SICKO: Green Party speakers release positions on single payer
health care
Desert Greens/Green Party of Utah
www.GPUT.org
www.desertgreens.org
June 29, 2007
Contact information: Eileen McCabe, 801-201-0219,
gpu@gput.org
Salt Lake City -- Green Party of Utah member joins in national
statement on health care issues
Michael Moore's new documentary, SICKO, is releasing nationwide today.
The Green Party is the only political party with candidates that support universal single payer health care. The Green Party of the
United States Speakers Bureau on Health Care has provided quotes from speakers on what looks to be one of the hottest issues of the 2008
campaign season:
"It is a crime that the U.S. is the only industrialized nation that
does not guarantee access to health care as a right of citizenship. The U.S. must implement a universal single payer health care system
which will provide this basic right to our citizens and take the control of Americans' health out of the hands of the corporations."
"The recently published statistics about the rising rate of poverty in
Utah exposes the proof of a dire need for universal single payer health care in Utah and in the
U.S."
-- Deanna Taylor, Desert Greens Green Party of Utah and 2006 Green Party candidate for Salt Lake County Council
(www.deannataylor.org).
Taylor will be attending the Annual Green Party National Meeting in Reading, PA July 12-15.
"We now have at least four tiers of health care in our multi-payer,
micro-managed health insurance system. These tiers not only wastefully
duplicate administrative costs that could be spent on care. They are really health care "castes," which
cruelly define the relative worth of Americans among their fellows. That's most un-American."
-- Justine McCabe, Ph.D., Co-Chair, Green Party International Committee
"We've long been in a state of health care crisis and the individual
states need to lead the way because the federal government has not provided the leadership. In Portland, Maine the insurance companies
outspent citizens' groups a hundred to one to try and stop a citizens'
straw poll referendum supporting a single payer system -- We citizens still won."
-- John Eder, Member, Maine House of Representatives 2002-2006
"In the global economy it's becoming increasingly harder for
businesses to compete when every other industrialized nation in the world has universal health care. Universal single payer health care
will provide health care more effectively, more efficiently and for less money."
-- Pat LaMarche, 2006 Green Party candidate for Governor of Maine and 2004 Green Party
Vice-Presidential candidate (read more about Pat's comprehensive health care plan for Maine at
http://www.pat2006.com/issues/healthcare/)
"As a result of inefficiencies and greed of the health insurance
industry, roughly 30 cents out of every health care dollar goes for things other than health care. The cost of this flawed approach
continues to soar higher and higher and cannot be maintained. To meet the health care needs of its population in a cost-effective and
sustainable manner, the U.S. must adopt the single-payer approach - private health care with public financing."
-- Ron Forthofer, Ph.D., 2002 Green Party candidate for Governor of Colorado
"The present system of employer-based, private insurance driven health
care is keeping Americans from reaching many of their personal and economic potentials. Children are starting public school having never
seen a dentist or a personal health care provider. An unhealthy person
cannot pursue happiness, cannot enjoy liberty, and may not live a quality of life that
reflects a great nation that means to model for all people what a free society achieves. Let us be fair and share
our tremendous wealth at least to the extent that everyone has access to good health, nutrition education and opportunity."
-- Nelson Eisman, 2006 Green Party candidate for Governor of Wisconsin
To book a speaker contact:
Ann Link eastst@hotmail.com 347-226-1195; Starlene Rankin
starlene@gp.org 916-995-3805; Drew Johnson JamBoi@Greens.org
Green Party Speakers Bureau
http://www.gp.org/speakers/
"Green for a Change": 2007 Green Party Annual National Meeting
Reading, PA, July 12-15
http://www.gp.org/meeting2007/
More information: Eileen McCabe, 801-201-0219, gpu@gput.org,
www.desertgreens.org