PNHP

Single Payer Health Care works in Italy

Single Payer Health Care works in Italy

by Mikael Rudolph
http://www.opednews.com
October 22, 2007

Last month I helped organize a protest/appeal at a Minneapolis appearance by House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers’ Jr. (D-MI) at a Town Hall meeting to drum up support and educate those in attendance about his proposed United States National Health Insurance Act (HR 676) sponsored by my Representative in Minnesota’s 5th District, Keith Ellison.

My perspective, as well as those of my fellow ImpeachforPeace.org members was that as troubled and ineffectual as the American health care system was, the health of our Constitution and our Democratic Republic was of far greater import and in far more urgent need of attention.

While my concern for the future of our nation and passion for defending our nation’s Constitutional form of government against the domestic enemies to it now in power hasn’t lessened, October’s events in my personal life have certainly affected my vantage on health care.

It is with full permission from my sister that I share that she is suddenly in a fight for her life.

Having lost our mother and father in fairly rapid succession in 2001 and 2003, she and I and our brother are middle-aged orphans. We haven’t been getting along all that well in dealing with the estates and all the mess of dealing with two lifetimes of possessions and properties, which is fairly common among siblings dealing together with the loss of parents.

The old adage that blood is thicker than water proves true, however, and I was at her side within days of learning that she was suddenly debilitated by a stroke that had rendered her left side paralyzed. A cancerous tumor in her abdomen that had begun to secrete coagulants into her blood is the likely cause of the stroke.

In just three short weeks, her recovery from the effects of the stroke has been remarkable, her experience as an assistant to a physical therapist and her extensive body awareness learned from years of dance and yoga practice and teaching paying off markedly. A week ago she couldn’t walk and now she takes multiple daily strolls up and down the hospital ward hall, albeit “teetery” in her own word. She employs ‘pranayama’ breathing techniques as well as Reiki and Feldenkrais methods to stimulate both sides of her brain and body. Her face shows no remaining signs of the left-side droop of her first few days following this catastrophic medical affliction.

Her left arm has been slower to wake up; her fingers and wrist not yet reactivated, but her bicep started working again about ten days ago and she does regular curls as well as stirring motions with both arms by interlocking her fingers along with other exercises.

Like approximately 50 million Americans, she is without insurance, having allowed her coverage to expire recently as she traveled from job to job in moving from California back to the Seattle area where we grew up.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars of payments are impending. Without insurance, she will spend the rest of her life indebted to hopitals, doctors, drug companies and the rest of the for-profit network that defines America’s capitalistic Medicine-for-Profit system so well exposed in Michael Moore’s latest documentary film: Sicko.

Except my sister has no bills so far. None. Not one. Everything so far is paid for.

She was visiting Italy when hit by the stroke.

In 1978 Italy changed over to a socialized medicine system. Overnight the governmental medical service SSN (Servicio Sanitaris Nazionale) was introduced on the basis that “Everyone has to be treated with the same dignity, regardless of his social position. Everyone in need has to receive medical treatment.”

Moreover, this system works because Italy has deep roots in the kind of “family values” that Dr. Dobson can only dream about. Nearly every patient at Ospedale Rieti as well as Ospedale Magliano Sabina where I first was greeted with a tearful, one-armed, bedridden hug and a “Welcome to Italy” by my sister has someone visiting as often as needed to support the nursing staff and serve as an advocate in communicating with the medical staff concerning their loved one’s treatment. Those families whose loved one is in need of personal care moment-to-moment hire a personal attendant as an adjunct to the medical professionals in the hospital if a family member cannot break away full-time.

It was in this spirit that Anna, the Italian mother-in-law of an American friend of my sister’s took charge when it came time for me to officially sign my sister in at the hospital. I handed over her passport and answered a short list of questions with the help of the latest in a string of Italian people who have extended themselves to help me out in a nation where I suddenly found myself in need of everything and knowing nothing.

When asked if my sister had insurance, I answered “Non”. The admissions administrator gave me a bit of a stare and a raised eyebrow smirk, as if to say: “Coming over here to get free medical help, are we?”.

Anna stepped forward with all of her four-foot-ten inches of machisma and explained very clearly that my sister had been stricken with illness while visiting Italy and was in need of help. Imagine a female Danny DeVito with a bee in her bonnet and you’re on the right track.

Shortly thereafter, I was handed a small blue folded card, much like the paper trail I would leave my neighborhood bank with as a child after depositing my lawn mowing earnings to my 5.4% interest savings account with the handwritten entry of the transaction faithfully recorded by the teller.

My sister was instantly not just a visitor to Italy, she was an honored, respected and cared for guest of the Italian people. She was not an illegal alien, she was not a suspected terrorist, she was S.T.P. 110 No 000000397.

Her medical expenses and care were suddenly and simply 100% covered anywhere she would need to be taken care of in Italy for six full months.

Single Payer Health Care works. Italy got it in place virtually seamlessly about 45 years after their dance with the fascism that Mussolini himself defined as “Corporatism”.

Let’s hope we don’t have to wait that long after we recover from our dance with Bush

George Lakoff: Don't Think of a Sick Child

The Logic of the Health Care Debate

By George Lakoff, Eric Haas, Glenn W. Smith and Scott Parkinson
Rockridge Institute
October 18, 2007

Introduction

Most health care reports advocate a policy, describe it, and argue for it. We take a different approach. In this paper, we describe the logic of the overall debate over the U.S. health care system — the assumptions, the arguments, who makes them, and why. We do come out of this process with recommendations, but not of the usual sort.

This analysis presents something new and important: a distinction among three modes of thought — progressive, conservative, and neoliberal. What’s new here is a deeper understanding of neoliberal thought, as it affects the discourse on health care. Briefly, it accepts the progressive ethic of care, insisting on maximizing coverage. Meanwhile, neoliberal thought accepts a conservative version of market principles that guarantees profits to insurance and drug companies. Often, this is done in the name of political pragmatism, as a way to mute expected conservative opposition. This creates an inherent tension between the moral mission of government to provide for the protection — in this case the health security — of all of its people and the profit-maximizing insurance marketplace, which works only by denying care.

The neoliberal mode of thought is at the center of the health care debate. It can also be found in issues across the board.

In the health care debate, positions based on the progressive values of empathy and responsibility for oneself and others are focused on the well-being of human beings. The current health care system is focused on insurance company profits, which insurance companies maximize through denying health care to millions of Americans. Neoliberal plans that sincerely seek market solutions or simply appease conservative opposition and protect insurance profits are unlikely to remedy our current health care tragedy. We conclude that progressives who adopt a neoliberal mode of thought, or align themselves with others who do, could inadvertently undermine progressive values and policy goals, surrendering them in advance — anticipating conservative resistance even before negotiations occur — and before the public has a chance to even consider such values.

The other sections of this report:

A Bit of History

A Basic Fact

Your Interests? Or Theirs?

The Conservative Mode of Thought

The Progressive Mode of Thought

The Neoliberal Mode of Thought

Analysis Of The Arguments

What We Can Do

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/health (For the 18 page PDF version of this report, under Campaign Resources: The Logic of the Health Care Debate, click on PDF.)

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

Most of us have greatly appreciated the guidance on framing the debate that George Lakoff has given us through his publications such as “Don’t Think of an Elephant!”

Professor Lakoff and his colleagues at the Rockridge Institute now provide us with important guidance for understanding and framing the health care debate.

Don’t just sit there and think of a Sick Child. Download the report now! We’ve got work to do!

Same health care program that covers Congress

Health Plan Used by U.S. Is Debated as a Model

By Reed Abelson
The New York Times
October 20, 2007

It makes for a compelling stump speech. And the leading Democratic candidates for president are all saying pretty much the same thing: adapt the health care program that covers Congress and offer it to the 47 million Americans currently without insurance.

The (Federal Employees Health Benefits Program) gives members of Congress, along with about four million other active and retired government workers, a wide array of private insurance offerings with fairly generous benefits.

While health policy experts acknowledge that the federal employees’ program could be a workable way to reach some of the uninsured, they also say there is nothing about it that would help address what they see as an underlying reason for the growing numbers of uninsured: the nation’s runaway medical costs. And without major changes, they say, the model would be sharply limited in achieving the goal of universal coverage for all Americans.

To begin with, not everyone makes the $165,000 a year or so that members of Congress do. In fact, at least 100,000 federal workers — at least 5 percent of the active work force — do not have health insurance. In many cases, according to the union that represents the workers, they consider even the cheapest options within the federal plan unaffordable.

And despite the program’s federal imprimatur, the government currently plays only a limited role, preferring to let commercial insurers take the lead.

“This is a private-based solution, with all of its foibles,” said Jonathan Gruber, a professor of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is advising various Democrats about the federal program as a possible model. It would probably have higher administrative costs and pose more of a risk of private insurers trying to enroll only the healthiest people, Mr. Gruber said, than if the government were to provide the insurance directly.

And the officials running the federal program emphasize that theirs is not a government-run plan like Medicare, in which the government is the main buyer of health care and can effect broad changes in public health.

In order to make insurance affordable to a greater number of the 47 million who currently have none, experts say, the coverage might have to be much more limited than even the most basic federal employees option, and be designed to protect mainly against catastrophically high doctor or hospital bills.

“You don’t want to take them from nothing to a Cadillac,” said Professor Gruber.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/20/business/20fedhealth.html?ref=health&pagewanted=all

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

So the health insurance program that covers members of Congress is the program that we should all have – except for those of us like the 100,000 federal workers who are not covered by their own program. What?

So to make federal coverage more affordable we would convert it into catastrophic coverage that still wouldn’t be affordable for most average-income individuals, and would expose many of those who are covered to financial hardship? And to do that we would sacrifice efficiency, equity, and the ability to effect positive changes in public health?

In this day and age, when it is difficult to tell the difference between a Cadillac and a Chevrolet, no one would propose ensuring a mode of transportation by offering a Chevrolet with its engine and transmission removed. Except maybe the leading Democratic candidates. After all, the shell of a Chevrolet is politically feasible, even if their owners are not able to show up at work.

Why the United States lacks full health care

By Peter Phillips and Bridget Thornton
MinutemanMedia.org
Published Friday, October 19, 2007

Health and disability insurance companies are systematically cheating the American public. Michael Moore’s top-grossing movie Sicko is one example of the growing concern surrounding health care in the US.

The number of Americans without health insurance reached forty-seven million at last count, or sixteen percent of the population. The cost is rising two to three times faster than inflation and is the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in the country. We pay more and get less medical care than the rest of the industrialized world. The total per capita health care cost in the US exceeds the expense per person in all other full care countries.

The Institute of Medicine estimates that as many as eighteen thousand Americans die prematurely each year because they do not have health insurance. This figure does not include those who die prematurely each year because their insurers delay, diminish, or deny payment for promised benefits. Reports about people who die unnecessarily from withheld services seldom receive broad coverage in the corporate media. Lack of media coverage has led to a nation of people uninformed about how national health and disability policies are controlled by the private insurance industry and how government regulators are powerless to do anything about it.

If industrialized countries around the world offer health care as a basic right, why is it not happening in the US? Private insurance companies are motivated to make as much money as possible and do so by systematically delaying, diminishing, and denying payment for promised services, and blaming individuals for their own misfortune.

On the boards of directors of the nine largest insurance companies are one hundred thirteen people. These directors are some of the richest in the world. They hold one hundred fifty past and/or present positions with major financial or investment institutions in the US, including such major firms as J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Lord Abbett, Bank of America, and Merrill-Lynch. Additionally, these board members have connections to some of the largest corporations in the world including General Motors, IBM, Ford, Microsoft, and Coca Cola. The combined affiliations among the one hundred thirteen health insurance directors represent revenue of over 2.5 trillion dollars 2006.

As some of the richest most powerful citizens in America, health care executives dominate health policy with their campaign donations and active lobbying. They spend millions to keep themselves in the insurance business despite overwhelming evidence that we would all be better off without them. They use these profits to propagandize the American public and influence voters through scare tactics of “socialized medicine” and long delays of service that supposedly occur in single-payer systems.

The single-payer advocacy group, Physicians for a National Health Program, reports that private insurance corporations spend an enormous amount of money on business-oriented expenses rather than health-related investments. A 2003 study in the New England Journal of Medicine estimates that spending for administrative costs associated with health care amount to over $320 billion per year or about thirty-one percent of health care costs in the US overall. The administrative costs in the Canadian national healthcare system amount to 16.7 percent, or about half of the overhead in the US.

Countries with common pool or single-payer systems provide similar levels of service to every person. In such countries, it is the responsibility of society as a whole to provide health care for each individual.

Americans have a choice. We can continue with a high-cost profit-driven private insurance system leaving millions to languish without care, and millions more to face the frustrations of systematic delays, diminished care, and denials of promised benefits. Alternatively, we can build a common pool health care system that provides necessary care to everyone — for less than what we are now paying.

Let’s find and support politicians who will provide universal health care outside of corporate fat-cat control.

Read Practices in Health Care and Disability Insurance: Delay, Diminish, Deny, and Blame by Peter Phillips and Bridget Thornton

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored. Bridget Thornton is a graduate student in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program. All statements above are fully documented in their new study “Practices in Health Care and Disability Insurance: Delay, Diminish Deny and Blame — www.projectcensored.org.

National Nurses Movement Lauds Al Gore For Leadership on Single-Payer Healthcare

Gore’s New Statement Is Clear: It’s Time for Universal, Single-Payer Healthcare

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee thanks Al Gore for his forceful new words in support of the kind of universal, non-profit, single-payer healthcare that this country desperately needs–and that is succeeding in nearly every other industrialized democracy.

The statement reflects a growing national consensus that a national, non-profit insurance system would clearly out-perform the private insurance corporations that spend up to one-third of their overhead on overhead and profits…and that it is long past time to put an end to the nation’s healthcare crisis.

On this issue, however, the public is far ahead of most of the political class. A March New York Times/CBS poll found that the vast majority of Americans want a total restructuring of the healthcare system, and preferred a single-payer system to the current private insurance system 47% to 38%. Unfortunately, many politicians continue to accept money from health insurance corporations, and push plans that mandate Americans to purchase expensive and inefficient private insurance products.

“Al Gore has long been a champion of the environment–and now he’s a champion of America’s patients. There is only one solution to our healthcare crisis, and that is the kind of guaranteed, non-profit, single-payer health insurance that we know works,” said Zenei Cortez, RN, a member of CNA/NNOC’s Council of Presidents.

Called “Healthcare Is A Right,” Gore released the following statement on his Current television channel:

I strongly support universal, single-payer, government-provided–or, government-funded–healthcare. It doesn’t mean the government runs it, it has competition among the different providers. But I just think that we’ve long since reached the stage that its immoral to put people in a situation where they cannot get the medical care they need because their incomes aren’t high enough. I think it ought to be a matter of right and our current system just doesn’t work, its way too expensive. The quality of healthcare is excellent for those who have enough money to buy the very best, but lower-income and low middle-income Americans are not getting good healthcare and so many now can’t afford the private health insurance that they’re going without insurance, millions and millions of people. And I think that to eliminate the incredibly ridiculous cost of all this unnecessary paperwork and different standards for different companies, it is time to have universal health insurance.

George Lakoff: Don’t Think of a Sick Child

The Logic of the Health Care Debate

By George Lakoff, Eric Haas, Glenn W. Smith and Scott Parkinson
Rockridge Institute
October 18, 2007

Introduction

Most health care reports advocate a policy, describe it, and argue for it. We take a different approach. In this paper, we describe the logic of the overall debate over the U.S. health care system — the assumptions, the arguments, who makes them, and why. We do come out of this process with recommendations, but not of the usual sort.

This analysis presents something new and important: a distinction among three modes of thought — progressive, conservative, and neoliberal. What’s new here is a deeper understanding of neoliberal thought, as it affects the discourse on health care. Briefly, it accepts the progressive ethic of care, insisting on maximizing coverage. Meanwhile, neoliberal thought accepts a conservative version of market principles that guarantees profits to insurance and drug companies. Often, this is done in the name of political pragmatism, as a way to mute expected conservative opposition. This creates an inherent tension between the moral mission of government to provide for the protection — in this case the health security — of all of its people and the profit-maximizing insurance marketplace, which works only by denying care.

The neoliberal mode of thought is at the center of the health care debate. It can also be found in issues across the board.

In the health care debate, positions based on the progressive values of empathy and responsibility for oneself and others are focused on the well-being of human beings. The current health care system is focused on insurance company profits, which insurance companies maximize through denying health care to millions of Americans. Neoliberal plans that sincerely seek market solutions or simply appease conservative opposition and protect insurance profits are unlikely to remedy our current health care tragedy. We conclude that progressives who adopt a neoliberal mode of thought, or align themselves with others who do, could inadvertently undermine progressive values and policy goals, surrendering them in advance — anticipating conservative resistance even before negotiations occur — and before the public has a chance to even consider such values.

The other sections of this report:

A Bit of History

A Basic Fact

Your Interests? Or Theirs?

The Conservative Mode of Thought

The Progressive Mode of Thought

The Neoliberal Mode of Thought

Analysis Of The Arguments

What We Can Do

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/health (For the 18 page PDF version of this report, under Campaign Resources: The Logic of the Health Care Debate, click on PDF.)

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

Most of us have greatly appreciated the guidance on framing the debate that George Lakoff has given us through his publications such as “Don’t Think of an Elephant!”

Professor Lakoff and his colleagues at the Rockridge Institute now provide us with important guidance for understanding and framing the health care debate.

Don’t just sit there and think of a Sick Child. Download the report now! We’ve got work to do!

Don't Think of a Sick Child

George Bush doesn’t want you to think about sick children. He wants you thinking about the fine print of health insurance policies. He wants us to debate types of coverage, premiums and the size of networks, and whether we can afford catastrophic, comprehensive, limited, mini-med or scheduled health insurance. But George Bush doesn’t want you thinking about all the sick children left behind in America. And insurance companies don’t want you thinking about all the children they will bar from care, just so they can maximize profits.

Senior fellows at the Rockridge Institute, including cognitive linguistGeorge Lakoff, author of the best-selling “Don’t Think of an Elephant,” have joined together to examine the hidden truths in our raging national debate over health care. And to bring their new report, “The Logic of the Health Care Debate” to life, the Rockridge Institute has produced a video spot that dramatizes the way in which our current health care system is based on excluding nearly half of the American family — concluding with the provocative question: “Which one of your children would you leave unprotected?”

The video, written by Rockridge senior fellow Glenn W. Smith and produced by Margie Becker of Austin, TX, can be viewed online at

www.RockridgeInstitute.org/health

SCHIP Vote Not Bipartisan: Relative Risk Republicans Hate Children

by DrSteveB
DailyKos
Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 04:47:52 AM PDT

As an epidemiologist I am trained to analyze risk. One of the types of analysis we use in studying a cohort, such as the House of Representatives, is Relative Risk.

Statistics proves that the vote was not bipartisan as some Repuglican apologists in the media are trying to claim.

Relative Risk is:

The proportion of diseased people amongst those exposed to the relevant risk factor divided by the proportion of diseased people amongst those not exposed to the risk factor. This should be used in those cohort studies where those with and without disease are followed to observe which individuals become diseased.

In this case, the cohort is the House of Representatives. The Relative Risk (RR) is the risk of an event (developing a disease; voting against SCHIP) relative to exposure (being a Repuglican). Relative risk is a ratio of the probability of the event occurring in the exposed group versus the control (non-exposed) group, or in this case the probability of the voting against SCHIP for Repuglicans compared to Democrats.

In epidemiology we typically try to reduce the analysis to what is called a “2 by 2 table”

OUTCOME
EXPOSURE Disease+ NonDisease-
Exposure + A B
NonExposure – C D
Relative Risk (or Risk Ratio) = (a / (a+b)) / (c / (c+d))

Therefore:

 
Against SCHIP
For SCHIP
Republican
154
44
Democrat
2
229

Running the statistical calculations, we find that the Relative Risk = 89.8, with a 95% confidence interval from 22.6 to 357.8; P-value < 0.0001.

What this means is that the probability of voting against SCHIP is about 90 times greater if the Representative is a Repuglican then if they are a Democrat.

Got that?

The probability of a Republican voting against SCHIP are 90 times greater than the probability of a Democrat voting against SCHIP. That is NOT bipartisan!

And yes, it is highly statistically significant, with the chance that this would occur by random chance is less than 1 in 10,000. If we were to re-run the experiment 100 times, 95 times the relative risk would be between 22 and 357.

Just how bad is this? Well the relative risk of lung cancer and smoking is 11, and is often cited as one of the highest we see in medicine.

The vote was not bipartisan.

Republicans are a very toxic exposure.

The way to prevent this (the cure) is elect a lot more Democrats.

Health care is a right

Physicians join the ranks of those working toward 'Medicare for everyone'

By Bryce Benson
Chico News Review

At a routine checkup last December, a local doctor advised Sandra Goulart to wait a year before having necessary blood work done.

Ten and a half months later, Goulart is counting the days until she turns 65. Dec. 7, she’ll finally be eligible for Medicare, and she’ll be able to stop living in fear of getting sick, and even have the mammograms she said she has skipped.

She has insurance, but like many Americans she is underinsured, something Dr. Don McCanne, speaking at a health care forum last Thursday (Oct. 11) in the Chico City Council chambers, said 28 percent of privately insured Americans experience.

McCanne is a senior health policy fellow for and past president of the group Physicians for a National Health Program. The event was sponsored by the California Nurses Association and the League of Women Voters. OneCareNow, a grassroots campaign supporting single-payer health insurance, and the Butte County Healthcare Coalition, which has long advocated for the same, were there in force.

Even before her doctor visit last year, Goulart felt the burden of being underinsured. When she had a skin cancer removed from her nose, her insurer paid roughly $150 of the $3,000 to $4,000 bill.

“Oh, this is one of the worst companies out there,” McCanne told Goulart after the forum, when she showed him a letter from MEGA Life and Health Co., informing her that her monthly payment would increase to $619 beginning Nov. 1, 2007.

The only reason she has a policy with what she called a “junk insurance” company is that no other insurance company would take her, she said. Twenty-five years ago she had the virulent form of skin cancer, melanoma, and since then it has been nearly impossible to obtain health insurance.

She couldn’t believe her insurer “had the nerve” to raise her premium for her last month in the private health insurance world but said that out of fear she’s keeping the plan so that at least she’ll have “something to fight” if her health goes south and MEGA won’t pay.

“It’s scary that people are waiting to turn 65 so they’ll be eligible to receive adequate health insurance,” Goulart said.

If the underinsured are scared, McCanne said, think how the roughly 47 million Americans with no insurance at all must feel. They live every day with a feeling of insecurity.

“Who wants to see Medicare totally abolished?” McCanne asked his audience of around 100.

When everyone kept their hands in their laps, he asked sarcastically, “What, are you a bunch of socialists?”

He did that to prove a point. In any discussion of single-payer health insurance, it inevitably is equated with socialism. In reality, McCanne said, the plan is “Medicare for everyone.”

In a week (meaning today, Oct. 18), McCanne said, the House of Representatives will vote on whether to override President Bush’s veto of an expanded State Children’s Health Insurance Plan, the highly successful program that is equivalent to Medicare for children of low-income families. The battle over SCHIP represents the increasingly more prevalent debate over whether private or government-run programs are more efficient and affordable.

Even though most Americans support government health-care programs such as SCHIP, Medicare and Medicaid, President Bush, who enjoys government-funded health insurance himself, is steadfast in his efforts to privatize not only SCHIP but most social programs, like Social Security, McCanne said.

In California, 6.5 million people are uninsured, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to implement universal health care, too. However, his approach is much different.

There are two options for health care reform, McCanne said. The current privatized system can be expanded, or a single-payer system can be organized.

Schwarzenegger’s plan expands on the current system by requiring all Californians to buy health insurance, much like the law requiring drivers to have auto insurance. But, just as with auto insurance, McCanne said, not everyone will buy health insurance; thus not everyone will be covered.

Schwarzenegger’s answer is to fine those who don’t comply.

This is a backward approach, McCanne said. If people can’t afford insurance, how will they pay the fine?

A similar program isn’t working in Massachusetts, despite the fact many politicians have labeled it the model for health care reform, McCanne said. In fact, the level of uninsured actually increased in 2006 to more than 10 percent of the state’s population.

“We can no longer afford the waste and inefficiency, the high overhead and outrageous executive salaries of the private insurance industry,” McCanne said. “Only reforms that end our reliance on defective private coverage and assure guaranteed coverage for all will work.”

¡SÍ, SE PUEDE!

Universal Health Care Foundation Newsletter
Get educated. Get talking. Get active.

“Un seguro médico, para todos, de por vida. One health insurance, for all, for life. That is our goal.”

So declared Jaime Torres, a podiatrist and hospital administrator in New York City. “Latinos in the U.S. are three times as likely as non-Hispanic Whites to lack health insurance,” explained Dr. Torres. “We must close the gap so that affordable and accessible health care is available to all living in the U.S.”


The photo includes, from left to right: Juan A. Figueroa, Universal
Health Care Foundation President and LNHI Vice-President;
Dr. Olveen Carrasquillo, LNHI Vice-President; Richard N. Gottfried,
New York State Assemblyman; Dr. Jaime Torres, LNHI President;
and David Galarza, LNHI Treasurer

That’s why Dr. Torres and a coalition of Latino leaders have joined forces as Latinos for National Health Insurance (LNHI): to educates policymakers, the media and the public about how health inequities and lack of coverage affects all U.S. residents, particularly Latinos.

At a recent reception in New York City, LNHI board members – including Universal Health Care Foundation President Juan A. Figueroa – outlined LNHI’s plans to continue taking its message around the country. Latino leaders and supporters, including New York State Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, who is spearheading health care reform efforts in the state, attended the event.

Latinos are least likely to have insurance of any racial or ethnic group. Here in Connecticut, Latino’s comprise 10% of the state’s population but 40% of our uninsured.

“What we can’t forget is that universal health care is not only an economical solution, it is an ethical solution to our nation’s health care crisis,” explained Dr. Torres. “We can’t leave anyone behind.”

Email here for more information about Latinos for National Health Insurance.

Don’t Think of a Sick Child

George Bush doesn’t want you to think about sick children. He wants you thinking about the fine print of health insurance policies. He wants us to debate types of coverage, premiums and the size of networks, and whether we can afford catastrophic, comprehensive, limited, mini-med or scheduled health insurance. But George Bush doesn’t want you thinking about all the sick children left behind in America. And insurance companies don’t want you thinking about all the children they will bar from care, just so they can maximize profits.

Senior fellows at the Rockridge Institute, including cognitive linguistGeorge Lakoff, author of the best-selling “Don’t Think of an Elephant,” have joined together to examine the hidden truths in our raging national debate over health care. And to bring their new report, “The Logic of the Health Care Debate” to life, the Rockridge Institute has produced a video spot that dramatizes the way in which our current health care system is based on excluding nearly half of the American family — concluding with the provocative question: “Which one of your children would you leave unprotected?”

The video, written by Rockridge senior fellow Glenn W. Smith and produced by Margie Becker of Austin, TX, can be viewed online at

www.RockridgeInstitute.org/health

¡SÍ, SE PUEDE!

Universal Health Care Foundation Newsletter
Get educated. Get talking. Get active.

“Un seguro médico, para todos, de por vida. One health insurance, for all, for life. That is our goal.”

So declared Jaime Torres, a podiatrist and hospital administrator in New York City. “Latinos in the U.S. are three times as likely as non-Hispanic Whites to lack health insurance,” explained Dr. Torres. “We must close the gap so that affordable and accessible health care is available to all living in the U.S.”


The photo includes, from left to right: Juan A. Figueroa, Universal
Health Care Foundation President and LNHI Vice-President;
Dr. Olveen Carrasquillo, LNHI Vice-President; Richard N. Gottfried,
New York State Assemblyman; Dr. Jaime Torres, LNHI President;
and David Galarza, LNHI Treasurer

That’s why Dr. Torres and a coalition of Latino leaders have joined forces as Latinos for National Health Insurance (LNHI): to educates policymakers, the media and the public about how health inequities and lack of coverage affects all U.S. residents, particularly Latinos.

At a recent reception in New York City, LNHI board members – including Universal Health Care Foundation President Juan A. Figueroa – outlined LNHI’s plans to continue taking its message around the country. Latino leaders and supporters, including New York State Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, who is spearheading health care reform efforts in the state, attended the event.

Latinos are least likely to have insurance of any racial or ethnic group. Here in Connecticut, Latino’s comprise 10% of the state’s population but 40% of our uninsured.

“What we can’t forget is that universal health care is not only an economical solution, it is an ethical solution to our nation’s health care crisis,” explained Dr. Torres. “We can’t leave anyone behind.”

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