[gpga-news] PrsRls: GA Greens on Health Care, Job Creation, Poverty Alleviation

[Bruce Dixon]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

For further information, please contact:
Bruce Dixon, Press Secretary, Georgia Green Party
       404-797-2087 * bdixon@georgiagreenparty.org

Green Party urges Picket of Senators Thursday,
No Bailouts For Private Insurance Companies
"We know how to lift Americans out of poverty"

"Making a dent in poverty, America's political class and media elite
want us to believe, is an impractical objective that nobody has a real
clue how to tackle, least of all government," said new state committee
member Bruce Dixon.  "But fact is, it's been done before for millions of
Americans, through a government program and within living memory. The
time was the 1960s, and the program was Medicare.  Nothing since
undertaken relieved a fraction of the poverty that Medicare has."

According to a 2009 study by the National Nurses Association, single
payer health care would create a net surplus of 2.6 million quality
jobs, a number equal to the quantity of jobs shed by the US economy
in 2006.

The health insurance legislation which the president is expected to
sign soon "is seriously flawed" according to Greens.  Its "individual
mandate" will guarantee the profit margins of private insurance
companies by requiring Americans to purchase low-coverage,
high-deductible and co-payment laden policies partially subsidized by
government.  The Congressional Budget Office calculates that it will
leave more than twenty million still uninsured.  Worse still, the House
version does not insure any uninsured till 2013 and the Senate version
till 2014.  Medicare, by comparison took eleven months from
presidential signing to the mailing out of cards, in an era when
computers were the size of minivans.

On Human Rights Day (the Anniversary of the UN's Universal Declaration
of Human Rights), Thursday December 10, Georgia Greens and other Health
Care advocates are urging pickets at the offices of US Senators seeking
support for the Sanders Amendments to enable states to develop their
own single payer legislation.  "Forget the Administration's confused
economic stimulus which does more for employers than those out of
work," said Dixon.  "We need a job-creating, poverty reducing Medicare
For All System."

Dixon dismisses as industry propoganda, the unsupported notion that
most Americans are "satisfied with" their insurance coverage.  About
two-thirds of Americans favor everybody-in, nobody-out government
administered, not for profit health care system, according to a series
of polls taken over the last several years by AP, Gallup, CNN and other
pollsters.

"We urge everyone to visit www.mobilizeforhealthcare.org, the site of
the growing civil action movement to alleviate poverty, create jobs and
extend the proven solution of Medicare For All to everybody".  In
Atlanta a rally and press conference will take place at 10 AM Thursday
outside the offices of Senator Johnny Isaakson, 3625 Cumberland Blvd,
Suite 970, Atlanta, GA 30339.

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The Georgia Green Party
http://www.greens.org/georgia/

Platform of the Georgia Green Party
http://www.greens.org/georgia.static/pdf/GvrnDocs/Platform-2003.pdf

Mobilize for Healthcare
http://mobilizeforhealthcare.org/

Single Payer Health Care Will Create 2.6 Million New Jobs
http://tinyurl.com/d754ye

Two-thirds of Americans Support Single Payer
http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/12/07/two-thirds-support-2/

Beware the Health-Industrial Complex,
by Jack Bernard, former Jasper County GA Repulican Chairman
http://tinyurl.com/ykgvfye