December 30, 2009
Dear Member of Congress,
Doctors for Global Health (www.dghonline.org) is an independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit, volunteer, humanitarian organization dedicated to the promotion of health, education and other human rights in the United States and throughout the world. We are writing to share with you our expectations for a fair and just health care system in the United States, and we urge you to adopt the following proposals into final health care reform legislation.
We at Doctors for Global Health believe in the right to health care regardless of a person’s place in society or geographic location. This is stated clearly in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (www.hrweb.org/legal/udhr.html) and the Declaration of Alma Ata (www.who.int/hpr/NPH/docs/declaration_almaata.pdf). If this right is only extended to certain individuals while excluding others, then it becomes a violation of fundamental rights for those excluded. Health care is not a privilege of the chosen few. It is a right that belongs to everyone, including children, women, and immigrants of any status whatsoever. Inclusion of all people should be the clear goal of ultimate health care “reform”, and we advocate the expansion of all current health care reform measures to include all persons, and to remove any language that excludes health care access to specific groups. In particular, we strongly oppose the Stupak amendment in HR 3962, which takes away women’s health care and reproductive rights. In addition, we strongly oppose the exclusion of documented and undocumented immigrants from the health care system. We also urge Congress to ensure comprehensive health care for all of America’s children once and for all.
We believe that a single payer universal access plan or “Medicare for All” would best achieve a fair and just health care system. The current House and Senate bills have many pages of proposed “pilot projects” that allow for innovative ways to optimize health care and limit costs. Given the success of single payer health care systems elsewhere- namely in Canada, Great Britain, Taiwan, and Australia- it seems clear that states should have the right to create a similar system that is widely known to be robust and efficient. Thus, we urge Congress to include in final legislation the option for states to create single payer systems as proposed by Congressional members Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich, Anthony Weiner, and others, and supported by many physician groups and patient advocacy organizations. In the absence of a true single-payer plan, in the very least, a comprehensive “public option” plan should be part of final legislation.
We support the proposed constraints on private corporate health insurance companies, such as prohibiting discrimination for pre-existing health conditions and the end to other inhumane practices of insurance companies. We would like to urge Congress to maintain its commitment to these goals in final legislation, and to protect our patients and citizens from corporate profit seeking. We also ask for stronger legislation to limit the influence of pharmaceutical companies and other corporate interests, and to improve cost-containment legislation overall.
We support the proposed plans that expand preventive and primary care to more Americans, but strongly advocate for a more robust plan to ensure comprehensive primary and preventive health care for all.
We understand that health is a product of the community in which we live, and thus “reform” of the health care system is only part of a healthful society. We urge members of Congress to consider the social determinants of health in all policy-making decisions, and to promote policies in all aspects of civil society that promote peace and health, and to discontinue policies and practices that foster violence and destructive behavior.
Health care reform legislation has the potential to improve access to healthcare for millions of uninsured Americans, and we would like to commend the hard work being done to change the current unacceptable and inhumane state of U.S. healthcare. But the current proposals, while beneficial for many, are a mere shadow of what a just health care system for all would look like. We urge you to widen the scope of current proposals to include the above measures that are so critical to achieving true health care for all.
Sincerely,
The Board of Directors,
Doctors for Global Health
December 30, 2009
