FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 18, 2007

Committees Seek Universal Health Care

Contact: Andrea Ettere at (914) 995-7721 or Rose Vinci at (914) 995-8434

Three committees of the Westchester County Board of Legislators are exploring the path taken by other counties which have called on the state Legislature to lobby the federal government to create a single-payer health care system.

Advocates of an overhaul of the health care system on April 16 addressed the Committees on Generational, Cultural and Ethnic Diversity, chaired by County Legislator Bernice Spreckman; Housing, Planning and Government Operations, chaired by County Legislator Lois Bronz; and Family, Health and Human Services, chaired by County Legislator Judy Myers. In addition, County Legislator Thomas Abinanti provided information about the health care reform program implemented in King County in Washington State two years ago.

Spreckman said Sullivan and Ulster are among the counties that have passed resolutions urging the state to lobby the federal government to create a national universal health care system. “The time is now” for Westchester to follow those counties’ lead, Spreckman said.

Priscilla Bassett, vice president of the Statewide Senior Action Council, described a single-payer health care system as “an expanded and improved Medicare for all.”

Paul Widzowski, director of the Statewide Senior Action Council, said universal health care was “a matter of life and death.”

Widzowski said 18,000 Americans die each year from a lack of health insurance. While the United States spends twice as much for health care per capita as Germany and Canada, America ranks 17th in infant mortality and 40th in life expectancy, he said.

The current health care system with private insurance in the United States is costly for businesses, Widzowski said. For example, health care cost is $1,400 per each new care manufactured by General Motors and Wal-Mart has shifted full-time employees to part-time status because of health care costs, he said.
Medicare would be expanded to cover all Americans under the proposed United States National Health Insurance Act, which is being proposed in the US Congress, Widzowski said. The act would cover primary, dental, mental health and long-term care, as well as prescription drugs, while allowing individuals to choose their doctors.

A single-payer system would not be socialized medicine and would allow doctors to devote their time to their work and free them from dealing with private insurance companies, Widzowski said. If a single-payer system was instituted, Americans would still be able to pay for special care if they sought to do so, he said.
Art Richter, co-chair of Citizens for Universal Healthcare, noted that six counties in New York have approved resolutions calling on the state to lobby the federal government to institute a single-payer system and six other counties are prepared to do so.

Abinanti described what King County has done on its own to reform health care. In 2005, it implemented a non-profit partnership that is utilized on a voluntary basis. King County created the Puget Sound Health Alliance to improve health care quality and efficiency while cutting costs, Abinanti said. The program includes almost one million people and is used by the private and public sectors, he said. The program features provisions that provide lower health care costs for individuals who pursue a healthy lifestyle, Abinanti said.
The King County program is expected to save about $40 million between this year and 2009, he said.

Spreckman said many people wrongly believe a single-payer system would be “socialized medicine.” A single-payer system would actually reduce health care costs, she said. “You need a lot of education,” Spreckman said.

Members of the three committees came to an informal consensus that they should draft a resolution stating their support for a single-payer system and if approved by the full Board of Legislators, would be sent to the state.