Universal health-care rally, Monday, Federal Plaza

A call to action from Health Care for All Illinois / Physicians for A National Health Program / National Nurses Organizing Committee:

Tell President Obama and Congress:

Put single-payer health care on the table!
Don't let the insurance companies dictate health reform

HR 676 & HB 311 NOW!

Rally on Monday, April 6, Noon–1 p.m.
Federal Building Plaza (Adams and Dearborn), Chicago

With Dr. Quentin Young

Bring Your Single-Payer Signs and Gear!

For Questions or to Endorse the Rally:
mark@pnhp.org / 312-782-6006

A news report this week says the heads of five congressional committees have reached consensus about the broad outlines of new health care legislation — and that under the new law, the wasteful, for-profit health insurance industry will remain at the heart of our system.

This would be a disaster. Our nation simply can't afford to keep the big insurance companies in the health care mix. Their skyrocketing premiums, co-pays, deductibles, claim denials, top-heavy bureaucracy and notorious profit-taking are the problem with our present system, not the answer. The economic crisis has only made things worse, much worse.

By moving to a single-payer national health insurance program — an expanded and improved Medicare for All — our country would save $400 billion in administrative costs annually, allowing us to provide comprehensive, quality care for everyone who presently lacks insurance and to eliminate all co-pays and deductibles. Everyone could receive care for with no overall increase in U.S. health spending.

Polls show two-thirds of Americans support such an approach, as do 59 percent of U.S. physicians. A bill in Congress, H.R. 676, the U.S. National Health Care Act, would achieve such a system.

Yet top political leaders say this approach is "not feasible." That's what many — including the health insurers — said about Medicare.

Could the view of these "realistic" political leaders be the result of the millions of dollars they receive in campaign contributions by the big insurance and drug companies?

Call the White House and Congress at (202) 224-3121: It's time to break the stranglehold of the private, for-profit insurance industry on our health care system. Put single-payer health reform on the table. Don't cave in to the insurance and drug lobbies!