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WHY THIS SITE?
Read about the the hideous overcharges
that Cedars-Sinai Medical Center inflicted on me because I was uninsured.
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"Politically feasible" is just another way of saying that folks are scared to stand up to insurance companies."
- - CA State Sen. Sheila Kuehl
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FINALLY! A NATIONAL RALLY IN WASHINGTON DC on June 25, 2009
* * * * *
Oh no! National health insurance might KILL the medical tourism industry!
Imagine not having to go to
Mexico for dental work. No more scraping dollars together to ship Mom off to Bangcock for heart surgery!
Do you think this is a joke?
Just read these excerpts from The Medical Tourism Association on their workshops for insurance companies!
Below is a direct copy+paste from their Web site - includes their spelling/grammatical errors!
"Implementing Medical Tourism into a US Health Insurance Plan for both fully insured and self funded employers
requires modifying the benefit plan design, a proper enrollment plan with education on medical tourism, and implementing the correct incentives for employees that will result in utilization and employees
traveling internationally for medical care. This panel discussion will address these issues and many more and discuss what is needed to successfully implement medical tourism into a US group
health insurance plan."
snip
"Almost 50 million Americans have no health insurance and they make up the largest emerging market for medical tourism. These 50
million Americans are commonly mistaken for being poor an unable to afford medical care, when in fact the average American without health insurances is estimated to make over $50,000 in annual income per
year. Over 120 million Americans have no dental insurance. For these Americans without insurance, many are going to have little to no option because of the high cost of healthcare in the United States,
except to travel internationally for healthcare.
The cost of surgeries and medical care internationally can be as much as 90% less than the cost in the United States. As US health insurance companies and employers start to implement medical tourism and give financial incentives for patients to travel international for medical care, this expands the potential marketplace for Americans traveling internationally for healthcare to hundreds of millions. This panel session will discuss why the American patient is one of the most sought after patient and how the American patient is anticipated to be the largest type of patient traveling internationally for healthcare."
- - The Medical Tourism Association
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- How Pharma and Insurance Intend to Kill the Public Option, And What Obama and the Rest of Us Must Do - "Big Pharma and Big Insurance are gaining
ground in their campaign to kill the public option in the emerging health care bill. You know why, of course. They don't want a public option that would compete with private insurers and use its
bargaining power to negotiate better rates with drug companies."
Read Robert Reich's article!
- Yes! Senator Bernie Sanders is 'Firing on All Cylinders':
"The truth of the matter is--and I say this not
ideologically but just from an objective analysis of the health care situation--the only way you're gonna provide comprehensive, universal, and cost-effective healthcare to every man, woman, and
child in this country is through a single-payer system. That's just a simple reality."
- Senator Baucus finally met with single payer leaders - but to what end? Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus
(D-Mont.) told leading advocates of a government-financed health care system that he made a mistake by not giving their proposals more consideration in the reform debate, according to participants in a meeting Wednesday.
- See Washington behind closed doors! Our nation's leaders are shutting us out of the process and arresting those speaking out!
Watch Bill Moyers on single payer health care (aired May 22, 2009)
This is our civil rights movement of this decade.
Donna Smith, and Bill Moyers guests Dr. Sidney Wolfe and Dr. David Himmelstein, know that fighting for meaningful health care reform on Capitol Hill will be a difficult battle. The health care and
pharmaceutical industries remain among the top contributors to political campaigns on both sides of the aisle.
- Watch Senator Baucus
hem and haw why 'single payer' is off the table. . .
At the end he actually says: "I'm not going to
waste my time pushing on something that isn't going to happen".
- President Obama, "Don't Sell Us Short" - Mike Farrell ("BJ Hunicutt" from TV's MASH) supports Medicare For All. You should too!
- Call The White House and tell them you want Medicare for All 1-800-578-4171. Everybody in, nobody out - put the health insurance companies out of businesses.
- 10+ Things YOU CAN DO to fix America's broken health care system!
- WE DO NOT WANT MIDDLEMEN TO BE THE GATEKEEPERS OF OUR HEALTHCARE!!!
I
am *disgusted* that insurance companies are being treated like royalty by Congress, and We, the People, are being treated like serfs.
- FOLLOW THE MONEY $$$
Health reform their way, paid for by big business. Health insurers and drug makers have showered
Congress with almost $6 million bucks to have their seat at the health reform table. Read "Health Sector Has Donated Millions to Lawmakers" By Dan Eggen, Washington Post, March 8, 2009.
Also, see the top recipients of pay off bucks - check out Consumer Watchdog's article www.consumerwatchdog.org/patients/articles/?storyId=25468 - It says that Senator Max Baucus, Leading Architect of Health Care Reform, Received More Industry Contributions Than Any Other Democrat. It's no wonder that he won't let the single payer voice at his table. Senator Baucus doesn't work for the taxpayers anymore.
- MAY 10, 2009 - - SHAME ON SENATOR BAUCUS! (D-Montana)
Senator Baucus allowed licensed
physicians to be arrested at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on health care reform. Their crime? Asking that single payer national health insurance have a seat at the table. Watch the video and hear from Dr. Margaret Flowers and why she was arrested.
- Sign up for www.singlepayeraction.org
- MARCH 5, 2009 - -
President Obama launched a campaign to reform health care in
the U.S. by the end of 2009, and says fixing the troubled system is "no longer a moral imperative, it is a fiscal imperative."
GO TO HealthReform.Gov to express your support!
READ COMMUNITY REPORTS IN YOUR STATE ON HEALTHREFORM.GOV
Dear President Obama:
Please don't throw us under the bus and force us to purchase private 'for profit'
health insurance. We don't want our taxes to subsidize expensive, wasteful, unethical, health insurance companies. We don't want our premiums to pay for
outrageous executive salaries and high-priced lobbyists which keep us hostage to Big Insurance and PhRMA. These corporations value profits first, patients last. America
needs to have national, single-payer health insurance like every other civilized nation in the world. Please, no more incremental, bad fixes to our health care system. They
just don't work. Private health insurance is making us sick! Please pass single-payer public insurance (HR 676-Conyers). Thank you!
- Almost 100 years has passed since the first discussion of national health insurance
Baucus Blows It
"Merck is not ready for single pay" Read here
- OUR NEWS BLOG - Gearing up for a fight!
- Sign the Petition for H.R. 676
"Medicare for All" introduced by Rep. John Conyers! www.democrats.com/single-payer-petition
- "Divided We Fail" is divided and failing - February 17, 2009
"Divided We Fail" presented itself as a broad coalition of diverse interests that could
come together and agree on health care reform. But it isn't a broad coalition. It is a coalition that primarily represents business interests - big business through the
Business Roundtable, and small business through the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).
- For great news & commentary see: www.pnhp.org/news/quote_of_the_day.php
- RAND HEALTH - Comprehensive Assessment of Reform Efforts (COMPARE)
When RAND speaks, EVERYONE LISTENS.
They provide information and tools to
help policymakers, the media and interested parties understand, design and evaluate health policies. But RAND'S COMPARE is funded by big insurance foundations and
corporations who support free enterprise in medicine. Their Website does NOT
even evaluate a single-payer public insurance model - shame on them! Please
ask RAND to add Medicare for All to their COMPARE website.Article here, on PNHP.org
- 10 Myths About Canadian Health Care, Busted
By Sara Robinson
"I'm both a health-care-card-carrying Canadian resident and an uninsured American citizen who regularly sees doctors on both sides of the border." Full article
- Myth busting Canadian Healthcare, Part II: Debunking the Free Marketeers
By Sara Robinson
"In the previous post, I looked at ten of the most common myths that get bandied about whenever Americans drag Canada into their ongoing discussions about
healthcare. In this follow-up, I'd like to address a few of the larger assumptions that Americans make about health care that are contradicted by the Canadian example;
and in the process offer some more general thinking (and perhaps talking) points that may be useful in the debates ahead." Full article
- Single Payer: It's Time to Have Hope
By Sara Rogers, Consultant, Health
"Politically feasible" is just another way of saying that folks are scared to stand up to insurance companies. I don't accept that. It's time to take a stand for what we
really want. It's time to have hope." - Calif. State Senator Sheila Kuehl Full article
- What Government Does Better: Health Care
By Howard A. Green, MD, FACP, FAAD, FACMS
"There are some intuitively obvious services that the government runs more productively and efficiently than private for-profit enterprises." Full article
- Insurers' "innovations" shifts costs to patients -
The New York Attorney General plans to sue UnitedHealth Group Inc. as part of a
broader investigation into the way the health-insurance industry sets payment rates for hospitals and doctors outside of their networks. Patients end up paying more.
Full article
- Why We Need to Dump Health Insurance Corporations -
* Investing in Cancer Private Insurance is Bad for Your Health
By JOHN JONIK CounterPunch, January 18, 2008
Also see Jonik's health care cartoons (painfully funny)
- "Sick in America - It Can Happen to You"
Please watch especially if you have health insurance. (September 2007)
- Are you really covered? Consumer Reports on the under
insured
Why 4 in 10 Americans can't depend on their health insurance (September 2007)
- The Socialists are Coming!
Republicans love to scare you with the S-word. (September 2007)
- Survey Report: Time May Be Right for a Single-Payer Health Care System
56% of physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists,
health care administrators and patients would like to have a single payer system.
- How do consumers rate their insurance company? What are their horror stories? Here's an excerpt from Susan, a medical biller:
"Working as a medical biller, I can warn all that when it comes to choosing a competent doctor,,,do not go by United Healthcare's so called "Quality & Excellence"
ratings that they give to Dr.'s… Dr.s are given one star, two stars, three,,etc. Based NOT on their qualifications but on how much they save UH on costs."
- What country puts the U.S. to shame?
- Beware of Trojan Horses - The organizations who say they are for "universal health
care" but will not support single-payer or National Health Insurance are usually backed with big bucks by 'big insurance'. Don't be fooled! Check our Trojan Horse page.
- Here's a great California advocacy page promoting Calif. SB-840 and OneCareNow.org
- Consumer Reports on the underinsured - Are you really covered?
Why 4 in 10 Americans can't depend on their health insurance September 2007
The momentum for national health insurance is spreading like wildfire! Thanks to Michael Moore's new film SICKO, (opened June 29) many more Americans now
understand that our country's biggest cancer is how we finance and deliver health care. View his Oprah! video clips here. (August 2007)
The lies about single payer insurance are no longer effective as "We the People" are fed up with high premiums and low coverage; are sick of being ripped off by the pharmaceutical industry and living in fear of medical bankruptcy.
We the People are already paying for national health insurance but not getting it.
Read the chilling 1996 public testimony
given by Dr. Linda Peeno to the U.S. House of Representatives concerning the lack of ethics in the Managed Healthcare Industry. In her summary provided 17 months later she said, "The real care of patients
is difficult enough without the menace of an industry who eludes its responsibilities through avoidance, denial and unconscionable controls. We should be rightly worried."
When can we say goodbye private health insurance middlemen? They add NO VALUE to health care. We won't miss you or your coverage denials. When can we say goodbye to over-priced drugs?
The pharmaceutical industry pays 1,000 lobbyists to assure we must overpay for drugs.
We are angry at health profiteers who dig deeper into our pockets to deliver less
and use our money to lobby against us. WE ARE ANGRY at insurance and pharmaceutical profiteers who are making us health care beggars.
Big business and the labor unions
are now telling politicians to get the health insurance monkey off their backs. It was, after all, just an unusual accident during WWII that employers became health insurance providers.
Why put up with a complicated, expensive and broken system when we can do so much better? PLEASE GET INVOLVED even if it means that you can only send a link to a friend.
We're getting this done. 2007 is going to be a year we can all be proud of.
California Governor "works for" insurance companies
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There are over 48 MILLION Americans with NO health insurance.
There are approx. 32 million others who are underinsured. In the past four years the number of uninsured rose by 6 million people and more
American's are forced each year to file for bankrupcy due to medical bills.
There are a handful of self-serving, powerful special interest groups who are unraveling our economy and holding us
hostage. They are the American Medical Association (AMA) America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). the American Hospital Association (AHA) and
the pharmaceutical industry. These groups are the gatekeepers of our health and spend HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars in advertising, lobbying and political contributions to keep their beds
feathered and to keep the status quo.
Historically, the AMA has been the worst and most self-serving group who has, since 1912 opposed health care reform and national health insurance at least six times when reform has been seriously discussed in America. The AMA has opposed national health insurance even before there was a health insurance industry, scaring Americans into thinking national health insurance was communism and a big government takeover.
Almost 100 years has passed since the first discussion of national health insurance and we, as a nation, are more held hostage by the whims and desires of the health care/health insurance
giants than ever before.
WHEN ARE WE GOING TO STOP PANDERING TO THE HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY LOBBY and make them work on our behalf, for our best interest, and make them stop holding America
hostage? 18,000 people per year die because they don't have health insurance and the health industry enjoys being able to charge whatever they please and decide which services they will provide us,
if, indeed, they will provide services at all.
The health care czars OWN our politicians, and they effectively own all of us to the extent that we either pay them with every penny we have,
or die. If this sounds dramatic, read Why the United States Has No National Health Insurance
Also read:
- "US health reform 1912-1920"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Doc_Tropics/United_States_health_reform_1912-1920
- "US health reform under FDR"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Doc_Tropics/United_States_health_reform_under_FDR
- "US health reform under Truman"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Doc_Tropics/United_States_health_reform_under_Truman
- "US health reform under Nixon"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Doc_Tropics/United_States_health_reform_under_Nixon
- "US health reform under Carter"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Doc_Tropics/United_States_health_reform_under_Carter
- "US health reform under Clinton"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Doc_Tropics/United_States_health_reform_under_Clinton
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"I have a dream..."
and it's H.R.676, the United States National Health Insurance Act (or the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act) - Establishes the United States National Health Insurance Program (the Program) to provide all individuals residing in the United States and in U.S. territories with free health care that includes all medically necessary care, such as primary care and prevention, prescription drugs, emergency care, and mental health services.
http://thomas.loc.
gov/cgi-bin/bdquer y/z?d109:HR00676 :@@@L&summ2=m &
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An alternate to H.R. 676 is state-based reform under H.R. 1200. Entitled the American Health Security Act of 2005, this would
establish the State-Based American Health Security Program to provide every U.S. resident who is a U.S. citizen, national, or lawful resident alien with health care services. Requires each participating
State to establish a State health security program. More on H.R. 1200 here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109: HR01200:@@@L&summ2=m&
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President G.W. Bush has not taken any meaningful action to eliminate the uninsured problem or to relieve us from skyrocketing costs for healthcare. General Motors and Ford complained for several
years about their unsustainable health insurance costs for their employees and retirees. Has President Bush addressed this problem?
Not to our knowledge - - with the exception of "Health Savings Accounts (HSA'S), and these two automakers have recently announced they will each lay off 30,000 workers (that's a total of 60,000 layoffs) in the coming years.
Listen to a good radio debate on HSA's.
While President Bush says,
"A government-run health care system is the wrong prescription" (for America) he made sure that Iraq would get one.
Article 30, Paragraph 1 of the new Iraqi constitution - -which the United States helped write - - says, "The state guarantees social and health insurance, the basics for a free and honorable life for the individual and the family. . . ." Read the U.S. House of Representatives News Release here: Bush Administration Ignores 44 Million
Uninsured in U.S as it Awards Contract for Universal Health Care in Iraq
A universal health insurance system that works well for the major industrial nations in the world (and keeps them
competitive in the global market place) is scoffed at by the Republican Party, the AMA, the pharmaceutical and private health insurance industry. And why? P R O F I T S $$$$
of course! This is splitting America in half. These special interest groups, vested corporations and the political party for the rich believes only in the virtues of private-for-profit industries. They are holding America (and Americans) hostage by lying to us and demanding we keep the status-quo, even though study-after-study shows America will save billions of dollars and be able to insure everyone with a universal (national) health insurance system.
Half of the Americans who file for bankruptcy do so because of medical bills. Three-quarters of the medically bankrupt had health insurance! (Study at Harvard University). n We believe that in the richest, free nation in the world, everyone should have access to quality health care.
This site is an overview of the National and State "grass-roots movements" that are crying out
for health care reform. Why? Because America's healthcare system is the most inequitable, inefficient, and costly systems among industrialized nations. It's driven by embedded vested interests who continue to feather their own beds while it wrecks the lives of millions and squanders our money. Since 1945 special interest groups such as the American Medical Association (AMA), the Insurance industry and the Pharmaceutical industry have wielded their political power to protect their turf at the great expense of the American People.
They have spent and continue to spend millions of dollars to gain political influence and spread fearful rumors that national heath insurance would introduce the evils of "socialized medicine"; or we'll lose drug research & development; or we'll have medical rationing with long waits; or we'll have higher taxes.
These groups have fed well from the trough long enough. IT'S TIME FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE to get what they have paid for - - to get what they deserve - - to have the right to health care and
have it guaranteed to us in our Constitution.
"When you grow up, your heart dies."
- - Allison, The Breakfast Club
Ouch! My insurance rate went up 27.68%!
Hard-working Americans are living in fear much more by lack of healthcare than by the
threat of terrorism. Our health care system is getting worse day-by-day. Read the
news.
2004: The Institute of Medicine recommends the United States guarantee health
insurance for every citizen.
"The lack of health insurance for tens of millions of Americans has serious
negative consequences and economic costs not only for the uninsured themselves but also for their families, the communities they live in, and the
whole country. The situation is dire and expected to worsen."
The Committee urged Congress and the Administration to act immediately to eliminate this long-standing problem. Read the Institute of Medicine report.
Health care reform is now a bipartisan issue because America is in crisis.
Suddenly, it's not "socialism" anymore when some of America's LARGEST corporations are calling on the Gov't. for HELP.
Even former Republican Senator and Presidential Candidate Bob Dole agreed it was time for some form
of universal health care.
Coast-to-coast, small business owners, middle-class citizens, healthcare workers, labor unions, corporation CEO's, religious groups, educators, and
politicians want effective and solid healthcare reform - - NOT a patched system of tax credits or medical savings accounts that only benefit the very wealthy.
This site advocates single-payer, universal health care, national health insurance, whatever the name, our healthcare system is broken and a national disgrace.
In a recent commentary in The Washington Times, David Gerber wrote: "What is needed now is a comprehensive Universal Health Insurance plan that:
· is not commercially oriented
· does not spend millions marketing its product
· does not deny health insurance because of preexisting medical conditions
· does not cherry-pick its subscribers to winnow out the unhealthiest."
We couldn't agree more. Under a single-payer system (like Medicare) everyone
would have access to basic, quality healthcare. The idea isn't new, in fact, the United States is the ONLY industrialized developed country that doesn't have
universal coverage. Have questions? Check out our FAQ
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