National Health Care Policy, Education & Research Group
A 501(c) 3 Non Profit Working At the Grassroots In the Field for the Uninsured & Universal Health Care Reform in Massachusetts, California, Washington State, Maryland, Washington D.C. & Virginia Since 2002. Now also endorsing House Bill 676 for National Health Care.
Our goal is to see national health care legislation passed this fall to act as the second major stimulus needed to prevent a new depression. To sign up to support bill 676 please contact us.
For 40 Years We Have Turned Over Management of the U.S. Health Care System Primarily to For Profit Large Corporations and Wall Street Dominated Companies, and the Results It Is Universally Agreed Have Been a Failure to Control Costs, Increase Access and Improve the Quality of U.S.Health Care. Its Time For New Management and New Stakeholders
The President Elect, Barak Obama has asked us to help him and his new administration with solutions that will contribute to the positive reorganization of our health care system. NHPERG is an advocacy organization, but we are not a filter and we are not a subsitute for people directly becoming involved with the developmwent of a new health care policy to guide the country. We encourage everyone to contact the Obama transition site Change.gov and contribute your ideas and solutions. We know that more people than institutions want to see transformational change in health care. Let your voice be heard. There may just be tens of millions of people just like you that are out there fighting to over come their cynicsm and apathy to do more than vote on election day. To be in a movement means to be in a way voting every week.
The people and employer groups of the United States of America currently spend 16.5% of the gross domestic product on health care and health insurance. This is far above what leading European countries with different types of national health care systems spend. Our economy is operating with an anchor tied to it because we have failed to change and adapt to the new realities of the new century. Converting to a common sense new health care system will help our economy recover and regain our traction.
National Health Care Is Coming To America
Universal Health Care Is Going to Help Grow the Economy and Stop Health Care Cost Increases
Everyone In Your City & Town Who Is Being Layed Off Can Have Reason to Hope that Jobs Will Return
Thirty Years of Over Consumption That Have Made
Us Fatter and Sicker Is Coming To An End
For the Sake of the Nation Many of Us In the Medical and Health Care Administration Fields Will Have to Sacrifice, to Start Over and Take a New Oath to Dedicate Ourselves to the Health Care of the People, to Keep All the People of the United States; Our Combat Veterans and Their Families, Our Early Retirees, Our Self Employed, Our Workers of All Industries, Our Businesses, Non-Profits and Governments of All Sizes Cared For so that the United States Ranks Among the Top Five Countries of the World for Health Care Outcomes and that We Ourselves Do Not Unnecessaily Profit From Providing Health Care Beyond the Norms of Our Communities
Every Person Has A Right to the Basics of Quality Health Care
These subtitles are examples of themes NHPERG presents to the policy makers, the media and to the general public to increase awareness of some of the assumptions that we believe need to be included in developing a new health care system in the United States.
Every Neighborhood and Large Town Needs a Community Health Center, Staffed with Best Doctors and Nurses in the World
Take a look at your county's Community Health Center and work backwards. Most medical students do not want to become primary care physicians because the pay is low compared to what specialists make. Despite this fact, Community Health Centers across the country are staffed with some of best trained and most dedicated doctors in the world. There are not more of these doctors in part because medical students in the U.S. are burdened with large debts when they leave medical school. Greatly expanded subsidies that pays the full tuition of medical students who go into primary care and work for a number of years in expanded and state of the art Community Health Centers will have a major impact within five years.By turning over medicine to a market and to the stock market we have created the most irrational health care system in the world. The market has made health care and health insurance unaffordable to the working class and the middle class. To lower costs we need to move primary care into Community Health Centers and Multi Specialty Group Practices by subsidizing their costs. Basically the same medical delivery system except operating at half the cost it does today and expanded into neighborhoods that are undeserved. With these incentives and others in place we can build up the networks of primary care physicians and drive down the over supply of specialists.
Specialty Teaching Hospitals Excellence Must Be Preserved
The Unregulated Market of Insurers and Health Care Corporations Are As Big A Financial Problem As Wall St. We Need Strong Federal Regulations to Protect the Interests of the Nation from the Private Interest of a Few
Question: What Is So Bad About A National Health Care System in the United States When the Market Based Health Care System Has Been Tried for 30 Years and Is a Failure ?
Answer: The Stakeholders Who Should Be Working Out the New System Are Not Properly Represented At the Table Because the Table Is Owned by Health Insurance and Health Care Companies Whose Obligation Is to Provide the Highest Return for Their Stockholders
Solution: Pass Legislation that Requires All Health Insurance Companies and Hospitals to be Non-Profit Again Effective in 2010.
There are entrenched special interests in health care that operate in a manner similar to investment banks and hedge funds on Wall Street. They are interested in their stock price not the quality, cost or access of health care. The special interests work in coalition with forces within the United States that are driven by an outdated ideology that blinds them from seeing the threat the country is facing with its out of control health care system. This ideology leads to the conclusion that if someone is sick or needs emergency care and does not have health insurance, or can not qualify for health insurance paid for by them, then they should be refused medical treatment.
This view is at odds with the centrists in U.S. health care who believe that it is immoral to refuse treatment, violate the physicians' oath and not provide health care at hospital emergency rooms as a last resort. The market driven health care organizations were introduced by the centrists and the market ideologues to return competition and decrease the cost of health insurance 30 years ago, in 1978. The record of premium cost increases since then prove the point that this social experiment has failed. If the annualized numbers are graphed they only point in one direction, way up in a troubling bubble.
Its time to give the other side a chance to prove their case that access can be increased to cover everyone, costs can be controlled and quality of care improved with increased Federal regulation and management.
The Leading Allies of the United States; Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Ireland, Canada and Israel All Are Democracies that Have Had Successful National Health Care Financing Systems for 60 Years Because It Made Their Nations Stronger
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Massive Cost
Shifting To Those Least Able To Pay Continues
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Small Number of Health Insurance Carriers Now Have a Monopoly
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Double Digit Rate Increases Continue for the Seventh Straight
Year
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Uneven Quality of Care with Frequent Medical Errors by Providers
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Political Leaders with Short Term Goals and Divided Loyalties
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Individual Mandates versus Employer Mandates
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Health Insurers Turning Away the Sick to Go Without Treatment
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Disabled Children Left to Suffer Without Treatment
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Widows Left Without Health Insurance, Losing Their Life Savings
"Will You Still Love Me When I'm 64"
The answer to that lament from the Beatles is very likely no. When your 64 and alone without a large employer group health plan, yet too young to be eligible for Medicare, you will face the highest monthly premium rates of anyone in the country. That may be a monthly premium cost of up to $1,000 a month to provide health insurance to one person. Instead of unifying the people of the United States we have allowed the health insurance companies to convince our lawmakers that the best way to provide health insurance is to divide everybody up into smaller and smaller subgroups until we reach the single 64 year old person.
When you turn 65 the world turns brighter because you are eligible for our national health care plan we call Medicare. All we want is for everyone to be treated the same and no matter what age you are, you receive the group protection of Medicare for All. As with our socialized system of senior care there is even a role for the private sector claims payers and the private sector health care providers.
At the same time we address the problems of access to health care we must also address the problems of cost and quality. Medicare is a great system, but it is being exploited by the private marketplace and costs are too high for the care that is being provided,particularly if we are moving to a system that covers everyone in the nation.
Who Are We Up Against, Who Is Stopping Our Health Care Reform Campaigns and Who Is Corrupting Our Political Leaders?
The Five Top For Profit Health Insurance Companies Who Control the Majority of the Health Insurance Business
United Health Care Inc.
Aetna Inc.
CIGNA Inc.
Wellpoint / Anthem Blue Cross Inc.
CareFirst Blue Cross and Blue Shield
The Two Worse For Profit Insurance Companies Whose Polices Benefits Are Exaggerated By Insurance Agents
Mega Life and Health Insurance Company
Mid West National
What Do We Do About It?
- So far in the Campaign for President the key stepping stones to discussing how to transform our health care system are not being discussed. No matter which candidate you support, write to them and ask them if they are prepared to stand up for the national interest and support legislation that would make available access to health insurance for individuals not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid, with no medical underwriting or waiting periods, and no individual mandates. This is step one without which without a consensus of agreement between both political parties there can be no serious move to lower cost with more comprehensive reform.
- Join your local universal health care coalition and support their activities
- Join in regional marches and demonstrations against the health insurance industry
- Support people in your community who need to know the health care options that are available now
- Ask your local clergy to come with you to universal health care meetings
- Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper, or write an article in your community organization's web site or blog
- Contact your local industry association for the industry you work in and ask them to vote internally to support universal health care
Are We Asking the Right Questions ?
Why Is It that Only the Nurses Are Visible Fighting for Universal Health Care? Where are the Doctors, Other Care Givers and the Small Business People? Are They Ready to Take a Few Hours Off Every Once in a While to Come out for Justice?
Is It Enough to Just Offer Testimony or Should We Be Placing Our Bodies On the Line and Be Willing to Organize Mass Arrests Like Martin Luther King? Do You Want to Know What It Feels Like to Write About the Struggle With Your Mind Totally Focused on the Issue as you Look Through the Bars of Your Cell for a Night or Two, Like Henry David Thoreau?
Who Will Inspire Us to Change Our Health Care System? Will a New President Draw Strength From Us?
Do We Believe it Is Ethical for Non-Profit Leaders, Business Leaders and Labor Leaders to be Paid as Much as $75,000 a Year to Serve on Boards of Insurance Companies and for Their Children & Spouses to Accept Jobs at these Same Insurance Companies?
Should We Be Capping the Income of Health Insurance, Health Care Management and Doctors?
Should We Be Doubling the Size of Our Medical Schools?
Housing Equity of Homeowners Is Down to 48%, Gas Is Up to $4.00 a Gallon, Food is up and Health Care Premiums and Out of Pocket Expenses go up as Much as 30% Each Year, Should the Government Be Paying For a Basic Health Plan for All Citizens Paid for by Removing the Cap on Payroll Taxes?
We Need a Direct Response to the Heart of the Problem at the State Level and a Response to Directly Take on the for Profit Insurance Companies and the Drug Companies
Our Lives Are Worth More Than Their Profits
Read the business sections of your news source and see what the level of capitalization exists with all the health insurance conglomerates, health care global corporations, medical supply companies, drug companies and medical device makers and you will see where all the profits have gone and created.
A big part of being a health care activist is taking the step to stand up for yourself, your family, your community and no longer be willing to be invisible. Every day in the U.S. there are many victories won in medicine and many patients lives saved and extended. There are also many failures that happen every day that relate back to our unaccountable health care system.
A National Health Care System Is An Expression of Our Commitment to Each Other and Our Willingness to Sacrifice For Each Other.
Our Patient's Lives Are Worth More Than Their Surpluses
From the moment of birth until death the lives of the citizens of the USA are the most important resource of the country. The lives of every child needs to be protected against the ravages of disease, hunger, abuse, neglect and substance abuse. Exercise, fitness and wellness standards must be established, measured and achieved at every level of school beginning in grade one and continue on to higher education and to the workplace for a citizen's entire working life.
Our Communities Are Worth More to the United States Than Their Leaders Vast Personal Wealth
The National Health Policy
Education and Research Group (NHPERG) is a research, policy and advocacy organization
that is reaching out to health care activists across the country, encouraging them to become united in their reform campaigns, not stratified into vanguards by occupation.We also encourage health care activists to learn more about the health insurance industry and not to be afraid to directly confront the for profit industry powerhouses and to stop attacking HMO's as the main source of the problem. Pragmatic compromises will continue to be necessary in the state campaigns to gain greater access for those denied coverage by the insurance companies. But we also need an aggressive and unified approach to educate the American people about how poorly served they are by the insurance companies, how poorly prepared we are to face future problems and how state based campaigns to start up state funded new non-profit organizations is the way to change a state regulated industry.
NHPERG is working to increase consumer, business, policy makers and media
awareness of how economically unsustainable and distorted our current health care system is and the need for immediate action to enable a cooperative group health system to be established in competition with the private insurers and large provider organizations that no longer represent the public interest.
After 30 years of managed competition in health care we have to recognize that a market based solution to maintaining an affordable health care system has failed. The big four health insurance companies are moving rapidly to set the terms of trade for all the health insurance plans in the country. While these companies are in the best position to control costs because of their contracts with providers, they do not pass along a large share of these savings, and instead set prices that are almost the same from insurance carrier to insurance carrier. This increases their profit margins and the stock price of publicly traded companies.
The for profit health insurance company leaders in particular have blocked doing away with individual medical underwriting and "employer mandates" as health care reform mechanisms. So, we are in a stalemate with creditable long term solutions coming from the states and not the federal government.
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