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TO: HON. TOM DASCHLE AND PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA
FROM: FORT COLLINS, COLORADO, COMMUNITY DISCUSSION GROUP (HOST: BRYAN WILLIAM
SUBJECT: HEALTH CARE REFORM COMMUNITY DISCUSSION GROUP DECEMBER 16, 2008
DATE: DECEMBER 23, 2008
The unanimous consensus of our Discussion Group was that a single-payer universal health care (“S-PUHC”) system such as embodied in H.R. 676 is the only viable solution to reform the current health care system in this country. The Discussion Group (Ron Baker, Michael Beck-Gifford, Sonia Blakely, Julie Caffrey, Kevin Caffrey, Eliza Carney, Irene Fortune, Jim Neubecker, Delores Williams, and Irma Woolen) also concluded:
We applaud the urgency that the Obama-Biden-Daschle Transition Team has identified in addressing the health care issue. This is an issue that must be resolved for everyday Americans and it is key to job creation and retention and economic recovery.
In our view, the biggest problem with the current system is that entrenched, greedy interests such as health insurance companies and medical specialists (who are doing very well under the current system, thank you) are opposed to S-PUHC and they have the money and the lobbyists to fight to retain as much of the status quo as possible. On the other hand, the people, including primary care providers, have little money and do not have lobbyists.
Thus, the Obama-Biden-Daschle Transition Team is our best hope. We know that you “get it.” The problems you describe (in the Guide materials) with the current system (i.e., skyrocketing costs, waste and lack of affordability, lack of availability, lack of portability) are 100% accurate.
But, we also believe, that only when the Transition Team comes to the realization that health care should be a right for every citizen, just like police and fire-protection and that S-PUHC is the only viable solution, will there be any real hope of reforming the system in any meaningful way. Our group unanimously concluded that S-PUHC offers the only solution for the 47 million who have no insurance, for the 65 million who are under-insured and over-priced, and for the other 200 million that live in fear of losing what they now have if they change or lose their jobs or if their employer decides to no longer provide coverage.
We would like to emphasize that we have a system that works: it is called Medicare. If the ideas put forward in the plan President-Elect Obama proposed during the campaign to control costs are implemented, “Medicare for All” (H.R. 676) will resolve the current crisis.
According to ABC/Washington Post 62 percent of Americans favor S-PUHC. Study after study confirms that S-PUHC will be more effective in controlling costs, providing quality health care to all, and supporting jobs creation and economic recovery. We need to quit pretending this is so hard and face up to the fact that finding common ground with some avaricious, entrenched interests may not be possible. Bringing change (especially to Washington) means that those who believe it is not “politically realistic” to pass S-PUHC (Baucus, Kennedy [?], and numerous Republicans), must be the ones to change and to let the people's voices be heard, in the people's interest.
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