What is Single-payer health care anyway?

Here is the definition of single-payer health care from Physicians for National Health Program:

"Single-payer national health insurance is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private.

Under a single-payer system, all Americans would be covered for all medically necessary services, including: doctor, hospital, long-term care, mental health, dental vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs. Patients would regain free choice of doctor and hospital, and doctors would regain autonomy over patient care."

Is national health insurance “socialized medicine”?

"No. Socialized medicine is a system in which doctors and hospitals work for the government and draw salaries from the government. Doctors in the Veterans Administration and the Armed Services are paid this way. Most European countries, Canada, Australia and Japan, have socialized financing, or socialized health insurance, not socialized medicine. The government pays for care that is delivered in the private (mostly not-for-profit) sector. This is similar to how Medicare works in this country. Doctors are in private practice and are paid on a fee-for-service basis from government funds. The government does not own or manage their medical practices or hospitals."

Minnesota: SCAM! Your Tax Dollars and the HMOs

Pulse of the Twin Cities - Locally Grown Alternative Newspaper
This link takes you to an article by Kip Sullivan about the need to deprivatize the public programs covering the poor's medical care.

Put All Public Employees in One Big Pool

Here is an article from the Pioneer Press on the recent Minnesota legislative proposal for all public school teachers to be in one state wide pool. I want to throw out two extensions of that concept for consideration.
1. Why not combine ALL public employees in one huge pool? That would be all public school, county, city and state employees.
2. The idea of creating more negotiating power with the insurance companies isn't going to work, (they will still control cost and services). So, why not take such a large pool of people and put them in a single payer system controlled by the state and thus save the money that goes to the middle man? If too many are paranoid about the state's ability to do it, then create a single payer consortium modeled after the successful County Based purchasing organizations or, as a last resort, bid it out to one private vendor.

Craig Brooks

Profit for Some or Care for All

Here's a quote from Diane Archer of ThomasPaine.com. Click on the link below to read the full text.

"The health insurance industry is full of surprises, but history and
experience show that insurers will never surprise us with a good, affordable
health care system for America. Two dirty little secrets about the insurance
industry reveal why offering Americans a publicly administered alternative
such as Medicare is the only way to guarantee Americans good, affordable
health care," says Diane Archer.


http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/022807HA.shtml

Who We Are

Hello. You have found the web site of the newly organized grassroots group of citizens concerned about the current state of health care in the U.S.

Our title includes the term "Great Northern States" in honor of the past tradition of Minnesota and Wisconsin of moving our country toward social change that benefits all citizens.

What We Stand For

Our organization uses the following to evaluate any proposal for change in the existing arrangements for health care:

Whereas, it is the role and function of government to see that all have access to necessary health care, we support reform and funding of a health care system that guarantees:

1. all residents access to quality, comprehensive health care explicitly defined as a human right.

As medically necessary care is a human right, the term "Charity care" for those who cannot pay for medical services should be considered antiquated in any humane society.

2. that the pursuit of corporate profit and personal fortune has no place in health care decisions.

Public policy decisions on health care legislation and regulations must be based on acceptance of the social contract that treats health care as a right, not a commodity. In a democracy, the public should set health policies and budgets.

3. that care and treatment decisions by doctors and other health care professionals are based on professional judgments as to the best interests of the patient, in no way influenced by insurance and payment circumstances.

4. that personal medical decisions are made by patients with their caregivers, not by corporate or government bureaucrats

5. that financial barriers to appropriate and necessary medical care are eliminated.

6. patients have the freedom to choose their health care professionals.

7. the establishment of serious, effective and enduring cost-containment measures. This may dictate that duplication of services and equipment be eliminated in some regions. Measures to severely punish corporate fraud in billing for medical services must be instituted and enforced.

8. a simple, clear, easy-to-understand system of health care that is efficient to administer and allows no room for any part of the system to pass the buck, denying services to those in need of medically necessary care.

Come to our First Event

Saturday, March 10: The Healthcare Mess and How To Fix It

Kip Sullivan, author of the "The Health Care Mess: How We Got Into It and How We’ll Get Out of It," is the guest speaker of our first presentation. Mr. Sullivan has been teaching and writing about the American health-care crisis since 1986. He will share with us some of his research and his ideas of how to fix the health care problem in this country.

There will be two venues for this presentation:

In La Crosse at the LaCrosse Public Library, 10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

In Winona at the Science Lab Center Auditorium in Stark Hall at the Winona State University, 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

There will be time for questions and a discussion following the presentation about what we can do.