| > | | | | Back in the office the following week, one of the |
| Over 40 Million Americans Have No Health Insurance. | | | | women whose job it is to deal with insurance |
| A Single-Payor Plan Would Remedy This Health Care | | | | questions, solved the dilemma and the supplies are |
| Crisis. This Article Explains How. President Clinton did | | | | now paid for. The child's mother had receipts, and |
| not and now President Bush will not address health | | | | the HMO reimbursed her from the time of the car |
| care reform in a way that deviates even slightly | | | | accident. |
| from the HMO and Managed Care Industries that | | | | I wondered why the insurance company did not |
| have given large sums of money to both campaigns | | | | automatically pay for these services? If I had not |
| to keep them quiet. Thus these special interests | | | | helped stage an elaborate fund raising event and had |
| maintain the status quo of the for profit health | | | | dinner with the boy's grandmother, this revelation |
| insurance corporations that have taken over the | | | | may not have surfaced. A Universal Single Payer |
| health care system in America. | | | | health care plan would make it possible for all people |
| Every day, approximately 100,000 people lose health | | | | to get the services they need and free up doctors |
| insurance coverage in the United States. Over | | | | and nurses to give the care that people deserve, plus |
| forty-four million Americans do not have health | | | | fulfill all of the reasons doctors and nurses entered |
| insurance at all. The people who have HMO's as their | | | | their respective professions to begin with: to be of |
| only choice of insurance routinely face rejection of | | | | service, to help other people and to bring healing to |
| payment when serious health problems arise. The | | | | patients and their families. |
| doctors employed by HMO's make decisions about a | | | | Physicians for a National Health Program in America |
| person's health without laying hands on the patient. | | | | have devised the following plan for implementation. |
| They do not examine, listen to or have any contact | | | | For more information, please access |
| with the patient about whom life and death decisions | | | | National Health Insurance, if implemented, would |
| are made regarding their health. | | | | minimize any disruption to the current health system |
| This is a human rights abuse in a civil society such as | | | | because health care delivery mechanisms would |
| ours, or any other society, for that matter. | | | | remain in place while only the financing mechanism |
| There are over 1500 insurance companies in America | | | | changed. Single Payer National Health Insurance would |
| with different rules of what services will or will not be | | | | resolve virtually all of the major problems facing |
| funded. Our facility has hired two people just to | | | | America's health care system, today. |
| handle the health insurance questions that arise every | | | | Single Payer Insurance is defined as a single |
| day. They often have a frustrated and perplexed | | | | government fund with each state which pays |
| look in their eyes as they undertake to find solutions | | | | hospitals, physicians and other health care providers, |
| to problems, and then have to contact a faceless | | | | thus replacing the current multi-payer system of |
| bureaucratic entity about whether or not a service | | | | private insurance companies and other plans. |
| will be paid for. | | | | It would provide coverage for the forty-four million |
| Health care providers must also take the time to | | | | people who are uninsured. |
| speak to these people, to convince them to pay for | | | | It would eliminate the financial threat and impaired |
| proposed services. Letters must be written to | | | | access to care for tens of millions who do not have |
| convince the HMO/Managed Care bureaucrats to | | | | coverage and are unable to afford the out-of-pocket |
| take a second look at what needs to be done for | | | | expenses because of deficiencies in their insurance |
| patients, to ensure good quality medical care. | | | | plans. |
| Health care workers have accepted the unacceptable | | | | It would return to the patient free choice of health |
| and do not seem to know the way out of the | | | | care provider and hospitals, not the choice that only |
| quagmire. | | | | the restrictive health plans allow. |
| I once helped to raise $3,000. | | | | It would relieve businesses of the administrative |
| 00 for a seven year old patient who was in an | | | | hassle and expense of maintaining a health benefits |
| automobile accident, and suffered a lower spinal cord | | | | program. |
| injury. He is paralyzed from the waist down. The | | | | It would remove from the health care equation the |
| proposed goal for the fund raiser was to buy a | | | | middleman-the managed care industry-that has |
| handicapped accessible van. Since these vans cost | | | | broken the traditional doctor-patient relationship, while |
| anywhere from $15-30,000. | | | | diverting outrageous amounts of patient care dollars |
| 00 dollars, the family bought a computer, instead, | | | | to their own coffers. |
| enrolled the boy in a study offered online by the | | | | It would control health care inflation through |
| Shreiner's Hospital in Philadelphia for spinal cord injured | | | | constructive mechanisms of cost containment that |
| patients. | | | | improve allocation of our health care resources, |
| At the fund raising dinner, I sat with the patient's | | | | rather than controlling costs through an impersonal |
| grandmother. She told me she wanted the money to | | | | business ethic that robs patients of care so as to |
| be put in a trust fund to pay for the child's catheter | | | | increase profits for the privileged few. |
| supplies, diapers and medicine that the Managed Care | | | | Single Payer Universal Health Care would provide |
| Insurance company would not pay for. | | | | access to high quality care for everyone at |
| "Wait a minute," I said. "You mean you are paying for | | | | affordable prices. This would be beneficial for |
| all of the supplies out of pocket without insurance | | | | individual business as well as the government. |
| reimbursement?""Yes," she said. | | | | So why don't we have a National Single Payer Plan? |