Green Party

Green Party Universal Health Care Platform with comment
Open letter to Michael Moore 7/10/2007

Green Party Universal Health Care Platform

As from their web site on 3/3/2008

(bolding was added)

The Green Party Universal Health Care platform is section F, part 1, if their Social Justice Platform.

The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world without a national health care system. The current system’s high costs and widely recognized failures demand that bold steps be taken. The Green Party supports a universal, comprehensive, national single-payer health insurance program as the only solution to the current disastrous for-profit system.

Under a universal national single-payer health care system, the administrative waste of private insurance corporations would be redirected to patient care. If the U.S. were to shift to a system of universal coverage and a single payer plan, as in Canada, the savings in administrative costs would be more than enough to offset the cost. Expenses for businesses currently providing coverage would be reduced. State and local governments would pay less because they would receive reimbursement for services provided to the previously uninsured, and because public programs would cease to be the “dumping ground” for high-risk patients and those rejected by HMOs when they become disabled and unemployed.

Most importantly, the people of America will gain the peace of mind in knowing that needed health care will always be available to them. No longer will people have to worry about facing financial disaster if they become seriously ill, are laid off their jobs, or are injured in an accident.

Bob: I experienced this peace mind in Canada during my 4.5 years there by seeing it in the peace, comfort and decisiveness with which Canadians made major life decisions related to professions, jobs, and places of residence. I do not see this peace-of-mind factor stressed enough by single-payer supporters in the United Stated during the four years that I studied this prior to 2008.

The Green Party supports a universal, comprehensive, national single-payer health plan that will provide the following with no increase in cost:

a. A publicly funded health care insurance program, administered at the state and local levels.

b. Lifetime benefits for everyone. No one will lose coverage for any reason.

c. Freedom to choose the type of health care provider, with a wide range of health care choices.

d. Decision-making in the hands of health providers and their patients.

e. Comprehensive benefits, as good or better than existing plans, including dental, vision, mental health care, hospice, long-term care, substance abuse treatment and medication coverage.

f. Participation of all licensed and/or certified health providers, subject to standards of practice in their field.

g. Portable health plan benefits.

h. Primary and preventive care as priorities, including wellness education about diet, nutrition and exercise.

i. Greatly reduced paperwork for both patients and providers.

j. Fair and full reimbursement to providers for their services.

k. Preservation of all health care services currently available.

l. Cost controls via streamlined administration, national fee schedules, bulk purchases of drugs and medical equipment, and coordination of capital expenditures. Prices of medications must be publicly supervised.

m. Hospitals that can afford safe staffing levels for registered nurses.

n. Establishment of national, state, and local Health Policy Boards consisting of health consumers and providers to oversee and evaluate the performance of the system, expand access to care, and determine research priorities. All meetings of the boards shall be open to the public.

o. Establishment of a National Health Trust Fund that would channel all current Federal payments for health care programs directly into the Fund, in addition to employees’ health premium payments.

Excerpts of Open letter to Michael Moore 7/10/2007

(bolding was added)

Dear Mike,

Congratulations on the opening of ‘Sicko’ and all the glowing reviews!

We in the Green Party hope that millions of Americans will see ‘Sicko’ and understand that America has a choice: we can either have quality health care guaranteed for everyone, or we can maintain a system based on corporate insurance and HMO coverage. … it’s time to demand a single-payer national health plan and stop privileging corporate profits over the health – the very lives – of the American people.

… Rep. Conyers’ single-payer bill has … little chance of passage … Once upon a time, the Democratic Party supported national health coverage and even endorsed it in the Democratic national platform in 1948. But they deleted (single-payer national health insurance) from the platform in the 1990s …

There’s only one prominent national party that supports single-payer/Medicare For All – the Green Party. The Green Party and its candidates have demanded single-payer ever since we were founded, and we don’t accept corporate contributions from HMOs, insurance firms, pharmaceutical manufacturers, or any other corporate lobby.

… The USA will never have a national health insurance program until we break the two-party stranglehold and see the emergence of a new party that’s free of corporate influence.

If we can get a few Greens into Congress, as well as into state legislatures and city halls all across America, and if our presidential candidates can draw significant percentages on Election Day, it’ll change the political landscape. When Democratic politicians have to compete with Greens as well as Republicans, more of them will embrace single-payer. (And some maverick Republicans will support it, too!)

When the 2004 election season began, you and Bill Maher got down on your knees in front of 2000 Green presidential candidate Ralph Nader and begged him not to run again in 2004. You and Bill insisted that 2004 wasn’t the time for a third-party challenge, and that the priority of every rational American should be the removal of George W. Bush from the White House.

Millions of Americans who support a national health plan – as well as an end to the Iraq War – agreed with you and Bill and voted for John Kerry, a candidate awash in corporate money. Mr. Kerry dismissed national health care and declared himself solidly in support of the Iraq War.

… The Democratic and Republican leadership (don’t) even want Americans to discuss the single-payer option, although they’ll have a hard time censoring the debate now that ‘Sicko’ is (here).

We know that the private insurance industry, mainstream Democratic and Republican politicians, and the corporate media are already trying to undermine the message of ‘Sicko.’ They’re calling national health care ‘liberal elitism’ and ‘creeping socialism’ and other names. As FAIR reported on June 25, CBS’s Jeff Greenfield ignored polls in a June 22 story on ‘Sicko’ with an erroneous claim that national health coverage has minimal popular support.

We know that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and most of the other Democratic presidential hopefuls are offering corporate-friendly health care reform plans. We can predict that they’ll claim their plans will solve the crisis depicted in ‘Sicko,’ just as the Clinton Administration dishonestly called its managed-care proposal ‘universal health care’ back in 1993.

On June 26, 2007 six Democratic US Senators spoke at an SEIU-sponsored ‘universal health care’ rally on Capitol Hill in which single-payer and Medicare For All were never mentioned. When Dems say ‘universal health care,’ they really mean “For God’s sake, anything but single-payer!”

The Green Party will be the ONLY PARTY in 2008 that demands single-payer. The Green nominee will be the ONLY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE who talks about single-payer.

… Regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans get into public office, the real winners are powerful corporate lobbies: insurance, HMO, pharmaceutical, … , you name it.

‘Sicko’ will not change the Democratic Party agenda. MoveOn, Progressive Democrats for America, and terrific pro-single-payer candidates like Dennis Kucinich will not influence the Democratic platform in 2008.

It’s a safe bet that MoveOn & Co. will place party loyalty ahead of their own stated ideals and endorse whichever corporate candidate gets the 2008 Democratic nomination. These Pied Piper Progressives will lure voters who want single-payer, voters who want US troops out of Iraq, voters who want a White House and Congress free of insurance, oil, and defense industry influence into voting for a Democrat who flushes their agenda down the drain.

As David Cobb observed during his 2004 Green presidential campaign, the Democratic Party is the “graveyard of progressive politics.” It’s the graveyard of national health care.

…

Yours truly, The Green Party of the United States

Additional Information

7/29/2009: as documented at the Green Party website in an article and in three press releases, the Green Party does not accept corporate contributions.