Download and print these trifold brochures to help promote
single payer Universial Health Care
kucinich.usHealthOpen ↗
CareBrochurePetition.pdf
kucinich.usHealthOpen ↗
CareBroch_NoPetition.pdf
Learn More:
kucinich.usuniversalhealth.phpOpen ↗
Health care is currently dominated by insurance firms and
HMOs, institutions that are more bureaucratic and costly
than Medicare. Right now, private companies are charging
about 18% for administration, while the cost of Medicare
administration is only 3%. People are waiting longer for
appointments. Fewer people are getting a doctor of their
choice. Physicians are being given monetary incentives to
deny care. Pre-existing illnesses are being used to deny
coverage. It's important to understand that insurance
companies make more money by NOT providing health care. A
single-payer system can save money by investing in
preventive care, as well as by cutting out the insurance
companies' profits. Insurance companies do not heal or treat
anyone. Physicians and health practitioners do.
Non-profit national health insurance will actually decrease
total health care spending while providing more treatment
and services -- through reductions in bureaucracy and cost-
cutting measures such as bulk purchasing of prescriptions
drugs. A study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and
Public Citizens found that health care bureaucracy last year
cost the United States $399.4 billion. The study estimates
that national health insurance could save at least $286
billion annually on paperwork, enough to cover all of the
uninsured and to provide full prescription drug coverage for
everyone in the United States.
How would we pay for it? Funding will come primarily from
existing government health care spending (more than $1
trillion) and a phased-in tax on employers of 7.7% (almost
$1 trillion). Employers who provide coverage are already
paying 8.5%, on average. That would raise about $920
billion. In addition to that, there's already over a
trillion dollars being spent a year in local, state and
federal dollars for health care. The American people are
already paying for universal health care; they're just not
getting it.
Privately delivered health care, publicly financed -- has
worked well in other countries, none of which spend as much
per capita on health care as the United States. The cost-
effectiveness of a single-payer system has been affirmed in
many studies, including those conducted by the Congressional
Budget Office and the General Accounting Office. The GAO has
said: "If the US were to shift to a system of universal
coverage and a single payer, as in Canada, the savings in
administrative costs (10% to private insurers) would be more
than enough to offset the expense of universal coverage."
Over the years, groups and individuals as diverse as
Consumers Union, labor unions, the CEO of General Motors,
the editorial boards of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and
St. Louis Post Dispatch, and Physicians for a National
Health Program have endorsed a single-payer approach. In the
"Physicians Proposal for National Health Care," 7,782
physicians agreed that "proposals that would retain the
roles of private insurers -- such as calls for tax-credits,
Medicaid/CHIP expansions, and pushing more seniors into
private HMOs -- are prescriptions for failure."
It is sound economics -- what actuaries call "Spreading the
Risk" -- to extend Medicare to younger and healthier sectors
of our population, thereby putting everyone in one insurance
pool. It permanently saves and improves Medicare, while
eliminating duplicative private and government
bureaucracies.
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Petition to the Democratic Party: We Want Universal Health
Care (you do not have to be a democrat to sign the petition)
kucinich.uspetition text uhc1.phpOpen ↗
I, the undersigned, approve the establishment of a universal
single-payer national health care system in the U.S.
Such a system will be publicly financed and privately
delivered, allowing people to choose their own health care
providers. The system will provide preventive health care,
dental care, mental health care, and affordable prescription
drugs. This system will make health care available to
everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions, status of
employment, or income level.
I urge Democrats to make this resolution a plank in the 2004
party platform.