A Prescription for a Healthier California

Our health care system is on life support. We read the statistics every day: there are nearly 7 million Californians who are uninsured. But the health care crisis is affecting every single Californian.

Families and businesses are struggling with the rising costs of insurance premiums and co-pays, yet we seem to be getting worse care from our health care system. Wait times to see a doctor are longer — and visits with them are shorter.

The rising cost of health care means we all pay more for goods and services. The shocking truth is that when you go to Starbucks, you pay more for the cost of the employees’ health insurance than you do for the cost of the coffee beans.

Medical bills cause one half of all the bankruptcies in America. Many children who could be covered by existing health programs are not, because we have not educated their parents about these programs. Almost every single one of us could lose our insurance if we lose our jobs.

Employer or employee; insured, uninsured or underinsured — we all pay for this problem every day. General Motors is sending jobs overseas because it cannot afford the cost of health care for workers in America. General Motors now spends more on health care for its employees than on steel to build cars. Wal-Mart is hiring a greater percentage of part-time workers to avoid paying the health care benefits due to full-time employees, thereby shifting the burden of coverage onto our public health system. The cost of health insurance affects every employer in the country, and keeps many employers from hiring new workers.

In my life, I have seen my own friends and family experience the dramatic gulf between sickness and health. My oldest sister died of breast cancer. Many of my friends are fighting right now to recover from cancer and I see the importance of quality medical care in their lives. I see the pain on the faces of parents of autistic and asthmatic kids as they struggle to give their children the very best quality of life.

The truth is we have the money to cover everyone. Right now 25-35 percent of every health care dollar pays for bureaucracy and paper work; only 65-75 percent of costs goes directly to health care. We can streamline our system to eliminate the middle man and allocate 95-98 percent of costs directly to health care. We can let everyone keep his or her own doctor and make his or her own medical decisions.

Our national health care policy goals should be to provide all citizens access to health care and to eliminate the need for the working poor to choose between quality health care and food — with life threatening consequences. In addition, to avoid bankrupting our system, we need to shift our focus. While we must spend more money to treat disease, the ultimate answer is preventing disease. That’s why my health care proposals always emphasize preventative health care measures.

So Why Aren’t We Doing Something About This?

In a recent CBS News/New York Times survey, 90% of Americans say we need either to implement fundamental changes in health care or completely rebuild our health care system. In the same poll, by 2:1 the public says it’s the responsibility of the federal government to “guarantee health care for all.”

So what’s the problem? Quite frankly, politicians just aren’t getting the job done. Bold solutions are risky to politicians worried more about re-election than about working families who struggle to pay for their next trip to the doctor.

I’m not going to run from this challenge. I’m going to stand up and fight for a health care plan that covers every single Californian. It’s called universal coverage — and we’re going to finally make it a reality.

It’s time to lead: The Janet Reilly Plan

As a mother, activist, former businesswoman, and non-profit leader, I know creating universal health care is one of the most important things we can do to improve the lives of Californians. Every major industrialized country besides the U.S. guarantees health care to all citizens. Unless and until we can create a national health care policy that extends coverage to all Americans, California must lead the way by implementing single payer health care within our state.

Under a single payer health care system, we can cover every single Californian without sacrificing quality or increasing health care expenditures. We can save money by cutting bureaucracy to fund universal access to our health care system for all Californians. The single payer model is a system in which all health insurance administration is consolidated and run by a single government entity instead of the myriad private insurance companies that currently accomplish this task.

Part I of my booklet will discuss the current national health care crisis in greater detail and then describe the advantages of a single payer system. Part II will discuss other critical health care, environmental, and transportation solutions that will help create a healthier California.

What is the Janet Reilly Plan?

• The Janet Reilly Plan would provide health care to all Californians, through a “single-provider” — a new entity set up by the State of California.
• This plan is also known as “Medicare for All,” because it is based on the highly successful Medicare system that provides quality care to every American over the age of 65.
• This plan would cover everyone, meaning you would not lose your insurance if you lose your job.
• This plan would be paid for by shifting to a health care pool the money currently paid to insurance companies. Responsible companies that already provide health insurance would pay less each year. Companies like Wal-Mart that pay very little for health care for their employees, and try to shift the burden of health care to the public sector, would now have to pay their fair share.
• This system saves money by cutting out the nearly 30 cents of every dollar currently spent on health insurance bureaucracy.
• Health care is typically focused only on treating the sick, but under my plan, we will focus also on simple wellness care like regular exercise, healthy diet, and regular checkups and immunizations.
• Because everyone would have coverage, the overburdened county hospitals would no longer have to provide expensive treatment through their emergency rooms. This saves money, reduces overcrowding, and ensures seriously ill patients will be treated faster.
• Because we will have greater leverage through a single system, we can negotiate lower drug prices and save even more money for Californians.

Continued…
Read the complete Health Care Booklet Here