We have filed an initiative that we believe will help the economy and the residents of Washington. We need your support in order to:
• Obtaining 325,000 signatures.
• Financing these initiatives. Please assist us by Forwarding this e-mail or send the information to the members of your organization.
• At a minimum would we ask that you consider endorsing either or both of these initiatives?
This initiative provides every resident in the State of Washington with full medical coverage.
Website is http://home.comcast.net/~healthcareinitiative/site/?/blog/
AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE IS NOT AN OPTION
Inadequate access to a regular source of care has caused uninsured patients to seek treatment in emergency facilities for conditions that could have been treated more appropriately in a nonemergency setting. Emergency departments and trauma centers face growing financial losses for uncompensated care. The burden for providing uncompensated care falls disproportionately on a minority of public hospitals in Washington, many of which are in serious financial trouble.
Currently, we are paying for four types of medical coverage which are:
(i) Medicare.
(ii) Medicaid.
(iii) Workers' compensation.
(iv) Private or personal medical insurance.
HOW WILL WE PAY FOR THIS?
We begin by using the money allocated to Worker's Compensation and eliminate the private insurance companies that seek to deny and cap medical claims in the interest of profit. The insurance companies keep 50% of the premiums for commissions, overhead and profit. With the average insurance premium at $4,700 per year, $2,350 is the amount that is spent on medical care and we have eliminated $2,350 in overhead.
Since the average amount spent on medical procedures is $2,350 and the average family pays approximately $2,800 in Workers Compensation and Medicare we are off to a good start. This will pay for medical insurance for 53% of our working population. The other 47% is retired, under 18 or unemployed. Now to insure the remainder of our residents.
Every working person in our state will pay into the affordable health insurance program. At minimum wage the amount might be 5-cents per hour and on up based upon a person's wages. Why is this important? As it stands right now, small business account for over 50% of our non-farm employment. With the high cost of insurance premiums, the majority of small business cannot afford to offer medical insurance. At the same time, the private citizens cannot afford insurance. In this scenario, millions of people that previously had no medical insurance will be paying into the healthcare system. In addition, they will now be eligible to be seen at the local clinics which might charge $50 per visit versus the cost of being seen in the emergency rooms which goes into the thousands of dollars.
With this system, people continue to choose their physicians, doctors' clinics, and hospitals as they always have. The major differences are:
1. Reducing the overhead by combining several government programs.
2. Simplifying the administration.
3. Creating streamlined billing process which will save millions of dollars in overhead and allow more dollars to be spent on medical treatments.
4. Achieving bulk purchase discounts on pharmaceuticals and medical equipment.
5. Reduce the use of emergency facilities for primary care.
We are competing in a global society and, as it is right now, businesses are at an economic disadvantage, because their health costs are so much higher than in other countries. With the current sad state of the economy, and the need to be competitive in the global economy, this could be a tremendous boost to the industries of Washington state. Health care spending continues to grow much faster than the economy, and efforts to control health care costs and the growth of health care spending have been unsuccessful. On average, the United States spends more than twice as much as all other industrial nations on health care, both per person and as a percentage of its gross domestic product.
Consumers can no longer rely on traditional health care coverage due to a continuous decline of employer-offered coverage, unstable employment trends, and uncontrolled increases in the amount of premiums and cost sharing, and increases in benefit gaps. As a result, one-half of all bankruptcies in the United States
now relate to medical costs, though three-fourths of bankrupted families had health care coverage at the time of sustaining the injury or illness.
Health insurance companies have no business motive to provide comprehensive and affordable health care coverage to residents who are likely to require health care services, including seniors, disabled residents, residents with or at risk of developing a chronic illness, and women of child-bearing age. Health care quality is rapidly declining, and the United States institute of medicine has declared an epidemic of substandard health care throughout the nation. The world health organization ranks the United States below all other industrial nations and 37th overall in population-based health outcomes.
Multiple quantitative analyses indicate that, under a single payer health insurance system, the amount currently spent for health care is more than adequate to finance comprehensive high-quality health care coverage for every resident of the state while guaranteeing the right of every resident to choose his or her own physician.
Join Citizens for Affordable Healthcare: for contributions, please make checks payable to:
Citizens for Affordable Healthcare
14416 168th Street, Orting, WA 98360
If you have any questions, please feel free to call us at 253.241.9634
Jim Vaughn