We are Rhode Island health care providers and advocates who witness daily the inhumanity and irrationality of the current health insurance system. COVID-19 has highlighted the dire consequences of tying health insurance to jobs and treating it not as a human right, but as a "commodity," affordable only to some. We demand improved Medicare For All because:
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In America, lack of health insurance is a growing lethal disease;
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Private health insurance companies (multiple payers) waste our money and ration care to make profits;
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Every other industrialized nation has universal coverage under a single-payer type program;
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These nations spend about 1/2 per capita what Americans spend on health care and get better health outcomes;
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Health care costs are unaffordable, and the leading cause of personal bankruptcy;
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Our current health insurance system increases racial inequities; and
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Incremental measures such as the public option or tweaking the ACA cannot fix existing problems because they leave in place private insurance companies—with their enormous inefficiencies and their inevitable need to avoid the sick ("lemon drop") and insure the well ("cherry pick").
We already pay enough to have single-payer improved Medicare for All. We're just not getting it.