John Conyers' blog: We Need Real Universal Health Care Coverage (petition, too)

http://www.johnconyers.com/node/115

We Need Real Universal Health Care Coverage
Submitted by JC on April 23, 2007 - 11:54pm.

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.

Statement of support here:

http://www.johnconyers.com/HR676