In the wake of this morning’s Supreme Court ruling maintaining the health insurance mandate, Dr. Jill Stein declared it, “time for all Americans to reject the failed Obama and Romney approach to the health crisis, and demand an improved Medicare for All system that provides health care to all at an affordable price.” Stein noted that "Obamacare is based on Romneycare, and as with so much else, Obama implemented a Republican scheme to impose mandates that are a regressive tax on working people. The Roberts Court may call it constitutional, but the mandate is still bad news for our suffering millions. Romneycare has meant that the working poor have seen a health cost increase ten times that of the wealthy.”Dr..Stein is not only the presumptive Green Party presidential nominee, she is a Harvard-trained physician and a leading advocate for single-payer Medicare for All who twice ran against Romney in Massachusetts. "As a physician, I've seen Romneycare in action in my home state of Massachusetts. Forty percent of the people who need health coverage find that it's still too expensive for them. And a quarter of the people who seek payments get denied by their private insurers. It has failed to control costs, and as a result they are raising co-pays and attacking public employee health plans. It's a fiscal and administrative nightmare which has gutted public services in Massachusetts. Schemes developed by health industry lobbyists to enrich themselves will never take care of our real needs.”
Dr. Stein made her position crystal clear, saying that, “We must implement a publicly administered non-profit system with no premiums, no deductibles, no co-pays and no co-insurance. This kind of system is proven. It is providing affordable health care all across the developed world, and providing better health outcomes. It's the only fiscally sound approach to health care costs because it eliminates the inefficiencies of private insurance corporations, and provides effective cost controls. And it can’t reasonably be challenged on constitutional grounds."
Yesterday, in advance of today’s ruling, five leading advocates for Medicare for All threw their personal support behind Dr. Stein’s Green Party campaign with a national letter whose individual signers included the newly elected president of Physicians for a National Health Program, Dr. Andy Coates. Mark Dunlea of Single Payer New York said, "When Obama slammed the door in the face of single-payer advocates, and even abandoned the "public option", he forfeited any right to ask for support from those who are truly interested in solving our health care crisis. No genuine progressive will help him defend a Republican idea that will never work."
Concluded Dr. Stein, “The real leadership on health reform is being shown at the state level where single-payer legislation is moving forward. As President, I would take these successes to the national level so that no longer in America are working and poor people denied their inalienable rights to lead healthy lives.”
