For Immediate Release:
July 8, 2008
Contact:
Quentin Young, M.D., (312) 782-6006, info@pnhp.org
In a statement coinciding with today’s announcement of a new coalition called Health Care for America Now, Dr. Quentin Young, national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, made the following remarks:
“Physicians for a National Health Program welcomes the call for quality, affordable health care for all by the new Health Care for America Now coalition.
“We note that a number of the organizations in Health Care for America Now are supporters of single-payer national health insurance, and we sincerely hope they will convince the entire coalition to adopt single payer as its platform and hasten the enactment of HR 676.”
“Based on more than two decades of research, including the study of domestic programs like Medicare and the failed “universal” reform efforts of several states, as well as the health care systems of other nations, we remain convinced that the only way to achieve the goal of truly universal, equitable and affordable health care in the United States is to remove the for-profit private insurance industry from the health care picture and to establish a single-payer national health insurance system, an improved and expanded version of Medicare for all.”
“The U.S. private insurance system is not the solution, but the source of the present problem.”
“We share the coalition’s abhorrence of health care policies that have been associated with the Bush administration and the presidential campaign platform of Sen. John McCain. These policies, if fully implemented, would substantially worsen an already untenable situation in which 47 million Americans are uninsured and a comparable number are underinsured, thanks to the profiteering and administrative waste of the for-profit private insurance industry.”
“At a time when the U.S. Conference of Mayors unanimously endorsed HR 676 and a recent poll indicated that 59 percent of U.S. physicians now support government-sponsored national health insurance, this is hardly the time to fall back to failed private insurance programs.”
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Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org), a membership organization of over 15,000 physicians, supports a single-payer national health insurance program. PNHP is headquartered in Chicago and has chapters across the United States. To contact a physician-spokesperson in your area, contact info@pnhp.org or call (312) 782-6006.