It's a easy as a phone call.
Comments: 202-456-1111
This is the Comments line number right from the Contact Us page of the president's website at www.whitehouse.gov
If you want to tell Sen. Max Baucus you think he needs to give Single Payer voices (doctors and nurses) a seat at the table of the Healthcare Reform committee meetings, that's great.
But why not ask president Obama to keep his campaign promise and support a Public Option by urging the committee to stop arresting Single Payer proponents (nurses and doctors) and instead, give them a seat at the table that is currently occupied by Murder-by-Spreadsheet insurance companies and Big Pharma and HMO representatives.
No matter how they color it, the only real option is a robust, comprehensive PUBLIC OPTION.
Any other 'reform' is simply worthless.
The problem we currently face is that healthcare insurance costs too much.
Notice I did not say Healthcare costs too much.
It appears that we have enough money in the system now to pay the doctor bills - what we don't have is the 1/3 of every dollar that the private, for-profit insurance companies keep before they pay the doctor bills.
That 1/3 is what we need to pay for the healthcare for all Americans.
If we have any hope of ensuring that all Americans have access to doctors and medical care, we have to find a way that costs less than the current system.
That's it. That is the whole enchilada.
If we don't spend less on the new system, we're going nowhere, fast.
Nearly 46 million Americans, or 18 percent of the population under the age of 65, were without health insurance in 2007, the latest government data available. This is according to the National Coalition on Healthcare (per DeNavas-Walt, C.B. Proctor, and J. Smith. Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007. U.S. Census Bureau., August 2008.)
That's almost one in five people in this country without healthcare insurance.
If we don't move immediately to a comprehensive Public Option plan, where the hell are we going to get the money to pay the for-profit healthcare insurance company premiums?
Because you can be sure that the one thing that they are going to come out of this 'reform' with is a 'mandate' for all to have healthcare insurance.
The only question is: will Congress mandate all of us into paying private insurance companies forever, or will they be ensuring that all of us are able to go the doctor when we're sick?
It's really just that black and white.
There is no grey area here.
It's simple math.
Today, we only have 2/3 of the available healthcare dollars to pay doctors, because the insurance companies keep 1/3 of every dollar that passes through their coffers.
If we don't move to a Public Option plan that uses a Single Payer payments system, and return that 1/3 of the money to the pool to pay doctors - then 1/5 of us are not going to be getting the healthcare we need.
The only real, fact-based option is Public Option that offers real coverage with no pre-existing conditions exclusions, and that is NOT job dependent.
So start dialing.
Tell President Obama to do the right thing.
You can call him anytime at 202-456-1111
UPDATE: minor changes from comments to more clearly define the type of Public Option that I believe to be necessary for any significant reform.