Note: This is a copy of NOW's resolution on single payer health care, passed at the 1993 Conference in Boston

SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE

1993

WHEREAS, the current United States health care system cannot offer complete care to all its citizens; and

WHEREAS, the insurance companies charge women disproportionately more in the long term for health care; and

WHEREAS, health insurance companies currently discriminate in coverage of adoptive children by:

1) refusing to cover pre-existing conditions that would automatically be covered if the child were a biological child;

2) refusing to cover birth cost of the adoptive child; and

3) selectively covering an adoptive child on a case-by-case basis; and

WHEREAS, health care is a right not a privilege; and

WHEREAS, large numbers of families, including working families, cannot afford health care coverage as it now exists; and

WHEREAS, women are primary health care givers in their families;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that NOW endorses a single-payer health care program which must cover all women for all aspects of their health care, including, but not limited to;

a) reproductive health care (birth control, pregnancy care -- both prenatal and postnatal, and pregnancy termination and fertility treatment) without parental notification/consent requirements;

b) coverage of all adoptive children, regardless of age, on the same basis as coverage of a child born into a family;

c) diseases that predominately affect women such as chronic fatigue syndrome, endometriosis, and others;

d) a prescription plan that covers birth control and all required drugs and devices;

e) mental health services;

f) adequate home nursing care provided to patients released from the hospital before they are able to care for themselves;

g) elder care for those in the later part of their lives; and

h) long term care for health disorders.