Conyers needs support for HR 676: Single Payer Universal Healthcare

Via Rep. John Conyers' Blog:

The health care crisis we face today affects everyone, overwhelming America's workers and businesses. Many low-wage earners do not receive health benefits and cannot afford insurance. Higher salaried workers know that the cost of their health insurance may lead to the next round of layoffs.

More than 46 million Americans lack basic health care coverage. Millions more face high deductibles and staggering costs leaving essential care out of reach.

We can no longer seek gradual reforms or provide insurance companies with financial incentives to solve the problem. The time has come for a single payer national health care system that provides complete care to all Americans.

Since the 2006 elections, we have heard plenty of new voices calling for universal health care. Unfortunately, many of these claim to be universal health care, but are merely bandaids to the problem.

One proposal has the federal government giving billions of dollars to insurance companies to cover the uninsured. Other proposals only cover children or shift the entire burden of healthcare to employees in the form of health savings accounts.

Unfortunately, patchwork fixes like these will not work. The only way to provide a lasting solution to our health care crisis is through single payer universal health care. We must not let the movement toward universal health care be co-opted by proposals that serve to enrich those seeking to extend the status quo at the expense of true reform.

To address this need, I have introduced H.R. 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act. My bill would create a single payer universal health care system by strengthening and extending the Medicare program to cover all Americans.

Please help me enact this important legislation by signing this statement of support. We must have real reform through a single payer universal health care program if we are to solve our nation's health care crisis.

I signed it... This goes above and beyond the bandaid solutions offered by Connecticut politicians who seem to think that they can fix the "healthcare for profit" system that needs to be eliminated before anything will get better.

If you have any doubts about this fact, Maura at MLN will give you the scoop:

The creative and scrappy Working Families Party of CT is headlining another great visibility event to raise awareness about how badly broken our current health care system is.

No one is sure yet how high their 2007 profits will be, but in 2006 Aetna had profits of $1.6 billion. Billion. And Aetna's CEO earned $30 million last year, while health care expenses went way up for average consumers and small business.

A significant portion of our health care dollars are not going toward actually keeping people healthy or taking care of sick people -- they're going toward huge profits and obscenely high executive compensation packages like this. That should make us all sick.

Hope some MLNers will be able to attend this fun and important event - spread the word! Read more from Joe at the CT Working Families Blog.

Again... Go show your support for HR 676. It is good for your Health!