An Iowa TV Message to Sen. Clinton from Nurses, Doctors: Why Not Support Single-Payer, Guaranteed Healthcare for All?

In the second of a series of broadcast and internet ads in Iowa, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee and Physicians for a National Health Program today issued a challenge to Sen. Hillary Clinton to support "single payer guaranteed healthcare for every American."

With the new ad, which debuts this morning, Regena Ellis, a neo-natal intensive care unit nurse, reminds a cardboard stand-in for Sen. Clinton that "nurses know 50 Americans die every day because they don't have health coverage. Insurance and drug companies spend millions on lobbyists to keep control of the system" to block real change.

"I don't want to be forced to choose between which patients get the best care, between who lives and who dies. Do you Sen. Clinton?" asks Ellis.

The ad calls on viewers to "let the Democratic candidates for president know that real leadership on healthcare doesn’t mean just being better than the Republicans."

Created by Bill Hillsman and North Woods Advertising, the ad can be seen on YouTube or at PNHP.org. More information is also available at Guaranteed Healthcare.org.  The ads coincide with appearances of the Democratic Presidential candidates in Iowa this week, culminating in a debate Sunday on the ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

In a Presidential forum sponsored by the AFL-CIO in Chicago last week, Sen. Clinton said "we're going to try to do national healthcare as soon as we get in there."

"However, Sen. Clinton has yet to present a comprehensive program to achieve that goal in a way that would solve our national healthcare crisis and assure high quality care for all Americans," says CNA/NNOC President Deborah Burger, RN.

"The public will support a champion of real healthcare reform," says PNHP co-founder Quentin Young, MD. "Senator Clinton above all others should understand that the challenge is to eliminate the private insurance companies, something her 1993 plans failed to do. She should endorse single payer Medicare for all to stand any chance at winning the nomination."

Healthcare Lobbying and the Denial of Needed Care

• Healthcare industry interests spent more than $2.2 billion in federal lobbying the past decade, surpassing all other industry sectors in expenditures.
• Campaign contributions from healthcare industry sources to the 18 announced Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates total an aggregate $12.8 million since 1989, but 29% of that total was donated just in the first quarter of 2007 alone with more than 45% of it going to just two candidates, Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
• Scores of former government employees now work as healthcare industry lobbyists.
• Escalating political spending coincides with huge jumps in healthcare industry profits. From 2002 to 2006, pharmaceutical profits climbed from $64.4 billion to $94.8 billion and insurance profits from $20.8 billion in 2002 to $57.5 billion.
• Health care interests use their financial clout to block real reform. In April, 2007, after heavy lobbying by the pharmaceutical and insurance industry, the Senate killed a bill to amend the 2003 Medicare drug benefit law to let Medicare use its bulk purchasing power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for seniors.
• Lack of health insurance causes 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year, according to the Institute of Medicine, the equivalent of six times the number who died in 9/11. 
• Uninsured patients receive less preventive care, are diagnosed at more advanced disease stages, and receive less therapeutic care (drugs and surgical interventions). Having insurance would reduce mortality rates for the uninsured by 10 to 15 percent.
• Among Americans with colorectal cancer, those without insurance are 70 percent more likely to die within three years than those with insurance Uninsured lung cancer patients are less likely to receive surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation treatment; heart attack victims are less likely to receive angioplasty; people without pneumonia are less likely to receive X-rays or consultations.