Issues Briefing
The U.S. National
Health Insurance Act (HR 676)
We already pay for national healthcare — we just don't get it!
BACKGROUND
The profit-driven U.S. healthcare "system" is broken beyond repair. Healthcare in the U.S. has for decades been based on private insurance provided by employers, but as the costs skyrocket, employers are abandoning this responsibility, sticking workers with the bill.
Union members have managed to defend themselves better than non-union workers, but the fight becomes harder for unions in each succeeding round of contract negotiations.
More than 47 million people have no health insurance at all, and tens of millions more have insurance in name only.
Profits for private health insurance companies, private hospital chains, and drug manufacturers are obscenely high, and these industries are among the biggest political spenders, both on lobbying and campaign contributions. The goal of all that money is to keep genuine healthcare reform off the political agenda, so that the profit stream keeps flowing.
In the past few years, we've seen politicians at both the state and federal level offer plans they call "univeral healthcare." But most of these are really schemes to force working people to buy health coverage from the same profit-bloated insurance companies who are a major cause of the crisis.
The real solution to the healthcare crisis is now before Congress. Reps. John Conyers (D-MI) and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) in 2007 again introduced the U.S. National Health Insurance Act/Medicare for All (HR 676.) This bill would remove private for-profit insurance companies from healthcare, and create instead a single-payer system caovering everyone at far lower cost.
CURRENT STATUS
Re-introduction of the U.S. National Health Insurance Act/Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act (HR676) in the 110th Congress has helped unify people fighting for a real health care solution. This legislation currently has 87 co-sponsors. There is, as yet, no companion bill in the Senate.
UE POSITION
Our union has called for national health insurance for many decades. We support a national "single-payer" plan that would eliminate private health insurance companies altogether. The new national healthcare agency would be the "single-payer" of medical and hospital bills. Everyone in our country would be covered, regardless of employment status or age. The funds for the new system would come from a payroll tax on employers, and small out-of pocket contributions by individuals. Medicare already exists as a model "single payer" plan, covering all senior citizens.
FAST FACTS
- In the U.S., 47 million people lack health insurance altogether.
- More than 75 million people are without health coverage for some period each year.
- Millions of working people simply cannot afford health insurance premiums.
- Medicare, a single-payer plan, covers millions of seniors at a 2 percent administrative cost.
- Private insurers waste over 30 cents of every healthcare dollar on profits, advertising, duplication of services, and sky-high pay for executives.
- Catastrophic medical bills account for a majority of personal bankruptcy filings.
- Every industrialized country except the U.S. provides for some kind of national healthcare.
- Healthcare spending per capita in the U.S. is approximately double that of most other industrialized countries, and escalates at three to four times the rate of inflation.
- The U.S. spends over $7,000 per person each year on profit-driven healthcare. Canada spends about half that for its single-payer system, yet manages to cover everyone. Canadians on average live two to three years longer than Americans.
- Forcing the uninsured to buy private insurance only delivers even higher profits to the insurance companies.