Guaranteed Healthcare

President Obama and congressional leaders have arrived at one early conclusion for health reform: single payer proposals are off the table. Despite single payer bills pending in Congress and state legislatures, and opinion polls showing significant support from the public as well as doctors and nurses, a serious discussion of a single payer model has not taken place. NESRI’s new human rights analysis of single payer plans seeks to encourage such a discussion, and shows why single-payer plans are superior to market-based proposals in moving us closer to a health care system based on human rights.

Read the human rights assessment of single payer plans here:

http://www.nesri.org/Single_Payer_Human_Rights_Analysis.pdf

As we are approaching May 30th, the national action day for improved Medicare for all, decisionmakers in Washington are promoting yet another unsustainable mix of fragmented, market-based reform measures that fail to meet human rights standards. Their refusal to even consider proposals for a national health plan that would move us closer to a universal, equitable and accountable system is unconscionable.  

To shed a light on the contribution a single payer approach can make to realizing our human right to health care, the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) has released an in-depth analysis of four single payer bills currently pending in Congress and state legislatures. The assessment measures the bills against human rights standards and finds that single payer plans meet many of those standards. They guarantee comprehensive, quality health coverage for all, financed in an equitable and cost-effective way, and increase responsiveness to health needs. The assessment concludes that a single payer approach offers a serious opportunity for a much more sustainable and accountable reform of health care than any of the current alternatives.    

This new analysis complements a mountain of existing evidence and numerous opinion polls – all of which demonstrate that single payer approaches must be considered in any health reform effort. In the absence of such consideration, human right to health care activists continue a long and proud tradition of struggles for our rights. This includes courageous acts of civil disobedience, such as the recent protests in the Senate Finance Committee. And as one of the protesters, Dr. Margaret Flowers of PNHP Maryland, said, “we have entered a new phase in the movement for health care as a human right: acts of civil disobedience. It is time to directly challenge corporate interests. History has shown that in order to gain human rights, we must be willing to speak out and risk arrest.”

Read the human rights assessment of single payer plans here: http://www.nesri.org/Single_Payer_Human_Rights_Analysis.pdf