Single-Payer Healthcare: Medical Insurance For All

In 1948—60 years ago—President Harry S Truman asked Congress to provide national health insurance for every American. America is still waiting.

Today, approximately 46 million Americans have no health insurance. More than one-third of them live in households with family incomes of $40,000 or more, showing that the crisis affects the middle class as well as poor families. Ed O'Reilly believes every American should have access to affordable, quality healthcare.

When Harry Truman proposed a national health insurance system, public opinion was on his side: 75% of Americans favored national health insurance in 1945.1

A 2007 New York Times/CBS poll2 revealed that two-thirds of people surveyed want the federal government to guarantee health coverage for all Americans.

A January 2008 Pew poll3 shows 65% of Democrats and 58% of Independents favor government health insurance for the uninsured.

Ed O'Reilly agrees. He stands by the principles and policies of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, which is committed to a single-payer healthcare system.

There's no question that a situation in which 46 million Americans are without healthcare and millions of others are under-insured is a crisis. The healthcare crisis is driving families into bankruptcy and undermining the ability of American businesses to compete.

Ed O'Reilly supports Representative John Conyers' bill, the National Health Insurance Act (H.R. 676), and would file accompanying legislation in the Senate.

The Conyers bill expands and improves the existing Medicare system, replacing private insurers and recouping administrative savings of up to $300 billion per year. It would establish a streamlined, nonprofit national health insurance program to negotiate drug and treatment costs. Medical care would be privately delivered by healers and hospitals, but publicly financed.

H.R. 676 covers "all medically necessary services, including: primary care and prevention; inpatient care; outpatient care; emergency care; prescription drugs; durable medical equipment; long term care; mental health services; dental services (other than cosmetic dentistry); substance abuse treatment services; chiropractic services; basic vision care and vision correction (other than laser vision correction for cosmetic purposes); and hearing services, (including hearing aids)."

Single-payer is government insurance, not government health care. For example, physicians will still have private practices. Their billing will be done to one public agency that pays for all medically-necessary services.

Because for-profit insurers dominate U.S. healthcare, our system has the highest per capita cost—double any other nation's—and provides one of the poorest performances (37th in terms of quality) according to the World Health Organization.

Ed O'Reilly believes our country has to fund healthcare publicly—the way we fund other services integral to the common good, such as firefighters, police, and roads. That's how our European and Japanese economic competitors do it. In the U.S., too often it's small businesses and their employees that are picking up the tab for healthcare. Single-payer health care will put American businesses on a level playing field with our international competitors.

A survey last year by the Kaiser Family Foundation4 found that the average annual premium for private health insurance was $4,479 for an individual and $12,106 for a family.

As Paul Krugman points out5: "The taxes that would support single-payer aren't a true cost, because they would simply replace premiums and in most cases be lower than those premiums."

The Massachusetts Nurses Association advocates single-payer in the Commonwealth, and the Conyers bill has the support of a long list of labor unions, including the Massachusetts UAW, IBEW Locals 2324 (Springfield, Massachusetts), 2321 (North Andover, Massachusetts), 2313 (Hanover, Massachusetts) and 2222 (Boston, Massachusetts). These Massachusetts unions all want single-payer healthcare.

Ed O'Reilly—a former Watertown firefighter and union member—stands in solidarity with union members and social-justice organizations fighting for a rational, decent healthcare system.

Ed O'Reilly's commitment to single-payer health care is one of the reasons he won the endorsement of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA)6. With their "Healthcare Not Warfare" campaign, PDA members nationwide are fighting for a streamlined, nonprofit national health insurance. The Ed O'Reilly campaign is part of that fight.