Media Release
For Immediate Release: December 10, 2009
For More Information: Mark Dunlea, 212 741-8192, xt 5#
Rebecca Elgie 607-272-0621
Single Payer New York calls on Congress to make health care a human right on 61st Anniversary of UN Declaration
Urges Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to
vote for Sanders' Single Payer Amendments
(NYC) Single Payer New York applauded today the nationwide protests at Senate offices on the 61st anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, saying that Congress is falling far short of enacting a universal health care system. In NY, events took place in New York City and Syracuse.
The group urged Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to vote for the amendments sponsored by Senator Sanders, Burris and Brown to substitute a single payer Medicare for All proposal for the present Senate Health Care bill. Failing that, the group wants Congress to pass legislation enabling states to enact their own single payer universal health care systems. The Canadian health care system for instance first started at the provincial level.
Article 25 of the UN Declaration on Hunan Rights states that "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."
"Single Payer New York joins with other local, state and national health care advocates in asking Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to make this right to health security a reality in the United States as it is in all of the other industrialized nations by supporting the Sanders legislation," said Rebecca Elgie, co-chair of Single Payer NY and a member of the Tompkins County Health Care Task Force.
Senator Schumer has previously sponsored single payer legislation while in the State Assembly and the House of Representatives. Like President Obama, Senator Schumer has repeatedly acknowledged that a single payer system would be the best way to provide health care to all New Yorkers. Sen. Schumer recently wrote that "I wholeheartedly agree that a single-payer system would be the most effective way to increase access and cut costs for health care services." Unfortunately, both have instead sought to accommodate the needs of insurance companies.
Human rights watchdog groups such as Amnesty International have come out in favor of single payer. "While the human right to health care does not mandate any particular type of health care system, of the reform proposals being discussed in the U.S. today, the single-payer plans are more universal, equitable and accountable — the three key principles of the human right to health care. Single-payer plans approach health care as an essential service and a public good," said Sameer Dossani, Demand Dignity Campaign Director of Amnesty International USA.
Single Payer New York has previously urged New York State congressional representatives to vote against the main Democratic Congressional health care proposals, saying that their main thrust was to provide a massive subsidy for private health insurance.
"The reason why the US spends such a massive amount of money to produce the worst performing health care system among the industrial countries is the central role of private, for-profit health insurance. Rather than solving this problem, Congress is intent on making the situation worse, increasing costs for consumers, taxpayers and employers while denying access to quality health care to tens of millions of people. Insurance companies are the real death panels," said Dr. Richard Propp of the Capital District Alliance for Universal Health Care.
"Elected officials are the ones with the power to end this abusive, immoral health care system we have," says George Randt, M.D., a member of the national single-payer advocacy group Healthcare-NOW!. "They have the power to take out the middleman-the private insurance industry-which provides no care but merely inflates the cost of care for everyone. The bills emerging in Congress are completely inadequate. Patients deserve better."
The group said that the debate over establishing a public option had diverted public attention from the huge giveaways to the insurance company. "Even a robust public option would have left insurance companies playing a pivotal negative role in our health care system. It was a flawed proposal. But Congress from the start made sure that there was no real threat to insurance company profits, turning the public option into little more than a dumping ground for the sickest Americans. Instead, average Americans will be saddled with paying for expensive health insurance that will still leave profit-seeking CEOs in charge of deciding who gets health care services and what providers you can see," added Mark Dunlea, Executive Director of Hunger Action Network of New York State.
The current Congressional health insurance reform legislation resembles health reforms that have recently been tried and have failed numerous times at the state level.. Review of what works in this nation indicates that traditional Medicare is:
1. more efficient than private insurance (3% on administrative costs versus 15 to 20% with private insurance)
2. more accurate in processing claims than private insurance
3. more popular than private insurance when those who have Medicare are polled
4. and more likely to pay for treatment that is ordered by a health care professional .
The recent state-funded study through the Governor's Task Force on Universal Health Care concluded that a single payer system was the most cost-effective way to provide quality health care to all New Yorkers, saving an estimated $20 billion annually in health care costs by 2019. Single Payer New York are urging Governor Paterson, a long time single payer supporter in the Senate, to propose such a system in 2010. Single payer legislation has been sponsored by a majority of all State Assemblymembers and a majority of Democratic State Senators.
