Universal Coverage

The United States should be in full support of Universal Coverage. Compared to the other G8 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom and the US) the United States has the lowest life expectancy. Since not everyone is insured, they aren’t getting treated the way they should to live a longer life. If the United States switches to Universal Health Coverage, the amount of money that is being spent will lower as well. But the most important thing is that the total population of people with insurance will rise. According to a graph from 2000, only 45% of the country has health coverage unlike most other industrialized countries where they have 100% of their people insured. Again, we ask you to write to your congressman or woman, and tell them about the health care plight. They will listen. We appreciate your support.

Rising Costs

The US is the only country without Universal health care. We think it’s amazing that the US spends the most on health care in the world, yet a ton of people are not covered. People can do very little to control costs. Some people who need surgery or health care can simply not afford it. Some people are going bankrupt from paying for healthcare for them and their families. An estimate shows that about 2 trillion dollars will be spent in the US on medical care this year, ($6,830 per person). In 2002 Americans spent on average $5,267 per person. The rising costs are  rising, way too quickly, and it needs to stop. The next country with the greatest costs is Switzerland, where people on average are spending $3,446 per person. As this shows, the US health care plan has  to go, and at this rate, predictions tell that in 2015 people will be spending $12,300 per person. 
Please, help us by taking action and really fighting for a new health care plan, fighting for the Dennis Kucinich plan to get new health care in our nation… we all know it is desperately needed.

How you can help

By now, I’m sure you would like to help. It’s quite easy.

Write your congressperson. Email addresses and mailing addresses can be found here.  Tell them about this website, and your concerns or fears about health care. It takes about 10 minutes, and one letter can make a huge difference.

A quick thought about McCain’s Plan

John McCain offers a $5000 tax credit to pay for health care costs. But, is this a mandated cost that has to go towards health care? Or can it be taken for other means? If anyone knows, share in the comments.

Analyzing Health Care differently

Very, very interesting article in the New York Times today. An Op-Ed piece written by Billy Beane, Newy Gingrich, and John Kerry says that the best way to fix health care, is to analyze differently. Analyze it like baseball teams do. Many teams use ‘Sabermetrics’, which is a number of cutting edge statistics, that don’t show up in the box score in the papers. So why not apply this to health care? Makes sense. By analyzing stats, you can make more informed decisions, rather than just throw money around.

Kennedy Workin’ to Fix Health Care

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) is working on a plan that will bring comprehensive reform to the health care system.  He’s doing this from his house, as he is recovering from Brain Surgery t hat he had in June. This was the money quote from the article:

“It’s not a question of arithmetic or accounting, it’s a question of priorities,” an aide said. “When AIG needs the money, somehow the money is found. When Freddie and Fannie need it, somehow the money is found. The theory is they’re too big to fail. It can certainly be argued that the health care system is too big to fail, but it’s failing for millions of people every day.”

This is the big question. Do we want to fix health care? Or do we want to keep the insurance companies happy? Whatever the answer is, it’s nice to see Senators working to try and fix this. 

Obama’s Plan

Obama’s plan calls for lower prices, through government subsidies for people who cannot afford insurance. One of his main components calls for the movement of paper-based storage of records to electronic records. This saves manpower and time. Everyone will be eligible for health care- insurance companies cannot discriminate based on pre-existing conditions. They will also create a National Health Insurance Exchange, which offers Americans easy access to plans, and plans similar to that the members of Congress receive. Of the candidates, we happen to like this plan the most. We think that more people will be covered NOW, rather than covered later, like John McCain’s plan.

McCain’s Plan

Interesting article on Yahoo! today. It detailed McCain’s health care plan. What struck us was the fact that you have to ’shop around’ for health care. You can anywhere in the country, cross state lines. It seems like that the healthy would benefit, while the already sick would have trouble obtaining health care. While this might help in the long run (since more and more younger folks, and presumably more healthy, would be able to obtain health care, having them covered if and when they do get sick) it won’t help now. It won’t help the sick and uninsured NOW.  It’s much easier to fix something in the long run. You have more time, more resources. It’s harder to fix something now, and health care needs to be fixed now. McCain’s plan might be better in the long run, but worse off right now.

Massachusetts Plan-Will it work?

 

One method of dealing with health care is by state. Massachusetts, governed by Mitt Romney, is the first state to require mandatory health insurance. Listed below is the the way it works. The state of Massachusetts is requiring :

All people living there must be covered, either by themselves if they have enough money, or their subsdized plan. Companies ,with at least 10 (full time) employers, must either pay for or help out with their employee’s coverage or pay a large anual fee of $295 for those working full hours. Smaller companies are not required to cover their employees.

If you are a resident with under 300%  of the FPL (for a family of 3 that’s about 38,000) and are not eligible for medicade you will be covered by the state wit their (subsidized) health plan. All children get it free, and adults under 25 can get extended coverage if they need more financial aid. This coverage also includes benefits like dental coverage.

To put this plan in a different view, employers do see benefits from lowered premiums and deductables. When a company covers a hospital bill for instance it is expensive due to the uninsured not paying them. With this new plan everybody is covered, making spendings actually less. Since everybody will be covered there are healthy people who don’t need as much care,  making it easier for a compay to cover everybody.

My question to you is how could this policy be improved to not end up failing like Hillary-care, due to the similar setup and way they’re run. For more background refer to On Other Issues. There you will find many truths about this plan as well as a Q&A with Mitt Romney regarding concerns

.(http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Mitt_Romney_Health_Care.htm)

Our Plan

I’m sure by now you are all interested in what health care plan we are supporting and advocating. Here it is:

Our plan is based on Dennis Kucinich’s plan. Here are the basics. ( Read about it here and here)

-Everyone gets free health care. Everyone

-Insurance companies mostly go away.

-Our addendum is to not force people who are happy with their current system to change. If they are happy with their plan, they can keep it. This, and a tax credit for insurance companies will keep the billion dollar business somewhat alive.

-Paid for by a tax increase of the top 5% of income earners. A progressive payroll tax. Revenue from the current system. And a small stock tax.

What do you think of this plan? Tell us in the comments.