Congress is about to vote on health-care reform. I am concerned at the direction the debate seems to be going. As a member of Church Women United, I strongly believe that health care is a right and that any reform proposal enacted by Congress must guarantee coverage for all of us.
We need a system that is simple to understand, a system that gives us our own choice of doctor, a system where individuals and employers pay their fair share and a system where everyone is in the same risk pool.
More than any other bill in Congress, the single payer proposal meets our goals for reform. It will save more than $114 billion a year and guarantee that everyone is covered. Everyone would pitch in to help pay for health care.
Some people think they are secure because they currently have health insurance. However, if they get critically ill, have an accident or even simply get older, they are at risk of losing coverage. We all are at risk and unless we truly enact reform that takes into account our neighbors (in this case the 38 million uninsured), costs will remain high and we all remain vulnerable to losing our access to health care.
