Democratic Hopefuls Urged to Scrap Private Insurers
By Avram Goldstein
Bloomberg News
September 27, 2007
Democratic presidential candidates, already criticized by Republicans for moving too far toward a government-run health system, are being urged by advocacy groups and lawmakers to go the rest of the way.
With backing from labor unions, 83 Democrats in the U.S. House are sponsoring a measure to create a national health plan, abolish the role of private insurers such as market leader United HealthGroup Inc. and second-place rival WellPoint Inc. and make all hospitals nonprofit, supporters said today.
The three leading Democratic presidential candidates largely agree on plans to preserve private insurance, provide tax incentives to make insurance more affordable and offer the uninsured a government option like the Medicare program for the elderly. Advocates of a "single-payer" system fully run by the government say they are gaining public support.
"When you build up a head of steam on an issue, people will do what they need to do to get re-elected or to get that campaign cash in the coffers," said Representative John Conyers Jr., a Democrat from Detroit, at a press briefing today. "All we have to do is build up support for it, and they'll come around. Many are secretly for it."
Conyers and allies, led by the 80,000-member California Nurses Association of Oakland, California, and the 14,000 members of Chicago-based Physicians for a National Health Plan, say insurers take 31 percent of revenue for administration and profit.
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