PHIMG Coalition - Grassroot voices demanding Medicare For All!

PHIMG Activists Gather in Grand Central

Written by Administrator

Wednesday, 18 November 2009 14:37

STOP the Fake Federal Healthcare Reform and the $500 Billion Giveaway to the Private Health Insurance Industry and DEMAND the end of Placing Profit Ahead of Healthcare in the United States.

Today at the famous New York City Grand Central Station scores of ordinary people of the United States: workers, the middle class, the disabled, immigrants, students, and health professionals circle the information booth and resolutely inform the U.S financial and political elite that their majority voices across this nation will be heard, they will be represented, and they will win Medicare for All. Ditch HR 3962!

THIS HOUSE BILL IS WORSE THAN NO BILL

The House Bill does not end the healthcare crisis. It makes it worse. Tens of millions of American citizens and residents will still be denied adequate access to essential health care services. Marcia Angell, M.D., senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School says “ enshrines and subsidizes the “takeover” of the U.S. healthcare system by the investor-owned insurance industry.” What they don’t want us to know:

· Cost – No control of the unsustainable cost of the health care system; costs will increase exponentially. $500 billion of tax-payers money will go to Wall Street as more people die and go bankrupt. Under penalty of law, people must purchase health insurance they can’t afford. The ban on pre-existing conditions becomes virtually meaningless due to unaffordability and legal loopholes. The bill does not change Medicare Part D in order to allow the negotiation of prices with the pharmaceutical industry.

· Access - Health insurance will remain tied to your job. When you lose your job you will still lose your health insurance. Poor women are denied access to abortions that they can pay for themselves. The undocumented are excluded at the expense of public health and fiscal responsibility.

· Choice - Choice of doctor and hospital will remain in the hands of the insurance companies for those who get their insurance through an employer. The so-called “public option” would, by 2019, enroll only 2% of the population, the poorest and sickest members of society, and according to the CBO "would cost more than private plans."

· Disparities - the shameful disparities in care in the US, between rich and poor, between rural and urban, between whites and peoples of color, would largely remain intact.

Nadina LaSpina of Disabled in Action says “this healthcare non-reform will continue to deny people with disabilities comprehensive healthcare. We will still be forced to stay poor to be eligible for Medicaid that provides the care and services that should be our right”. Ajamu Sankofa of PHIMG says, “over 135, 000 more people will die because they have no health insurance before this disastrous Bill, HR 3962 or one like it, even takes effect. Pass HR 676, Medicare for All, now!”