Progressive Healthcare Reform

Description:

As part of the single-payer/universal coverage movement, we're a group devoted to advancing progressive healthcare reform and the cause of a just health care system--a "united health system"--based on single-payer financing and universal coverage. A united health system is founded on the principle of unity, not on division as in the current system.

----------UNITY NOT DIVISION-----------
What the system entails:

*Universal & equal coverage
*Single-payer financing
*Comprehensive coverage—incl. dental, behavioral, vision, Rx
*Providers & hospitals/clinics remain in private sector
*Free choice of providers & hospitals/clinics
*Restores Dr.-Patient bond—free of outside management
*No tie between employment and health coverage
*Bulk drug purchasing for all of Minnesota as one group
*Progressive tax financing
*Democratic policymaking and financing
*Grassroots-based regional health boards
*State health board: regional representatives & state appointed members

------ALL FOR ONE, ONE FOR ALL------

Cost control and universal coverage are the two central concepts driving the single-payer movement. However, there are other health reform goals sought by the rest of the movement and ourselves, and we seek to increase the emphasis on them. These other concepts and goals are based on political principles central to the concept of justice and human rights:

Life
Liberty
Pursuit of Happiness
Equality
Democracy

A "united health system" provides a greater degree of each of these than the market-based health sector where most Americans are covered and treated and where:

*LIFE is less valued than money: 18,000 Americans die annually due to their inability to pay for necessary medical care (Institute of Medicine-2003)
*LIBERTY is infringed upon by HMO/health plan coverage and provider choice limitations, managed care interference in Dr.-patient treatment matters
*PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS is infringed upon as hundreds of thousands of others can’t afford care for less-than-fatal conditions; millions suffer unnecessarily from health problems due to financial barriers
*INEQUALITY reigns supreme
*DEMOCRACY is non-existent

-------A UNITED HEALTH SYSTEM:------
-------YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT------