Healthcare, It's about Equality
Martin Luther King said “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”
Given Dr. King’s opinion, it was particularly ironic that Governor Schwarzenegger appeared at the annual MLK commemoration breakfast of labor and community activists in San Francisco. Governor Schwarzenegger, how can you stand there saying you honor Dr. King, when you vetoed SB 840, the one health plan that gives everyone equal care, and you plan to force us to buy worthless health insurance that will preserve inequality or make it even worse?
What does Schwarzenegger’s plan do?
- It forces everyone
to buy insurance, whether they can afford it or not.
- Poor people
will have to buy worthless insurance that could still leave families
paying $10,000 dollars each year for medical expenses.
- It lets companies
stop insuring their workers and pay the state half of what it was costing
them before.
- It cuts funding
for safety-net hospitals and clinics in half.
- It promotes
health savings accounts, which are tax breaks for the rich.
- It gives insurance companies billions of dollars each year.
SB 840 gives everyone the same comprehensive coverage: hospital, doctor visits, drugs, preventative care, mental health care, physical therapy, with no co-payments, by getting rid of insurance companies. Remember, Governor, we will never be satisfied with anything less than equality.