Single-Payer Universal Health Care

HB311. Everybody in, Nobody out!

I firmly believe that access to quality healthcare is a basic human right. It is our duty as a society to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our neighbors and providing the opportunity for everyone to lead healthy productive lives. As such, I simply cannot support any system that attempts to profit off sickness, death, and dying.

I grew up among the working poor in rural Minnesota and have seen first-hand the cold indifference of a healthcare system focused on avoiding profit-loss rather than helping people in need. I spent the greater portion of my life without health insurance. My mother was savvy enough to shepherd 5 children through childhood injuries with minimal emergency room visits. Cuts that were too deep for band-aids were sealed with super glue. Bruises, sprains, and possible broken bones were treated with stoic admonishments and the hope that no further treatment was needed.

When coverage was present for my family, co-pays were put on credit cards and medicine was rationed and saved well-past expiration dates just in case. In a prime example of the problems inherent with tying health insurance to employment, in the mid-90s, the newspaper my mother worked for decided that health coverage and benefits were too costly and in one stroke turned an entire division of their lowest paid laborers into Independent Contractors—eliminating their health coverage.

While the debate rages on in Washington and continues to ignore Single-Payer, I remain hopeful that Illinois will step forward and become an example for the nation of what true health care looks like.

With HB311, Illinois can eliminate for-profit health care and clean up the wasteful allocation of our health care dollars while providing world-class care for everyone in our state.

We can:

• Cover everyone
• Restore physician choice
• Establish equitable access
• Eliminate co-pays and deductibles
• Shift to a Wellness-based, Preventative model that covers basic health, dental, vision, prescription drugs AND mental health. (No longer will our prison system act as the default treatment provider for serious mental illness.)

We can do this with nearly no increase in cost in Illinois. When you eliminate the roughly $13 billion of Illinois’ health care dollars that are wasted each year in bureaucracies that process payments and deny care, we can cover the 1.8 million uninsured and expand the care of those among us that are underinsured.

With the removal of crippling costs as well as the stigma of preexisting conditions, we can encourage families to build actual relationships with their physicians that are built on an accumulation of trust not crisis moments.

For more information please visit The Chicago Single-Payer Action Network at Chispan.org