Program Planning for 2008 Convention – letter going out to Supporters and Local League Presidents:
HCR4US has been informed that to encourage LWVUS attention to health-care reform more broadly and actively, local Leagues should ask that health-care reform be recommended as a Review item for 2008-10. Local Leagues may do this when completing their program-planning forms which are due March 1. A Review will allow for the updating of our present health care position without the funds, time, and human energy required for an entire new study.
Therefore we urge that you include the Review of health-care reform as one of your recommended items. Please add that by “Review”, you mean “to update materials and to promote education at the local and state level rather than redoing the entire study.” (“Review” is the first category on the program planning response form.)
If there are a sufficient number of such recommendations, and if enough delegates vote for health-care reform as a Review item at the Convention, the LWVUS staff will then be able to devote the time and energy needed to get this vital work done, although we understand that LWVUS would appreciate funding assistance.
HCR4US is a group of over 300 LWV members across the nation. A steering committee of about members has “met” in monthly conference calls since the 2006 LWVUS Convention to promote education and inform League members and staff, and the public, about the LWVUS health-care position and ways to implement it.
We are very grateful that the LWVUS Board elevated health care to the status of a priority item in early 2007 and that the LWVUS staff worked so hard to get more SCHIP funds to try to enable more children to get the health care they need and deserve. But we know that the health-care crisis in our nation, as well as the health-care position of the LWVUS, requires even more work on more fronts.
Please contact us at HCR4US@yahoo.com or call 978-443-8609 if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
HCR4US Steering Committee members
Health Care Reform for the US
www.hcr4us.org
Just in case you have not been following the US health care issue closely, here are some facts about our country’s situation. Some reports date back a few years, but count on it, stats have not improved since these reports were written.
1. Over 46 million Americans are uninsured and at least that many are underinsured.
2. In 2004, Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School published a study showing that 50% of all personal bankruptcies followed a medical crisis. And of those people filing personal bankruptcy, 75% had health insurance (“Sick and Broke”, Elizabeth Warren, Miami Herald, 2/12/2005)
3. Family insurance premiums in the United States are averaging more than $9,500 per annum. (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005)
4. Insurance is tied to employment in the USA. If you lose your job, you lose your insurance. Health insurance should be portable and lifelong.
5. The U.S. is the only developed country that does not offer universal health coverage to its residents. Plus the USA has higher infant mortality and lower life expectancy rates than the other developed countries with universal coverage. (United Nations UNDP Human Development Report, 9/7/05)
6. There are more than 9 million children (one in nine) in the USA who are uninsured. (www.childrenshealthcampaign.org)
7. Health care costs are draining municipal and school budgets all over the country (check your local area to see what percentage of their costs are going to health care coverage of their employees.)
9. Small businesses are straining to provide any coverage at all for their employees, thus making them less competitive.
10. Many independent contractors and family-owned business owners do without any health care coverage at all for themselves or their employees due to high health care coverage costs.
11. Physicians for a National Healthcare Program (PNHP) maintains that under a “Medicare for All” plan, the U.S. could save almost $300 billion in total health care costs while providing universal coverage for all. (www.pnhp.org)
12. In 2004, total health care spending accounted for 15.3% of the United States GDP. The average for other industrialized OEDC (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries was 8.9%. (www.oedc.org)
13. In recent elections, health care was mentioned as one of the most important concerns in the minds of the electorate (just after the war in Iraq) in many national polls.
14. In every car that GM makes, approximately $1500 goes toward the health care costs of its employees. This high cost provides strong incentives for American businesses like GM to take their manufacturing plants to countries like Canada which already have a national health care plan for its citizens (Washington Post, 2/11/05).
15. Co-pays and deductibles continue to rise for those who have insurance. Insurance companies shift the rising cost of health care to patients.
Finally, health care should be a right of all those living in the USA, not a commodity that is distributed and sold to those who can afford it and leaving those who can not afford it without any health care coverage.
For more information check the web sites of PNHP (www.pnhp.org) and Health Care Now (healthcare-now.org) - both strong advocates for universal, single payer health care.
Now is the time for the LWV to become a strong voice in support of universal single payer health care reform. We remind you, and please remind your local League, that the LWVUS has a position in favor of universal single payer health care. Now is the time to act. Start with your own local and state League!
Sincerely,
HCR4US Steering Committee
(Health Care Reform for the United States)
NOTE: Some Leagues have indicated a reluctance to list health care as a review item during Program Planning. If your league takes this position, or just as additional feedback, a Leaguer from Santa Monica, California has suggested the following option on the program planning list serve. She gave us permission to publish it as a statement to add to what is sent into national with Program Planning results to highlight the importance of Health Care as a LWV issue.
"We strongly support our current health position as written and see no need to spend resources on an update or review. However, we would urge this position be made an issue for both education and advocacy in the coming two years. This would include making our members more aware of just what our position says and why, making members aware of and encouraging advocacy to support this position, and encouraging advocacy at the state and local levels based on this position."
Whatever you do, please make sure you let LWV-US know Health Care is an important issue where LWV-US needs to be taking a lead in the national discussion.
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Health Care Reform for the US
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