Greens speak out on health care, comparing Obama & McCain’s rejection
of Single-Payer/Medicare For All with their endorsement of the $700
billion bailout for Wall Street.
WASHINGTON, DC — Green candidates and leaders, encouraged by an open
letter from Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), called
the Green Party the only hope for guaranteed health care for all
Americans.
On October 6, PNHP (http://www.pnhp.org) published “Doctors to
Candidates: Enact Single-Payer Health Reform,” announcing that 5,000
physicians have signed an open letter challenging candidates to
endorse the Single-Payer plan, also called Medicare For All
(http://www.pnhp.org/letter).
• Joshua Drake, Arkansas Green candidate for Congress, 4th district
(http://www.drake08.com): “The Green Party’s presidential ticket and
slate of candidates for Congress represent America’s best and only
hope for real universal health care. Green nominees Cynthia McKinney
and Rosa Clemente support the Single-Payer/Medicare For All health
plan. Barack Obama and John McCain don’t support it, because they’re
dedicated to the same Wall Street interests that led them to endorse
the taxpayer-funded $700 billion bailout for financial corporations.
We’re telling voters, if you want real health care reform, the Green
Party offers the only hope for guaranteed quality health care in
America. Greens will fight for it long after the 2008 election ends,
until we get Congress to enact a Single-Payer bill.”
• Joyce Robinson Paul, DC Statehood Green Party candidate for US
Statehood Representative (http://www.statehood4dc.com/jrpaul/home):
“Barack Obama and John McCain would leave health care for most
Americans under the control of corporate HMOs and insurance companies,
which limit treatment in order to maximize their own profits. That’s
why so many Americans with private health coverage wind up paying out
of pocket anyway. Whether or not you have private health insurance,
you can still suffer financial ruin because of a health emergency.
Under Single-Payer, no one will go bankrupt because of illness or
injury.”
• Nan Garrett, co-chair of the Green Party National Women’s Caucus and
a Georgia Green (http://greens.org/gp-uswomen
)
campaign ad that his health care plan avoids government-administered
coverage, which would require higher taxes. This ad is misleading.
It leaves out the fact that working people will pay far less for
Single-Payer than for private coverage, because Single-Payer does away
with profits for insurance and HMO middlemen, saving more than $300
billion every year. That’s enough to cover the uninsured and
eliminate co-payments and deductibles for all Americans. Even more
important, no American would be denied treatment because of inability
to pay, employment, age, or a prior medical condition.”
• Bob Kinsey, Green candidate for the US Senate in Colorado
(http://www.kinseyforsenate.org): “It’s time to make health care a
right for all Americans. Unfortunately, Obama and McCain insist on
the right of the powerful insurance industry to make big money off our
health. John McCain wants to end employer-based health coverage and
replace it with private accounts, and his tax exemptions are in
reality government subsidies for insurance firms and HMOs. Barack
Obama wants heavy regulation of the insurance industry to expand
coverage, but would compensate by establishing a health insurance
‘marketplace’ that would sustain the industry. Mandates, tax credits
and incentives, and indirect subsidies are all based on appeasement of
the private insurance lobbies, which contribute hundreds of thousands
of dollars to both Democrats and Republicans to make sure that
corporate profits prevail over human needs. Neither Obama nor McCain
will admit that private
insurance and HMO coverage is expensive, inefficient, inadequate, and
unnecessary. No other country allows the profit-based insurance
industry to control the health care system as the US does. Private
health insurance is the core of the problem and must be eliminated,
not subsidized, mandated, and protected as McCain and Obama propose.
• Rodger Jennings, Illinois Green candidate for Congress, 12th
District (http://www.rodgerjennings.org): “Whenever people who favor
Single-Payer throw their support to anti-Single-Payer Democrats like
Barack Obama, they are selling themselves and the health of our nation
short. America will get true universal health care when a political
party dedicated to Single-Payer — the Green Party — achieves
major-party status. If a few Greens were elected to Congress, it
would change the whole political landscape and put Single-Payer on the
table, because Democrats and Republicans would no longer only be
competing with each other. The real problem facing America isn’t the
Republican Party, it’s the bipartisan pursuit of campaign dollars
without concern for the health of all Americans.”
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