Thanks for the comment

** 2.6 Million New Jobs,
** $317 Billion in Business Revenue,
** $100 Billion in Wages, and
** $44 Billion New Tax Revenues

The press release is here: http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2009/january/nurses-to-congress-expanding-medicare-could-reverse-job-losses-and-repair-our-broken-healthcare-system-and-safety-net.html

Here’s the study: http://www.calnurses.org/research/pdfs/ihsp_sp_economic_study_2009.pdf

It’s clear that single-payer is the solution, not only in terms of providing quality care for all, but also economically!

WHY ISN’T SINGLE-PAYER ON THE TABLE?

The health insurance companies have played a major role in our current healthcare crisis. They make huge profits and their CEOs make millions, while the rest of us are are subject to life-threatening insurance denials. The CEOs continue to make outrageous salaries, money that could provide healthcare for Americans.

The Total Package: Health plan CEO compensation for 2008
May 14, 2009

Despite the trials and tribulations of the past year, the health insurance executives are still raking in MILLIONS of dollars at the end of the day. This is a look at some of the top total compensation packages from 2008 based on information gathered from the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission.

1. Ron Williams, Aetna – $24.3 million

2. H. Edward Hanway, CIGNA – $12.2 million

3. Angela Braly, WellPoint – $9.8 million

4. Dale Wolf, Coventry Health Care – $9 million

5. Michael Neidorff, Centene – $8.8 million

6. James Carlson, AMERIGROUP – $5.3 million

7. Michael McCallister, Humana – $4.8 million

8. Jay Gellert, Health Net – $4.4 million

9. Richard Barasch, Universal American – $3.5 million

10. Stephen Hemsley, UnitedHealth Group – $3.2 million

– adapted from a Special Report by Dan Bowman
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/special-reports/total-package-health-plan-ceo-compensations-2008

Read about it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/health/policy/15health.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

It’s what we’ve known all along: we can’t trust the insurance industry with health care reform.

Only a single-payer approach to healthcare reform will end the inhumanity of our failed healthcare insurance system, where profits are more important than patients’ health, and where people die because of it.

Our fight for equal access to healthcare for all is about democracy, human rights, civil rights, and basic human decency.

No scumbags in healthcare. I couldn’t agree more.

the question is how. How do we get that done?

You and I both know folks who practice in Canada. Are they poorly trained? When you look at cohorts of patients, do the patients do worse in Canada or Great Britain?

This is why we need single payer healthcare now. We need to put those scumbags out of business permanently.

And why? Because they figure if new laws require people to buy insurance then their customer bases go way up and they can spread the risk better and not have to charge the sick and the female more.

Of course THIS is the exact reason why SINGLE PAYER insurance is the real solution! If the risk pool is the entirety of the United States population, then prices drop for EVERYONE and we all get better and more care because it would be not for profit.

This altruism (which as pointed out is unenforceable) is all an effort to quell the move towards Single Payer but in the end makes the best argument for it.