Chapter Resolution
Physicians for a National Health Program – Minnesota Chapter
Resolution to support House Resolution 676
We, as physicians and health care providers, believe all persons deserve access to high-quality healthcare. This should be accomplished through a single-payer system of national health insurance. As taxpayers, we support a system that spends our money on patient care, not administrative waste.
HR 676 would assure universal coverage of all medically necessary services under a non-profit single-payer program, while containing costs by minimizing bureaucracy.
We recognize the following defects in our current health care system:
- The number of Americans without health insurance now exceeds 50 million.
- Tens of millions with insurance have coverage so inadequate that a major illness will lead to financial ruin.
- Movements toward high deductible plans and health savings accounts worsen this situation by penalizing the sick and discouraging timely care.
- Managed care and other market-based reforms have failed to contain costs.
- American providers bear unnecessarily increased administrative costs by dealing with over one thousand insurers.
- The U.S. Government Accountability Office estimates the savings from converting to a single-payer system at over 10% of current health spending (or $350 billion in 2008) - enough to cover the uninsured and improve coverage for all.
- Entrusting care to insurance companies diverts billions from health care to administrative waste in the form of marketing, underwriting and excessive profits.
By maintaining a privately delivered but publicly funded system, HR 676, the United States National Health Care Act, would protect the doctor-patient relationship, assure patients free choice of doctors, and allow physicians free choice of practice settings.
Therefore, we support the Minnesota chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program in its efforts to advocate for single-payer reform, as embodied by HR 676.