The Time for Single-Payer, Universal Health Care Coverage is Now!

Statement by Olga Vives, Action Vice President, National Organization for Women

May 22, 2004

My name is Olga Vives and I am Vice President for Action with the National Organization for Women (NOW), the country's oldest and largest feminist grassroots organization representing more than 500,000 members and contributing supporters. We support the call by the Older Women's League (OWL) today for a single-payer health care system - much like Canada's - as the best way to assure that midlife and older women are provided the care that they deserve. A single-payer system, essentially, would be an expanded and improved Medicare program where all individuals would be covered for all necessary medical care.

Since 1993, NOW has supported a position in favor of a single-payer form of health insurance coverage for everyone in the United States. The resolution adopted by our membership emphasizes the concept of health care as a "right" and not a privilege. Surely, the richest, most technologically-advanced nation in the world can afford to recognize and guarantee access to medical care as a necessity and a fundamental human right. A majority of the public in opinion polls analyzed recently at the University of California, Los Angeles shows that 62% of those surveyed agree with us.

The situation with regard to medical care for all ages in the U.S. has grown dramatically worse since the early 1990's when the Clinton administration attempted to revamp our patchwork system, but failed when a massive opposition PR campaign was mounted by insurance companies and provider organizations. More than 75 million persons (nearly 28% of the total U.S. population!) were without health care coverage at some point during 2001 and 2002. That is a shameful fact. Because of this, each year 18,000 people die prematurely and eight million persons with chronic illnesses become sicker because they lack health insurance.

We have heard today how deficiencies and failures in government and private insurance programs lead to gaps in health care provision for midlife and older women. NOW would like to point out that our unfair and expensive current system results in:

• disproportionately higher costs for women for long term care insurance;
• discrimination in coverage for reproductive health care;
• biases in research that neglect biological differences between men and women;
• sex-stereotyped discrimination meaning poorer quality medical care for women;
• denial of certain services to poor women - particularly reproductive health care;
• under-funding and lack of insurance coverage for mental health care services,
• a severe fiscal squeeze on Medicaid and State Child Health Programs threatening poor working families; and
• profound changes to the Medicare program that may spell the end of guaranteed health insurance for persons over age 65.

In the U.S., we spend more than twice as much on health care as the average of other developed nations with universal coverage—about $1.8 trillion a year and yet do not cover 43.6 million persons. The question is asked "Can we afford to cover the uninsured?" Excessive costs due to paperwork and overhead by private insurers total nearly three times that needed in administering the government Medicare program. Estimates are that $200 billion annually could be cut by eliminating high overhead costs and profits of the private, investor-owned insurance industry and reducing spending for marketing and allied services. Other savings could be realized through relieving providers of the more than $35 billion in unpaid bills now borne mainly by taxpayers. Significant savings could be realized through freeing-up doctors and providers from time-consuming paperwork so that they can actually practice medicine.

Finally, instead of the disastrous tax cuts for the well-to-do that are endangering our future economic well-being and of the massive military build-up to support adventurous wars with no stated clear purpose, it is time for this administration and this Congress to address the needs of the people of the United States. That means meeting our basic intrinsic needs of health care, education, housing and a living wage. Yes, we certainly can afford to provide health care coverage for everyone if we have the political will to do it! We call on the Congress, the Bush administration, and Senator Kerry to make universal health care coverage a major theme of the public debates this year.