Groups plan protest at AHIP meeting

United States National Health Service: How to pay for it.
1. A 50% Federal income tax on the top 5% of incomes. No Federal income tax on everyone below this (seriously, none).
2. A national 15% Value Added Tax (on 90% of goods and services).

Steps 1+2 - yields $2040 billion/year beyond current tax receipts (or $1140 billion more, AFTER paying the estimated $900 billion/year the US-NHS would cost to run).

Also, the illegal aliens (that currently get free everything) would also be paying the 15% VAT.

- based on 2007 information

The well off may end up paying higher taxes, but it's much better than facing the firing squad.

Also, the insurance companies have NO place at the table: they are the whole of the problem.

Make than $1040 billion *before* the US-NHS funding is taken out. The surplus would be about $250 billion (not $1140) after fully funding the US-NHS. Mea culpa.

A new study shows that SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE REFORM WOULD BE A MAJOR STIMULUS FOR THE US ECONOMY and would provide:

** 2.6 Million New Jobs,
** $317 Billion in Business Revenue,
** $100 Billion in Wages, and
** $44 Billion New Tax Revenues

Here’s the study: www.calnurses.org

Here is a clear definition of Single Payer healthcare:

Single payer health insurance is a system by which the health care expenditures of an entire population are paid for through one source. 



Distinctly different from socialized medicine (where the government owns and operates health care facilities) a “single payer system” is simply a financing mechanism.The government collects and allocates money for health care but has little to no involvement in the actual delivery of services. Care is provided privately at hospitals and clinics but paid for publicly.

It’s clear that single-payer is the solution, not only in terms of providing quality care for all, but also economically!

Two main arguments for single-payer healthcare:

THE MORAL ETHICAL ARGUMENT

Health insurance companies make their profit by denying health care to sick people. That is immoral and unethical.

THE ECONOMIC ARGUMENT

Our current system of for-profit corporate health insurance has created an unbearable national economic burden. Over 1500 separate insurance companies operate under different rules creating 30 % administrative overhead-- Medicare overhead is only 2%.

By converting to a single payer system, we immediately save 300 billion dollars.

We pay twice what other countries pay for healthcare, yet 50 million Americans have no healthcare coverage and 87 million were without health insurance in the past 2 years. Half of bankruptcies are due to medical bills.

Despite what we pay, the US ranks LAST of 19 industrialized nations in preventable deaths, and 29th of 37 in infant mortality. The World Health Organization ranks the US at 72nd for healthcare accessibility and efficiency. We can no longer maintain the status quo for the ways we currently provide and pay for health care.

WHY WE DON'T HAVE SINGLE PAYER NOW

These two arguments in favor of a single payer heath insurance system (moral and economic) are so compelling, that one must conclude the only reason we don't have single payer now is because of lack of representative government. The obvious conclusion is that our government does not serve the people who elected them. Rather, our elected government officials serve the special interests of the health insurance industry and other corporations who make massive campaign contributions.

ASK your Senators to support S 703, The American Health Security Act.

ASK your Representative to support HR 676, The United States National Health Insurance Act.