It’s time for single payer health reform
Amidst all the drama of the election, there’s been little coverage of this result of great importance to all unmarried people:
Massachusetts voters have, for the second straight election, overwhelmingly affirmed their support for single payer health reform by turning in majority ‘Yes’ votes in all fourteen districts where local single payer ballot questions appeared on November 2.
As you know if you’re on our email list, we always send out a reminder to vote. Unmarried people don’t vote as often as married people do – if we did, we’d shape every election. If you’re a Massachusetts resident, your reminder included a link to information about the single payer ballot question – it was great to hear that 20% of you were interested in learning more.
Single payer health reform is the best deal for all unmarried people. The current system of employer-based health insurance inevitably uses marital status or relationship status to keep employers’ costs down. Using narrow definitions of family to set eligibility for coverage discriminates against a wide variety of unmarried people and makes care-giving harder. Even after the big national health care reform effort last year, marriage remains the on / off switch for access to health care in America. Basic health care and costs should be equal for all individuals under a national single-payer system.
Part of this year’s election drama is the threat to roll back last year’s (inadequate) health reform. Enough already! It’s time for our national leaders to get serious about single payer. It’s time for us to make that happen! Sign our new petition and let’s get going for real change.
November 11th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
I agree whole-heartedly on single payer. But unfortunately we live in America which absolutely insists on a system of enriching profit-driven middlemen (the insurance industry), which results in us paying 50% more per capita and about 50% more as a percent of GDP on healthcare than the next most expensive developed country, and yet having an overall quality of healthcare ranking like number 30 or so in fundamental measures of health like life expectancy and infant and maternal mortality.
There is one comment I think needs clarification – the new healthcare law has nothing that I have seen that involves marriage or non-marriage. Nor couples for that matter. All that matters as I understand it in determining subsidies for individual market coverage is household size. Subsidies are based on the poverty guidelines, which are based on household size. To me, this is a considerable advance in unmarried rights.
However, since most people will continue to get insurance through their employer, for those people their employer’s policies in regards to marital status, domestic partners, “plus one” whatever will still apply. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is anything in the new health care law that makes marital status discrimination or relationship status discrimination by employers illegal.
I have been reading every news article all along throughout the past year and a half intensely, as well as the book, “Landmark, The Inside Story of America’s New Health-Care Law and What It Means For Us All”, by the staff of the Washington Post.
The reason for all of this reading is that I am affected by healthcare reform — I have a pre-existing condition, am self-employed, and have no partner or spouse to bestow benefits on me.
December 2nd, 2010 at 11:06 am
Employers should insure employee plus one which would eliminate discrimination of pay (benefits) based on marital status. Pay should be based on work not on marital status.