National Day of Protest Against Health Insurance Corporations: June 19th!

[marmar]

http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/node


National Day of Protest Against Health Insurance Corporations: June 19th!

38,000 Health Insurance Executives are coming to San Francisco. Join patients, nurses, doctors, and Americans of every stripe protesting in memory of the countless victims of the insurance industry. Join us and bring friends!

DOESN'T EVERYONE DESERVE HEALTHCARE?

What: National Protest Against “AHIP” Health Insurance Convention
When: Thursday, June 19, 12:00 noon
Where: Moscone West Convention Center, Howard @ 4th St., San Francisco




Single Payer Talking Points
The California Nurses Association's proposal:

If the governor is truly committed to a goal of universal coverage, effective cost controls, and improving the quality of care, he should join with the California Nurses Association in supporting a single-payer system, the only way to achieve those goals with a health plan that would actually heal California.

A single-payer bill, SB 840 by Sen. Sheila Kuehl, was vetoed by the governor last year. It will be reintroduced this year.

We welcome the decision of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to address the state’s escalating healthcare crisis. But, the sum of his proposals may ultimately amount to little more than a fresh coat of paint on a collapsing house. We commend portions of the governor’s plan that would require health plans to end denials of coverage based on age or health status and assurance of health services for the undocumented. But the package has a number of gaping holes.

Focus on one or two talking points for letters:

* The call to criminalize the uninsured by forcing them to buy insurance, a plan that shifts the costs and risk from the insurers to individuals.

* In a state where health insurance typically runs up to $12,000 a year for a family of four, many will gamble with their health and opt for the cheapest plan available.

* As defined by the Governor’s proposal, the cheapest plans would require families to spend up to $10,000 in out-of-pocket costs, presumably all of their health services, in addition to the premiums the law will force them to pay.

* The high deductibles will also discourage people from using health services leading to greater health problems down the road.

* The result is a huge gift to the insurance industry. Insurers will gain millions in additional profits from millions of new customers who, for the most part, will receive virtually nothing in return.

* There are also no limits on skyrocketing health premiums and no requirements on what will be included in the required plans.

* The proposal to shift some $2 billion in tax funds currently in tax money that now goes to hospitals to cover indigent care and use it to buy insurance for the uninsured is faulty because:
- A. It takes money used for direct delivery of care, and hands it to the insurance industry, lopping off the top the 25% to 30% now consumed by the insurers’ administrative waste.
- B. Will starve the public sector of desperately needed revenue, hastening the closure or privatization of more public facilities.

* The plan fails to address price gouging by the pharmaceutical industry. The bill enacted last year provides for only voluntary reductions by the drug companies.

* The promotion of Health Savings Accounts will primarily benefit the banking industry. HSAs, typically paired with employer-provided catastrophic plans, are mostly geared to the healthy and wealthy who can afford the accounts and the huge out-of-pocket expenses for health services they entail.

* Ultimately, the Governor’s plan won’t fix what’s wrong with our health care system – the reliance on the market that will continue to put its profits and revenues above the health and well being of Californians.

[Merlot]

1. "a huge gift to the insurance industry."

The result is a huge gift to the insurance industry. Insurers will gain millions in additional profits from millions of new customers who, for the most part, will receive virtually nothing in return.

Arnie is just another republiCON proping up corporations.

and this one is truley imoral:

The proposal to shift some $2 billion in tax funds currently in tax money that now goes to hospitals to cover indigent care and use it to buy insurance for the uninsured is faulty because:
- A. It takes money used for direct delivery of care, and hands it to the insurance industry, lopping off the top the 25% to 30% now consumed by the insurers’ administrative waste.
- B. Will starve the public sector of desperately needed revenue, hastening the closure or privatization of more public facilities.

[fed-up]

2. I may be coming down on a bus for the day-any other DUer's planning on being there? nt