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“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being
of [oneself] and [one’s] family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care.”
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25 |
 | David Himmelstein, MD,
co-founder
Physicians for a
National Health Program |
- Incremental health care reforms in the United States have been ineffective and have yielded a steady increase in the number of Americans without health insurance. In addition to the 45.8 million Americans without insurance, millions more are underinsured. Virtually all other industrialized nations insure their entire populations.
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Our lack of universal health insurance is costly – both financially ($6,830 annually per capita) and socially (18,000 unnecessary deaths each year due to uninsurance). In an August 2005 survey, nearly three in ten adults reported a time in the last year when they did not have enough money to pay for health care, and 62% of those respondents had insurance. National health care expenditures are expected to reach $2.077 trillion in 2006. Despite higher spending than any other nation (overall, per capita, and as a percentage of GDP), the U.S. is ranked 37th in health system performance among the 191 Member States of the World Health Organization.
Please visit the links below for more information:
- Universal Health Care and Homelessness – a policy statement by the National Health Care for the Homeless Council
- No Insurance Card – a unique tool developed by the National Council for everyday advocacy
- Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) –
Co-founded by Drs. David Himmelstein (pictured above) and Steffie Woolhandler, PNHP is a single issue organization of more than 10,000 members working toward the implementation of single payer national health insurance.
- Healthcare NOW! This grassroots campaign in support of H.R. 676 promotes public hearings nationwide and offers action steps of all shapes and sizes to achieve single payer universal health insurance.
- Grahamazon – This simple, concise, and clever animation of a twenty-something medical student demystifies “single payer” in a mere three minutes.
- Universal Health Care Action Network – Ohio-based advocacy organization that supports state and local efforts for universal coverage, in hopes that they might foster “laboratories of democracy” and inspire similar action at the Federal level.
- American Medical Student Association –
a student-governed national organization committed to transforming idealism into meaningful public service, innovation, and institutional change.
- Thomas – The U.S. Library of Congress provides an easily searchable legislative database – find more information on House Resolutions 676, 1200, 2133, and 3000.
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- Single payer health insurance is a system by which the health care expenditures of an entire population are paid for through one source – the Federal government or a subcontracting entity – using tax revenue from individuals and employers.
- Distinctly different from socialized medicine, whereby the government owns and operates health care facilities, a “single payer system” is simply a financing mechanism. The government collects and allocates money for health care but has little to no involvement in the actual delivery of services. Care is provided privately at hospitals and clinics but paid for publicly.
- Individuals are allowed to choose their providers, and physicians are either compensated on a fee-for-service basis or paid salaries by hospitals that receive an annual global budget or by nonprofit health maintenance organizations.
- All medically necessary services are covered by the insurance, including primary care and prevention, prescription drugs, long term care, mental health, substance abuse treatment, dental services, and vision care.
- Services are delivered based on need rather than on ability to pay. Coverage is uninterrupted and equal for everyone, thus ending the dependency of health care access upon employment status.
- Single payer health insurance would save money by vastly reducing administration and paperwork and by giving the Federal government bargaining power to procure medications in bulk. Even more significant than the savings that a single payer system achieves are the universal coverage and comprehensive benefits it provides, thereby realizing the right of every person to quality health care.
- Single payer health insurance has proven itself to be successful in Canada, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, and Taiwan, and the model exists here in the United States as well in the Medicare program – which holds administrative overhead to 3%.
- The expansion of Medicare, as proposed in House Resolution 676, is the smoothest road toward universal coverage
and the only way to achieve sustainable,
cost-effective coverage for every American.
Only when everyone has the same high-quality
health care will everyone’s health care be
affordable, accessible, and adequate.
John Lozier, MSSW,
Executive Director
National Health Care for the Homeless Council
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