UHCAN RESPONSE to contributor concerned about their lack of support of single payer

This is the response received by a UHCAN contributor who threatened to rescind a very large donation re UHCAN's backing away from single payer:

Hi <name_withheld>.

I am responding to your email asking about UHCAN's position on single payer publicly funded universal health care as outlined in HR 676.  

UHCAN has supported single payer since our inception in 1992, and UHCAN endorsed and has supported HR 676 since it was first introduced by Rep. Conyers.  Any information to the contrary you have received is mistaken.

Also, since our founding, UHCAN has included within our network groups working for health care for all with diverse constituencies and around multiple approaches because it is our belief that it will take all of us working together to build the political muscle we need to get comprehensive health reform.  Different groups play different roles in furtherance of our mutual goal.  It is absolutely critical that the single payer approach be on the table and part of the health care debate as we move forward toward comprehensive health reform.  The workshops and conference calls we organize always include health care justice advocates whose major focus is single payer.  

I hope this answers your question satisfactorily.  Please let me know if you need any further information.  Thank you!

Rachel

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Rachel Rosen DeGolia, Director
Universal Health Care Action Network (UHCAN)
2800 Euclid Ave, # 520    Cleveland  OH  44115
voice: 216/241-8422, X-14 or 800/634-4442
fax: 216/241-8423     e-mail: degolia@uhcan.org
http://www.uhcan.org        

HC-Now's statement about UHCAN:

"...The central role of private insurance companies in the HCAN plan will leave us with the same bad actors that are currently running amok in our health care. We cannot place the fox in the hen house and then hope to regulate his diet. It is in the nature of private health insurance corporations to seek to enhance their profit. (1) The private health insurance system we have leaves 48 million Americans uninsured, causes 18,000 deaths/year, and accounts for half of the bankruptcies each year.

Secondly, we must start from proposed legislation bold and beautiful enough to inspire a nation to rise up in unprecedented action to insist upon its enactment. No good reform can be passed without a grass roots movement that dramatically changes what is possible inside the beltway. HR 676 will bring all medically necessary care to everyone with no co-pays, no deductibles, and no premiums. (2) It will make healthcare a human right and HR 676 a struggle for social justice.

Third, we encourage our friends working on health reform to take heart. It doesn't make the nightly news, but support for HR 676 has grown so rapidly that it takes your breath away.

HR 676 has 90 co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives. It has been endorsed by the Kentucky and New Hampshire Houses of Representatives, the New York State Assembly, and by dozens of cities and counties from Baltimore to San Francisco and from Warren County, Tennessee, to majority Republican Renssalaer County in New York..."