TV Message to Sen. Obama from Nurses, Doctors: Single-Payer Reform Only Cure for Rising Healthcare Costs

In the last of a series of three broadcast and Internet ads in Iowa, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee and Physicians for a National Health Program call on Sen. Barack Obama to support a single-payer, guaranteed healthcare system as the only effective cure for ever-skyrocketing healthcare costs.

The ad, which began running on Iowa stations this afternoon, features a young woman telling a cardboard stand-in for Sen. Obama that “we never dreamed that we’d face bankruptcy over our medical bills.”

Despite increasing premiums, high deductibles “and all the co-pays, still the insurance companies fight us over every penny.”

“We need real leadership,” the woman tells Sen. Obama. “It’s not good enough just to be better than the Republicans on this.”

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 GuaranteedHealthcare.org.  The ads coincide with appearances of the Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa this week, culminating in a debate Sunday on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

In frequent comments, Sen. Obama has verbally chastised the insurance and drug companies, yet his healthcare plan “fails to rein in the healthcare industry pricing practices that have put so many American families at financial and health risk,” says CNA/NNOC President Deborah Burger, RN. 

“Sen. Obama should adopt a single-payer plan because it is the only one that will control costs and eliminate the private insurance industry,” said Quentin Young, MD cofounder of Physicians for National Health Program.

Rising costs creating health insecurity for millions of Americans

• In January, a vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation testified to the House Ways and Means Committee that one in six adults who are privately insured have “substantial problems paying their medical bills.” She cited an October 2005 Kaiser survey that 60 percent of adults with health insurance are worried about being able to afford the cost of that insurance.
• In February, the journal Health Affairs projected that out-of-pocket costs for consumers would jump 76 percent within the next decade. A Zogby-UPI poll found that 42 percent of insured Americans said their insurer had refused to pay a medical bill.
• In March, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics noted that families with high deductible health plans – the centerpiece of the new Massachusetts law and the darling of some presidential candidates – are far more likely to put off needed care due to the cost. Lower rates of immunizations and other preventive care and less compliance with recommended treatment are increasingly common problems.
• In April, Harvard researchers found that higher healthcare costs place a particularly harsh burden on women who typically have greater medical needs than men due to pregnancy-related care and other common services.
• In July, a Rand study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that for each 10 percent hike in out-of-pocket costs, patients stop buying up to 6 percent of needed prescription drugs.
• In August, 44 percent of respondents to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll identified “health care costs” as their top economic worry.
• Also this month, Consumer Reports issued a report that found that found that more than half of the “underinsured” postponed needed medical care due to cost and a third had to dig deep into their savings to pay for medical expenses. Another third of those over 50 said decisions about their retirement were adversely affected by healthcare costs, one quarter had outstanding medical debt, 38 percent postponed home or car maintenance repairs due to medical bills, and only 37 percent said they were prepared to financially handle unexpected major medical costs in the next year.

For more information visit:

GuaranteedHealthcare.org
CNA/NNOC at CalNurses.org 
Physicians for a National Health Program at PHNP.org

CNA/NNOC
2000 Franklin St.
Oakland, CA 94612
510/273-2200
www.calnurses.org
www.guaranteedhealthcare.org