We Need Single Payer Healthcare for All in the USA

I just read this today. Blippers in France, is this true?

"In France, the sicker you are, the more coverage you get."

Our dire situation here, in the USA, couldn't be more different. Here, your healthcare is dependent on if you work, and where you work. If you don't work, or if you don't work enough, or if you don't work for the "right" company, you're out of luck. If the entrepreneurial spirit inspires you to strike out on your own to be, say, a freelance web designer, you are on your own to find, and pay for the very expensive monthly health insurance premiums for yourself and your family. (or "wing it" and do without health insurance, as I did for many years)

For the past several years, I have volunteered in various capacities (but mostly maintaining the website) for United for National Healthcare, a local grassroots organization based here in Bellingham, WA that works hard to bring the message of Single Payer Healthcare for All to anyone who will listen.

I wish more people would listen. I wish more young people would wake up, and listen, and take a stand on this important issue that affects each and every one of us, young and old.

Tonight, United for Healthcare had a simple "Volunteer Appreciation" gathering where volunteers, such as myself, were honored for the help and given certificates of appreciation. I'm thankful that organizations such as United for Healthcare exist, and I wish they had more help, and more money to get their message out.

For anyone unfamiliar with Single Payer Healthcare, here is an excellent summary copied from the Physicians for a National Health Program's website:

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Single-payer national health insurance, also known as “Medicare for all,” is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health care financing, but the delivery of care remains largely in private hands. Under a single-payer system, all residents of the U.S. would be covered for all medically necessary services, including doctor, hospital, preventive, long-term care, mental health, reproductive health care, dental, vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs.

The program would be funded by the savings obtained from replacing today’s inefficient, profit-oriented, multiple insurance payers with a single streamlined, nonprofit, public payer, and by modest new taxes based on ability to pay. Premiums would disappear; 95 percent of all households would save money. Patients would no longer face financial barriers to care such as co-pays and deductibles, and would regain free choice of doctor and hospital. Doctors would regain autonomy over patient care.

The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, H.R. 676, based on PNHP’s JAMA-published Physicians’ Proposal, would establish an American single-payer health insurance system.

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