Chapter Resolution
Physicians for a National Healthcare Program – Minnesota Chapter
Resolution to support HR 676
2007
We, as physicians and health care providers, believe all persons deserve access to affordable, high-quality health care. This should be accomplished through a single payer system of national health insurance. As taxpayers, we support a system that spends our money on patient care, not administrative waste.
We recognize the following defects in our current health care system:
- The number of Americans without insurance is rising and now exceeds 47 million.
- Tens of millions with insurance have coverage so inadequate that a major illness would lead to financial ruin.
- Current movements toward high deductible plans and health savings plans worsen this situation by penalizing the sick and discouraging timely care.
- Managed care and other market-based reforms have failed to contain costs.
- American providers bear markedly increased costs by dealing with thousands of insurers compared with physicians in nations with national health insurance.
- The U.S. Government Accountability Office estimates the savings from converting to a single payer system at 10% of current health spending (this would have saved more than $200 billion in 2006) - enough to cover the uninsured and improve coverage for all.
- Entrusting care to for-profit insurance companies diverts billions from health care to administrative waste in marketing, underwriting and excessive incomes.
By maintaining a privately delivered (but publicly funded) system, HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act, would protect the doctor-patient relationship, assure patients free choice of doctors, and allow physicians free choice of practice settings.
HR 676 would assure universal coverage of all medically necessary services under a non-profit single-payer program, while containing costs by minimizing bureaucracy.
Therefore, we support the Minnesota chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program in its efforts to advocate for single-payer reform, as embodied by HR 676.
Please email us at pnhpminnesota@gmail.com to add your name to our signers list.