1. It’s too expensive: Insurance rates have increased 73% since 2000, forcing employers to cut or eliminate health benefits. Many workers have to forego coverage because they can’t afford the high prices.

2. It’s wasteful: 30 cents of every healthcare dollar goes towards paperwork, not actual care. That’s because there are over 1,000 insurance companies, each with hundreds of different health plans, different rules and different reimbursement methods. Doctor’s offices and hospitals have to hire more clerical workers than nurses in order to deal with all the complex paperwork. Simply put, America’s current healthcare system is convoluted and wasteful.

3. We’re not as healthy as we could be. We spend more on healthcare than any other industrialized nation on earth ($2.16 billion in 2006) – that’s 16% of all the U.S. goods and services produced, yet facts shows that America lags behind other developed nations in terms of overall health. For example, a greater percentage of babies die during their first year of life in the United States than in Great Britain, Canada, Australia and 25 other countries.

We can fix our healthcare system by adopting Improved Medicare For All (also called Single-Payer National Health Insurance. Congressional Bill #HR676).

Improved Medicare For All will be financed in several ways:

1) Current federal and state funding of existing health programs will be maintained.

2) A modest payroll tax of 4.7% on all employers and employees. This includes the 1.4% you are already paying for Medicare. For 95% of the population, this tax will be far less than what we currently pay for health coverage. Today, the average worker pays 24% of the cost of his/her health insurance premiums.

3) A 5% health tax on the top 5% of income earners and a 10% tax on the top 1% of income earners.

4) A one-tenth of 1% tax on stock and bond transfers and repealing the tax cut for the highest 1% of income earners.

No. Improved Medicare For All is NOT socialized medicine. With a socialized medicine system, doctors are government employees and hospitals are owned by the government. With Improved Medicare For All, doctors remain independent and hospitals continue to be run by private, non-profit charitable groups (e.g. Sisters of Mercy). Doctors in private practice will remain in private practice. You will choose your own doctors and competition among providers will be increased, as you, not an insurance company, decided where to get care.

The difference is that providers will only have to send their claims to one place to get paid – the National Health Insurance Program (that’s what we mean by Single Payer), instead of thousands of different insurance companies.

IMPROVED Medicare For All will actually be better than today’s Medicare, which requires premiums, deductibles, co-insurance and under HMO’s limited choice of physicians. With Improved Medicare For All, there will no such charges and you can go to any doctor you choose. Doctors will negotiate a fair payment with the National Health Insurance Program and will no longer have to manage a system of multiple forms, payers and denials. Also, Improved Medicare will cover more services than current Medicare, such as dental, most chiropractic care, mental healthcare, prescription drugs and long-term care. Improved Medicare will also expand the scope of current benefits, particularly in nursing care, home health care and physical therapy.

For-profit health insurance companies will no longer be needed. Their employees – nurses, actuaries, clerical workers – will be eligible for retraining and first preference for jobs in the new system.

I have good health benefits through my union. Will I lose them with Improved Medicare For All?

No. Improved Medicare For All will protect your benefits and may improve them. Today, union members are losing health benefits and/or giving up wages as the cost of healthcare skyrockets.

Yes, prescription drugs will be covered under Improved Medicare For All at no extra cost. Drugs will cost less than they do now because the government will use its tremendous buying power to negotiate lower prices with drug companies.