HCAO response to Supreme Court ruling on ACA mandate

Health Care for All—Oregon, 28.06.2012 17:05

The following press release is forwarded by Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice. It can also be seen at this website  http://www.singlepayeroregon.org

June 28, 2012
For immediate release
Contact: Joanne Cvar, Chair HCAO Communications  cvar@peak.org 541 563 3615
Mike Huntington, MD, HCAO president;  mchuntington@comcast.net, 541-745-5635 (H) 541 829 1182 (C)

HCAO response to Supreme Court ruling on ACA mandate
Health Care for All Oregon welcomes the survival of important patient protections and rights under today’s Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act. These protections include the ban on refusal of coverage for pre-existing conditions, the required full coverage of limited basic primary care, and the extension of coverage of adult children under parental insurance through age 25. These elements move the human right to health care in the U.S. forward.

A strength of the ACA was the effort to guarantee access to health care through Medicaid to the lowest-income workers not already eligible. That guarantee has now been turned into a struggle to be fought state-by-state. This deplorable blow to low income working families weakens the extension of the principle of social insurance in health care. It reinforces the need for a system that truly secures the human right to health care for everyone.

The ACA remains inadequate. The Act categorically excludes millions of undocumented persons and will leave over 25 million persons in the U.S. uninsured. The system of private insurance continues to collapse, imposing on families a rising requirement to pay more for less. The rapid spread of high deductibles and high co-pays will lead to continued self-rationing, expensive delayed care, and continued widespread medical bankruptcy.

The ACA creates no effective mechanism for shifting care priorities to health promotion, primary care and prevention, nor for reforming perverse incentives in provider compensation. It perpetuates massive avoidable administrative waste and fragmentation of the system. Meanwhile, Medicaid, Medicare and the ACA itself remain under political attack.

Ultimately, the ACA fails to resolve the health care access and costs crises. It does not secure the human right to health care, which can only be guaranteed through a massive social movement. While welcoming the survival of patient rights and expanded access under the Affordable Care Act, Health Care for All Oregon continues to advocate for a truly universal publicly funded system that guarantees the fundamental right to health care to everyone living in the United States. Everybody In, Nobody Out!


BACK GROUND INFORMTATION
Health Care for All-Oregon is a coalition of 50 member organizations working together to mobilize a statewide movement for an equitable, comprehensive, publicly funded, high quality universal health care system serving everyone in Oregon and the United States.

For more information, contact:
Mike Huntington, MD, HCAO president;  mchuntington@comcast.net, 541-745-5635 (H) 541 829 1182 (C)
Michael Moore, HCAO vice-president;  moore.michael.m@gmail.com, 503-707-1239
Christopher Lowe, chair, HCAO legislative committee,  clowe@igc.org 503-915-4100
Samuel Metz, MD, Portland Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, founding member of Mad As Hell Doctors.  S@samuelmetz.com 503.754.1329

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The Worst Possible Outcome 28.06.2012 - 17:09 Institute for Public Accuracy 980 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045 (202) 347-0020 *  http://www.accuracy.org *  ipa@accuracy.org ___________________________________________________ Thursday, June 28, 2012 Roberts Upholds "Obamacare": Corportists United? CLARK NEWHALL, [SMS text messaging best],  clark.newhall@health-justice.org,  http://www.health-justice.org,  https://twitter.com/cnewhall Executive director of Health Justice, Newhall is a doctor and a lawyer. He said today: "Interestingly, it was Roberts who voted to save 0bamacare from going down in flames. ... The divide is not between liberal and conservative so much as it is between corporatists and everyone else. The current system is in effect a subsidy to the heath insurance industry. We should instead move to get rid of that industry, it is simply not sustainable. The individual mandate has been ruled constitutional as a tax. What that means essentially is that 0bama and Congress could require every American to buy a lousy product at an inflated price." STEFFIE WOODHANDLER,  swoolhandler@challiance.org DAVID HIMMELSTEIN, M.D.,  david_himmelstein@hms.harvard.edu also, via Mark Almberg,  mark@pnhp.org, http://pnhp.org Woolhandler and Himmelstein are professors of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-founders of Physicians for a National Health Program. The group released a statement today: "Although the Supreme Court has upheld the Affordable Care Act, the unfortunate reality is that the law, despite its modest benefits, is not a remedy to our health care crisis: (1) it will not achieve universal coverage, as it leaves at least 26 million uninsured, (2) it will not make health care affordable to Americans with insurance, because of high co-pays and gaps in coverage that leave patients vulnerable to financial ruin in the event of serious illness, and (3) it will not control costs. ..." GWENDOLYN MINK,  wendymink@gmail.com,  http://feministsocialjustice.blogspot.com Available for a limited number of interviews, Mink is co-editor of the two-volume "Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics and Policy" and author of "Welfare's End." She said today: "The Court's cramped view of Medicaid expansion means that low income people will bear the individual mandate 'tax' disproportionately. Upholding the requirement that individuals buy private insurance while allowing states to opt out of Medicaid expansion is the worst possible outcome. Achieving universal coverage by compelling low income Americans to purchase private insurance may beef up health industry profits but at the expense of people most in need of health care for all." MARGARET FLOWERS, M.D.,  mdpnhp@gmail.com Flowers is congressional fellow with Physicians for a National Health Program. She said today meaningful reform would be to expand Medicare to everyone in the U.S., in effect dropping two words, "over 65." She added that much of discussion around Obamacare has been political posturing, that Romney and Obama agreed on basically the same system, mandating people to buy private insurance rather than provide public healthcare. RUSSELL MOKHIBER,  russellmokhiber@gmail.com,  http://www.singlepayeraction.org Mokhiber is founder of Single Payer Action and editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter. Mokhiber and 50 doctors filed a brief with the Supreme Court asking them "to strike down the individual mandate that forces people to buy lousy private health insurance. We reject Obamacare and Romneycare." NANCY ALTMAN,  njalt@aol.com,  http://StrengthenSocialSecurity.org Altman is co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign. She recently co-wrote a piece about implications for the mandate ruling by the Supreme Court. Wrote Altman: "The individual mandate, the focus of the right-wing attack ... was originally proposed by the very conservative Heritage Foundation in 1989; it was introduced into Congress by the late Republican Senator John Chafee (R-RI) in 1993, with such conservative co-sponsors as Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA). ... "If the individual mandate is declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, then so are the radical right's plots to undermine Medicare and replace it with Voucher-Care. "Or, consider the radical right's ambition for Social Security. They want to privatize it, i.e., have the payroll tax contributions that currently go to the Trust Funds, instead flow into private, individual accounts, earning interest from private banks and/or invested in private stocks and bonds that, the proponents concede, must be limited to minimize capital risk. Again, as with Voucher-Care, this would have to be mandated so the money is unavailable to the owner until age 65, and then paid out in monthly amounts. How is this not an individual mandate? "Thus, both the Ryan plan for Voucher-Care, and the radical right's ambition to privatize Social Security depend on individual mandates."  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-abrams/has-obama-snookered-scotus_b_1622620.html For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 _________________________________________________________________ passing it along> Homepage:: http:// Thanks for share 11.10.2012 - 04:01 Screw Oil Press  http://www.seedoilpress.com/product/oil_press/screw_oil_press.html :) Thanks for share. Screw Oil Press> Homepage:: http:// Oil Refining Machine 25.10.2012 - 07:23 Oil Refining Machine  http://www.seedoilpress.com/product/oil_press/Oil_Refining_Machine.html Thanks for sharing this. 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