Play a Video Game, Win Universal Health Care
Play the online shooter game, Nurse Avenger, and help build support for universal health care.
California Health Plan
Half of every dollar spent on health care is wasted on administration, insurance company profits, and overpriced pharmaceuticals. Only by insuring everyone in a new California Health Plan that leverages the state’s buying power and focuses on preventive care can we provide higher quality, affordable health care to all Californians.
Doctors and hospitals will remain private. However, wasteful insurance companies will be removed from the health care system and replaced with a non-profit, publicly accountable insurance pool.
Existing programs like Medicare and the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs are excellent models for a new California Health Plan open to all patients. The plan will eliminate private insurance companies – the Pirates of the Health Care-ibbean – that don’t provide health care benefits along with their waste, paperwork, profits, excessive executive salaries and advertising. One such plan, SB 840, is currently being considered by state legislators. A California program could be a model for other states and the nation.
Watch a Television Show on SB 840.
Key principles of a universal health care system include (links below open PDF exerpts of FTCR’s report Crisis & Opportunity):
- Covers everyone and pays for startup costs by redistributing existing funds.
- Lets government control health care dollars to take advantage of bulk purchasing and protect the ERs, hospitals, doctors, nurses, and clinics that provide care.
- Gives patients the right to choose which doctors and hospitals they visit and provides comprehensive coverage and treatment options.
- Eliminates the role of private insurers and HMOs that provide no health care benefit, while allowing patients to purchase supplementary coverage if they choose.
- Focuses on preventing disease for better health and a more efficient health care system.
- Gives decision-making authority to a publicly accountable independent body.
The new California Health Plan will utilize the state’s enormous buying power to provide lower cost prescription drugs for all Californians regardless of age or income level. This approach emphasizes patient choice, and puts patients and care providers in control, not insurance companies. Coverage will be more complete than private insurance plans, encourage prevention and include prescription drugs, dental care, and mental health care.
Read a recent FTCR commentary about why we need a new California Health Plan open to all patients.
Crisis & Opportunity: Forging A Universal Health Care Consensus
Read FTCR’s report providing hundreds of first-hand accounts of the health care system and the need for a universal health care system providing bulk purchasing of prescription drugs, eliminating waste and focussing on preventive care.
Animating the Need for Health Care Reform
Watch a series of animations and videos designed to educate the public and policy makers about problems with the current health care system and the benefits of a California Health Plan open to all patients.
Californians Discuss Solutions at Town Hall Forums
Watch town hall meetings organized by FTCR bringing together patients, doctors, nurses, and business owners to build consensus around the key elements of a universal health care system.
