Clinton ought to propose a Canadian-style, SINGLE-PAYER insurance plan, instead of two-tier coverage according to income, essentially. Canada’s single-payer insurer system totally covers all its people. Clinton’s is less so. Clinton and Bush plans use the very same insurance companies, including HMOs, that brought us the exorbitantly priced health care. Cancel the multi-payer insurance firms that waste $90 billion yearly from overlapping surveillance of insurance firms, ads and lobbyists without even covering the 37 million uninsured and 50 million underinsured. Even CEOs are fired. Private insurance business administers at 12 percent, while Medicaid/Medicare costs only 2.5 percent, so private insurers are inefficient. Traditional fees for doctor visits are no higher than the HMOs, perhaps cheaper. HMOs and managed care have meant sped-up doctoring and more patients in a plan designed to pay more to complying health givers, and give less referrals to specialists, and planned to give HMO insurers and hospitals higher profits. Canada’s single-payer insures at eight percent covering everyone, doctor-choice, and without deductibles or devastating sick bills. In the U.S., the corporate multi-payer system is 12 percent HMOs, and insurance firms advise presidents and congressmen to use their multi-payer type, but their prices rise greatly. In 1984, insurers claimed big lawsuits caused high pricing. The typical lawsuit pays just $8,000 ($5 billion total), but obstetrical insurance rose 100 percent (CTA insurance up 500 percent). Insurer profits rose $4 billion. Hence, seek the single payer, Canadian type. Cancel the old, mutli-company insurance plan of high pricing, at $820 billion yearly. Multi-payer wastes health funds on ads, administration, underinsured. To counteract insurance lobbyists, some related media and PACs, a grass-roots action must promote true insurance, the much better, single-payer, Canadian system, U.S. house bill 1200, rather than the private multi-payer, managed care of insurers and Clinton’s health task force.

Bernice Russell