Submitted by Illinoisnoki1 on Fri, 06/29/2012 - 12:27

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Health Care, Not More Insurance –
Let’s Win Improved Medicare for All

While the law, upheld by the Supreme Court today, will help some get access to coverage, tens of millions will remain without health coverage, and millions more will continue to face bankruptcy for medical bills and denial of care.

The Affordable Care Act was designed to keep the private insurance business in charge of health care, not the patients or the public. Insurance is not health care.

A simpler, more cost effective, comprehensive approach that would guarantee healthcare would be to improve and expand Medicare to cover everyone.

What the law does right:

• Expanded Medicaid coverage for the most low income
• Increased funding for community health centers
• Children can stay on parents plans up to age 26
• Some restraints on insurance abuses, lifetime caps and denials based on pre-existing conditions

What the law does wrong:

• 27 million people will still have no health coverage
• No real limits on what insurance companies, hospitals, and drug companies can charge – or on insurers denying treatment or referrals they don’t want to pay for
• Expands the private insurance system by forcing the uninsured to buy private insurance – using taxpayer funded subsidies to increase private insurance profits
• Promotes wasteful hospital spending on IT systems and bogus “patient satisfaction” goals that undermine RN professional judgment and quality patient care

How the patient care crisis will continue:

• Employers will continue to drop coverage and shift more costs to employees
• Insurance costs will continue to skyrocket – up to half of household income by 2018, including out of pocket costs
• More families will face bankruptcy from high medical bills – or choose to skip or delay needed care
• Private insurance system will be strengthened with more incentive than ever to make decisions on coverage and care based on profits, not patient need
• States can still opt out of Medicaid expansion under the court ruling

Read our press release here and download our flyer here.