Why Ohio Still Needs A Single-Payer Health System

[Rick Rowlands]

People like you all over the US are receiving cancellations or rate increases due to the realities created by Obamacare. 

[irishbobcat]

Why Ohio Still Needs A Single-Payer Health System

The Census Bureau released its annual report on income, poverty and health insurance coverage in the United States earlier this month, and it's no surprise to learn that we're in bad shape. The number of people living in poverty was 43.6 million (14.3 percent), up sharply from 2008, and real per capita income declined 1 percent.

Looking at health insurance, the situation is truly dire. There was a dramatic spike in the uninsured - 4.3 million more, to a record 50.7 million - in spite of the expansion of government health insurance rolls by nearly 6 million.

In my home, we were just informed that Medical Mutual will no longer insure our son, because he has autism.

Yet the consequence of being uninsured can be lethal: Research published last year shows about 45,000 deaths annually can be linked to lack of coverage. That number is probably more than 50,000 today.

As Don McCanne, senior health policy fellow at Physicians for a National Health Program, has observed,  employers, seeing little relief, will expand the present trend of shifting more insurance and health care costs onto employees.

A single-payer plan would  furnish us with effective cost-control tools, like the ability to negotiate fees and purchase medications in bulk. It would permit patients to go to the doctor and hospital of their choice.



We need an insurance system that pools the risk evenly and spreads out the costs of the sickest 20 percent of us. Other rich nations have versions of a single-payer system to finance health service payments. It is time we adopt a single-payer national health program in the United States. Such a system would provide affordable access to medical services for everyone. No one would have to worry about pre-existing conditions, deductibles, provider networks, medical debt, losing insurance with a job loss or a doctor rejecting them as a patient because they are on Medicaid. Instead, the sick would simply choose their doctor and hospital.


That's why I support the Health Care for all Ohioans Act. We need single-payer health care in the Buckeye State. We need to insure all Ohioans now!

Dennis S. Spisak-Green Party of Ohio Nominee for Governor

www.votespisak.org/governor/

www.dennisspisak.com

for more info, contact 330-503-1407