Rally For Guaranteed Single-Payer Healthcare For All
May 30th - Philadelphia, PA
Join thousands of single-payer supporters in a nationwide week of action to supportimproved Medicare for all (HR 676). Single-payer activists will be gathering all over the country to say, "Healthcare, yes; Insurance companies, no," and to show solidarity with demonstrations at the AHIP (American Health Insurance Plans, a private health insurance lobby) conference in San Diego.
Sponsored by:
The Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care - www.guaranteedhealthcare4all.org | Healthcare-NOW! - www.Healthcare-Now.org Progressive Democrats of Americca - www.PDAmerica.org | CNA/National Nurses Organizing Committee - www.calnurse.org Physicians for a National Health Program - www.PNHP.org | Americans for Democratic Action - www.ADAction.org
Join Us!
Place: Cigna’s Headquarters
Two Liberty Place
16th and Chestnut St.
Philadelphia, PA
Time: Saturday, May 30, 2009
12 Noon to 1:30 PM
C o n t a ct: Jeff@Healthcare-Now.org
267-515-2400
www.PhillyHealth.org
Guaranteed Healthcare: We can do it! 47 million Americans are uninsured. Private insurance rates are rising faster than inflation and our incomes. By 2025 the cost of private health insurance will exceed our projected income. A single-payer healthcare system is the only healthcare reform option that will cover every American resident while saving us billions of dollars. The majority of Americans want it. The majority of physicians want it. The only thing missing is the political will in Washington.
Health Care for All-Philadelphia - www.PhillyHealth.org | Healthcare for All-PA - www.healthcare4allpa.org Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals - www.PennaNurses.org
Showing posts with label Philadelphia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philadelphia. Show all posts
Monday, May 11, 2009
Friday, February 06, 2009
Philadelphia City Council Votes to Support Single-Payer Healthcare
Philadelphia City Council Votes to Support Single-Payer Healthcare
January 29, 2009 by HC-N!
Today, groups representing doctors, nurses, healthcare advocates and labor unions are applauding the Philadelphia City Council for passing a resolution in support of national, single payer health care (HR 676) and two state single payer bills.
The resolution, sponsored by Councilman Greenlee and Councilwoman Tasco, makes Philadelphia the 28th city and 46th local government to pass a resolution in favor of HR 676, the National Health Insurance Act, sponsored by John Conyers (D-Mich.). The resolution also calls for the enactment of the two single-payer state bills, SB 300 and HB 1660.
Nearly 40 people watched the city council pass the resolution. One audience member, Walter Tsou, MD, MPH, former Health Commissioner of Philadelphia, said of the resolution, “Single payer is a win win for Philadelphia. It not only would give 160,000 uninsured Philadelphians health insurance, but it would redirect hundreds of millions of city dollars toward other important priorities, like libraries and fire stations.”
Jed Dodd, a Teamster Union official who represents railroad construction workers in the Northeast stated, “Single payer health plans ensure all people living in the United States access to quality health at a fair cost. Ninety-seven percent of the resources allocated to support these plans are spent on health care. All other plans waste 30% of these resources on insurance companies who provide no health care to anyone and ironically make more by limiting access to health care instead of making people well. We are heartened that the Philadelphia City Council has endorsed a health care plan for the people of America.”
A fact sheet circulated to Council members demonstrates that if HR 676 were enacted, the city would save $539 million a year, enough to cover its budget shortfall of $2 billion over 5 years. In addition, the bills would guarantee access to comprehensive healthcare at less cost than what average families currently pay for care.
Sabrina Nixon, a medical technologist at Temple University Hospital, and a member of PASNAP, said, “As a healthcare professional of 20 years and a parent, I see that HR 676 would not only fix the current healthcare crisis, but eliminate every parent’s worry that their child will not have access to quality healthcare once they turn 18 or as they move between jobs. If HR 676 were passed, the dream of universal healthcare will become reality.”
Groups that have signed on to a letter asking the Council to sign the resolution, many of which were present at the vote, include: Healthcare-NOW; Healthcare for All – Philadelphia; Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals; United Steelworkers Local 10-1; International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees Local 3; Faculty and Staff Federation of Community College of Philadelphia, AFT 2026; Pennsylvania Federation of the Brotherhood of Maintenance and Way Employees – IBT; American Medical Students Association; Physicians for a National Health Program; Philadelphia Chapter Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom; Citizen Access; and Leadership of Neighborhood Networks.
January 29, 2009 by HC-N!
Today, groups representing doctors, nurses, healthcare advocates and labor unions are applauding the Philadelphia City Council for passing a resolution in support of national, single payer health care (HR 676) and two state single payer bills.
The resolution, sponsored by Councilman Greenlee and Councilwoman Tasco, makes Philadelphia the 28th city and 46th local government to pass a resolution in favor of HR 676, the National Health Insurance Act, sponsored by John Conyers (D-Mich.). The resolution also calls for the enactment of the two single-payer state bills, SB 300 and HB 1660.
Nearly 40 people watched the city council pass the resolution. One audience member, Walter Tsou, MD, MPH, former Health Commissioner of Philadelphia, said of the resolution, “Single payer is a win win for Philadelphia. It not only would give 160,000 uninsured Philadelphians health insurance, but it would redirect hundreds of millions of city dollars toward other important priorities, like libraries and fire stations.”
Jed Dodd, a Teamster Union official who represents railroad construction workers in the Northeast stated, “Single payer health plans ensure all people living in the United States access to quality health at a fair cost. Ninety-seven percent of the resources allocated to support these plans are spent on health care. All other plans waste 30% of these resources on insurance companies who provide no health care to anyone and ironically make more by limiting access to health care instead of making people well. We are heartened that the Philadelphia City Council has endorsed a health care plan for the people of America.”
A fact sheet circulated to Council members demonstrates that if HR 676 were enacted, the city would save $539 million a year, enough to cover its budget shortfall of $2 billion over 5 years. In addition, the bills would guarantee access to comprehensive healthcare at less cost than what average families currently pay for care.
Sabrina Nixon, a medical technologist at Temple University Hospital, and a member of PASNAP, said, “As a healthcare professional of 20 years and a parent, I see that HR 676 would not only fix the current healthcare crisis, but eliminate every parent’s worry that their child will not have access to quality healthcare once they turn 18 or as they move between jobs. If HR 676 were passed, the dream of universal healthcare will become reality.”
Groups that have signed on to a letter asking the Council to sign the resolution, many of which were present at the vote, include: Healthcare-NOW; Healthcare for All – Philadelphia; Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals; United Steelworkers Local 10-1; International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees Local 3; Faculty and Staff Federation of Community College of Philadelphia, AFT 2026; Pennsylvania Federation of the Brotherhood of Maintenance and Way Employees – IBT; American Medical Students Association; Physicians for a National Health Program; Philadelphia Chapter Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom; Citizen Access; and Leadership of Neighborhood Networks.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Single payer Go See Sicko
There was a sneak preview of Michael Moore’s documentary about the crisis in American healthcare at the Ritz East this past Saturday. It will return June 29tth to three Philadelphia theaters—the Ritz East, the Bala, and the Bridge. Moore’s film, I have heard, is heart-breaking, convincing, and very funny (the last is no surprise, from the director of Farenheit 9/11, whatever you thought of its politics). Moore contends that the answer to unaffordable premiums, insurance companies that try to elude giving you the benefits you have paid for, poor quality care, is an state-run not-for-profit healthcare system. He wants a national plan that is supported by taxes, which is what every other advanced country in the world has. And so it is indeed news that the appearance of “Sicko” coincides with groundbreaking activity in the Pennsylvania state house on behalf of the Family & Business Health Care Security Act.
Representative Kathy Mandarino, who recently agreed to be the Prime Sponsor of this bill in the House, last week circulated a Memo seeking co-sponsors (endorsement) for it. Here in our own state we could have the kind of healthcare system—often tagged “Medicare for All”—that Moore is calling for, which would make us a model for the nation. If we get single payer health insurance here, the national bill that has been stalled in Congress (despite numerous endorsements) since 2005, a bill subtitled “Medicare for All” (HR 686), might find itself infused with new life. Both bills offer comprehensive benefits: beyond “medical” care, they offer dental, mental health, vision, chiropractic, hospice, longterm, and other kinds of health services.
Single payer simply means that the money for the health system comes out of a single tax-supported fund. Not all government-run systems around the world are exactly like that, but one of the things that unites them is that profit is NOT their objective. Yet we are not talking about anything resembling what people associate with “socialized medicine.” With the kind of health system the Pennsylvania Family and Business Healthcare Security Act and HR 676 would provide, you could go to any doctor or hospital you wanted. and there would actually be less bureaucracy than there is now. The involvement of profit-making insurance companies that act as middlemen adds costly layers of paperwork (such expenses are about 24% of the American healthcare budget) while Medicare’s overhead is only 4%. Friends in France (widely considered the nation that has the best health system) tell me they have personal relationships with their doctors, who do not have money on their minds while treating them.
Americans pay about twice as much as people in other countries for health care, and yet are less healthy. Of course the 47 million without insurance, are less healthy: less likely to have early diagnoses for disease, less likely to get preventative care. But Americans in general have a higher infant and maternal mortality rate and have a 25 % greater chance of dying early. Moore’s film, focuses of those who DO have insurance. Because health insurance in the US is an industry with profit as its goal, it tries to get out of spending money, and thus “Sicko” tells horrifying stories. One is about a woman who was refused payment for an MRI on the grounds that it was unnecessary and then found out, after having the test in Japan, that she had a brain tumor.
Like Michael Moore I believe that health insurance, unlike car insurance, should have nothing to do with profit: access to health care is a fundamental right in a democracy. All Americans should have high-quality health care: rich people should not have better health care and hence better health than poor people! We do not find this to be an obvious truth because we have been brainwashed by the medical-insurance and pharmaceutical industries which spend tremendous amounts of money to keep the truth from us, often by paying lobbyists to keep the media silent.
Thus most of us know about Rendell’s Prescription for Pennsylvania, legislation that would not offer comprehensive benefits and would not come close to covering everybody. Yet few of us even know that the Healthcare Security Act is in the state legislature (and HR 676 in Congress). But the Governor knows: At a forum in Lancaster in early April he conceded that a single-payer model of healthcare for Pennsylvanians might be better, and he acknowledged that the state’s powerful health insurance lobbies was a “hurdle.” He has promised not to veto a single payer bill if it gets through the legislature, so let’s give him a chance to keep his promise. Call or e-mail your Pennsylvania House member right after reading this, and demand he or she endorse the bill—you can find the right phone number or e-mail by going to this website: www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm And see “Sicko”!
Representative Kathy Mandarino, who recently agreed to be the Prime Sponsor of this bill in the House, last week circulated a Memo seeking co-sponsors (endorsement) for it. Here in our own state we could have the kind of healthcare system—often tagged “Medicare for All”—that Moore is calling for, which would make us a model for the nation. If we get single payer health insurance here, the national bill that has been stalled in Congress (despite numerous endorsements) since 2005, a bill subtitled “Medicare for All” (HR 686), might find itself infused with new life. Both bills offer comprehensive benefits: beyond “medical” care, they offer dental, mental health, vision, chiropractic, hospice, longterm, and other kinds of health services.
Single payer simply means that the money for the health system comes out of a single tax-supported fund. Not all government-run systems around the world are exactly like that, but one of the things that unites them is that profit is NOT their objective. Yet we are not talking about anything resembling what people associate with “socialized medicine.” With the kind of health system the Pennsylvania Family and Business Healthcare Security Act and HR 676 would provide, you could go to any doctor or hospital you wanted. and there would actually be less bureaucracy than there is now. The involvement of profit-making insurance companies that act as middlemen adds costly layers of paperwork (such expenses are about 24% of the American healthcare budget) while Medicare’s overhead is only 4%. Friends in France (widely considered the nation that has the best health system) tell me they have personal relationships with their doctors, who do not have money on their minds while treating them.
Americans pay about twice as much as people in other countries for health care, and yet are less healthy. Of course the 47 million without insurance, are less healthy: less likely to have early diagnoses for disease, less likely to get preventative care. But Americans in general have a higher infant and maternal mortality rate and have a 25 % greater chance of dying early. Moore’s film, focuses of those who DO have insurance. Because health insurance in the US is an industry with profit as its goal, it tries to get out of spending money, and thus “Sicko” tells horrifying stories. One is about a woman who was refused payment for an MRI on the grounds that it was unnecessary and then found out, after having the test in Japan, that she had a brain tumor.
Like Michael Moore I believe that health insurance, unlike car insurance, should have nothing to do with profit: access to health care is a fundamental right in a democracy. All Americans should have high-quality health care: rich people should not have better health care and hence better health than poor people! We do not find this to be an obvious truth because we have been brainwashed by the medical-insurance and pharmaceutical industries which spend tremendous amounts of money to keep the truth from us, often by paying lobbyists to keep the media silent.
Thus most of us know about Rendell’s Prescription for Pennsylvania, legislation that would not offer comprehensive benefits and would not come close to covering everybody. Yet few of us even know that the Healthcare Security Act is in the state legislature (and HR 676 in Congress). But the Governor knows: At a forum in Lancaster in early April he conceded that a single-payer model of healthcare for Pennsylvanians might be better, and he acknowledged that the state’s powerful health insurance lobbies was a “hurdle.” He has promised not to veto a single payer bill if it gets through the legislature, so let’s give him a chance to keep his promise. Call or e-mail your Pennsylvania House member right after reading this, and demand he or she endorse the bill—you can find the right phone number or e-mail by going to this website: www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm And see “Sicko”!
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Join us at Sicko Press Event June 19
On Tuesday, June 19, 12 noon at the Liberty Bell, there will be a rally in suppport of Michael Moore's amazing new movie, Sicko which has its national debut, June 29. It will be shown at the Ritz theaters, Bala, and the Bridge among other places in Philadelphia.
Locally, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals will be welcoming the nurses from the California Nurses Association (CNA) and the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) to Philadelphia on their way to D.C. They will be promoting the national release of the riveting movie “SiCKO” and building a broad movement for genuine health care reform. “SiCKO” is a new film by Michael Moore which documents real-life health care problems; putting a face on the vast number of Americans who have trouble with their insurance or no insurance at all.
Join us for a Press Event on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 at noon at Independence Mall (on Market Street between 5th and 6th streets) to hear speakers, including one of the movie's stars, discuss “SiCKO” and the need for guaranteed health care for all.
Locally, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals will be welcoming the nurses from the California Nurses Association (CNA) and the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) to Philadelphia on their way to D.C. They will be promoting the national release of the riveting movie “SiCKO” and building a broad movement for genuine health care reform. “SiCKO” is a new film by Michael Moore which documents real-life health care problems; putting a face on the vast number of Americans who have trouble with their insurance or no insurance at all.
Join us for a Press Event on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 at noon at Independence Mall (on Market Street between 5th and 6th streets) to hear speakers, including one of the movie's stars, discuss “SiCKO” and the need for guaranteed health care for all.
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