State News Release

McReynolds Opposes Increased Health Care Spending, Calls Instead for Single Payer System to Provide Quality Universal Health Care.

David McReynolds for US Senate
www.mcreynoldsforsenate.org

September 26, 2004

For More Info: David McReynolds, (212) 674-7268; (646) 942-7118
Gloria Mattera (718) 369-2998 or (917) 886-4538

David McReynolds, the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate in New York, today announced his support for universal health care in New York - a full Medicare for All.

"This is not a question of spending more money on health care," stated McReynolds. "We need to get more health care for the money that we are already spending. A single payer system could free up $200 billion nationally, allowing us to provide quality health care to the forty-five million Americans who presently lack health care coverage, while also dealing with the crisis with prescription drugs and long term care."

The National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine estimates that 18,000 25- to 64-year-old Americans die every year as a result of lack of coverage.

Much of the savings from a single payer system will come from cutting the huge amounts of money spent on private health insurance. Some insurance companies soak up thirty cents on every dollar to pay for their paperwork, bureaucracy and profits. Medicare on average spends 2%.

"We need a health care system that will provide quality health care to all while ending corporate profiteering from the health care system," McReynolds added. "We need freedom of choice. Consumers and their doctors need to be in charge of health care decisions, not the insurance companies and HMOs that have been installed as the gatekeepers by Hillary Clinton and the major parties." McReynolds said he would cosponsor the National Health Insurance Bill (HR 676 -Conyers) in the US Senate.

McReynolds said that the recent Medicare deal on prescription drugs was a "consumer rip-off designed to fatten the pockets of the drug companies while killing Medicare as we know it. One of my first acts as Senator will be to introduce legislation to stop it from being implemented." Schumer voted in favor.

The Democratic plan in the national election would still leave tens of millions of Americans without health care coverage while doing little to control runaway health care costs and HMO profits.

McReynolds said that a universal health care system is important for economic development. "American companies are at a major cost disadvantage since our health care costs - for an inferior system ranked only 37th in world system - is much higher than in other industrial countries. High health care costs is a major job killer. It is also a major factor in the high costs that consumers and businesses incur for workmen's comp and auto insurance," he added.

The US spends 15% of its GNP - $5,775 per person in 2003 - on health care costs, while Japan spends 7.6% of its GDP, Australia 8.5%, Holland 8.6% and Canada 9.5%. US costs are 42% higher than in Switzerland, which has the world's second most expensive health care system.

A single-payer health care plan that replaces for-profit, investor-owned health care and removes the private health insurance industry (full Medicare for all) is supported by Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP); American and NYS Nurses Association; the National Association of Social Workers; Associations of Physicians Assistants; National Association of Midwives, American Public Health Association, Church Women United, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, National Council of Senior Citizens, US Public Interest Research Group, and United Steelworkers Union.

A recent survey by the Civil Society Institute founds that seventy-eight percent of Americans support government-regulated health care, and two-thirds said they support a health care "guarantee," like systems in Canada and Great Britain.

"We need a health care system that focuses on keeping us well rather than curing us once we are sick," added McReynolds. "We need to invest in a public health approach that invests in community quality of life issues such as adequate housing, nutrition and environmental measures. We need to support alternative approaches to medicine and provide for a range of services including mental health and substance abuse."