Universal Health Care is a publicly accountable, affordable, comprehensive health care plan that includes all Americans. It is a broad movement built around the need for fundamental health care reform.

• 40 million Americans do not have health insurance.

• The uninsured are four times more likely to postpone necessary medical care due to cost.
• The uninsured are three times more likely to lack a usual source of care than the insured.
• Children without insurance are twice as likely not to receive medical care for an acute condition.
• The uninsured are only two-thirds as likely to receive preventive examinations such as annual physicals or mammograms.

• More than one out of four African-Americans has no health insurance at all, compared to about one out of five whites.
• Infant mortality, AIDS, homicide, heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes are killing African-Americans more frequently than whites.
• Approximately one out of four African-Americans indicated that they had no regular physician in 1997, compared to one out of ten whites.
• Death rates among African-Americans for certain treatable or preventable diseases are at the same level as they were for whites 20 years ago.

• Most private insurance companies have exclusions for pre-existing medical conditions. Universal health care would remove the incentives for excluding sick or disabled people from health plans, ensuring that people with disabilities can choose where to work without fear of losing health care coverage because of a medical condition or inability to afford enormous premiums.
• Both public and private programs are shifting to managed care to contain costs. Patient protections are needed to ensure quality comprehensive coverage.
• Many people with disabilities rely on prescription drugs for basic health and wellness. They are disproportionately affected by lack of coverage for prescription drugs. Universal health care would help to ensure that people with disabilities have access to comprehensive services.
• Insurance plans have varying definitions of "medical necessity". People with disabilities often discover that the services and equipment they need are not considered "medically necessary". Universal health care would include a definition of health care that goes beyond acute care.

• Workers rank job-based health care as the most valued employment benefit. It is the primary source of health care for the majority of Americans.
• Many new jobs are being created that don’t offer health insurance, and because of rising costs of health care, many employers are cutting benefits. Many employers in low-wage, service sector jobs are unable or unwilling to provide health care benefits. Employment-based health care is eroding and co-payments and out-of-pocket costs are going up.
• Health care costs are up and time hospital staff spend with patients is down. Corporate, for profit health care provides incentives for hospitals and HMO’s to provide less care, and make more profit. By organizing for workers’ rights and health care justice, health care workers are standing up for quality health care for all.

• Many insurance companies own hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. They steer their customers to their own hospitals and require drugs that their pharmaceutical companies produce.
• According to the General Accounting Office, the adoption of a single-payer system would save 10% of the national health care budget. One trillion dollars is spent annually on health, meaning that this would be a savings of 100 billion dollars. Most of these savings would come from the elimination of wasteful bureaucracy and unnecessary profits.
• In 1998, pharmaceuticals were the most profitable industry in the U.S. with a return on equity of 39.4 percent.
• Drug making was the most durably profitable U.S. industry over the past 3 decades. Its median return on equity was 2.3 times the all-industry average in the 1990’s.
• The struggle for universal health care is inseparably linked to the struggle for campaign finance reform. Since the health care industry spends astronomical amounts of money lobbying Congress, we must fight their influence through a broad based and well-organized movement for universal health care.
• Health care justice activists can link the paired struggles for campaign finance reform and universal health care by exposing campaign contributions of the health care industry, and how this affects the current stance of Congress on fundamental health care reform.

For further information on Universal Health Care or for information on the Missouri Coalition for Single Payer or U2K (Universal Health Care 2000 Campaign) email kellysullivanjohnson@hotmail.com or call Kelly Sullivan-Johnson at (417) 869-0145.