of Medicine published an article estimating that Single-Payer
could cut health care costs by $350 billion annually
(http://www.pnhp.org/publications/nejmadmin.pdf).

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) is sponsoring a bill, HR 676, that would
enact a single-payer plan
(http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h676_ih.xml).

For a comparison of mandate plans and single-payer, see "Talking
Points: Why the mandate plans won't work, and why single-payer
'Medicare for All' is what we need" by Len Rodberg, PhD, published by
Physicians for a National Health Program
(http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/december/talking_points_why_.php).

Green Party Speakers Bureau list of party activists available to speak
on health care: http://gp.org/speakers/speakers-health-care.php

Video clips: 2008 Green presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney speaks
on Single-Player health care and racial health care disparities
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEHd4lRVUuU
More on health care: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEHd4lRVUuU
Health, the environment, and the economy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVNTOa8owQQ


MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193
• Tally of Green election victories
http://www.gp.org/2008-elections/election-results.html
• Green candidate news http://www.gp.org/2008-elections/candidate-news.php
• Green candidate database for 2008 and other campaign information:
http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml
• Green Party News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
• Green Party Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers
• Green Party ballot access page http://www.gp.org/2008-elections

"Speak up at Sen. Daschle's house parties.  Participant Guide for
Health Care Community Discussions: Obama-Biden Transition Project"
(Physicians for a National Health Program)
http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2008/12/16/speak-up-at-sen-daschles-house-parties/


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