{"id":6559,"date":"2017-04-14T18:18:45","date_gmt":"2017-04-14T18:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=6559"},"modified":"2017-04-14T18:18:45","modified_gmt":"2017-04-14T18:18:45","slug":"backers-see-medicare-for-all-as-cure-for-u-s-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=6559","title":{"rendered":"Backers See \u2018Medicare for All\u2019 as Cure for U.S. Health Care"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Some<\/a>

Some physicians say legislation in Congress known as \u201cMedicare For All\u201d would provide better health coverage and benefits for Americans. Photo: zimmytws\/iStockphoto<\/p><\/div>\n

by Mark Richardson<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

HOUSTON<\/strong> \u2013 With Republicans trying to resuscitate their plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, the debate in Texas and elsewhere over how to fix the health-care system is heating up again.<\/p>\n

While partisan divides remain deep, Glenn Pearson, former president of Physicians for a National Health Program<\/a>, said the failure of the American Health Care Act presents a unique opportunity for President Trump to make good on campaign promises for more coverage and better benefits by moving beyond for-profit models.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica is the only wealthy country in the world that has a free market, for-profit system,\u201d Pearson said. \u201cIt treats health care as a commodity, like buying a TV. In every other country, health care is a human right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pearson said the Medicare for All Act<\/a>, introduced by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., would provide coverage to all Americans by expanding Medicare, the single-payer program already in place for people age 65 and older. Critics have said the move would be too costly, but research has shown most U.S. households would pay less than the current system of insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays.<\/p>\n

Pearson, while not a fan of the ill-fated \u201cTrumpcare\u201d proposal, noted that the Affordable Care Act still leaves many without coverage and channels billions of taxpayer dollars to private insurance companies. He said a majority of Americans, including Republicans, support a system where money currently going to administrative overhead and private profits is spent on patient care instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere would be no deductibles, no co-insurance; there would be very small co-pays,\u201d he said, \u201cand so nobody would ever go bankrupt because they became ill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though more people have insurance since the rollout of the ACA, Pearson said, nearly 2 million Americans go bankrupt each year because of health-care expenses. A National Day of Action calling for universal health care is set for April 8, the first day of the congressional recess.<\/p>\n

The Conyers bill\u2019s text is online at congress.gov<\/a>, and an analysis is at pnhp.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mark Richardson HOUSTON \u2013 With Republicans trying to resuscitate their plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, the debate in Texas and elsewhere over how to fix the health-care system is heating up again. While partisan divides remain deep, Glenn Pearson, former president of Physicians for a National Health Program, said the failure of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6560,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6559\/revisions\/6560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}