WHAT:
Medicare: Protect It, Improve It, Expand It
A panel discussion & open forum
WHEN:
7:00 - 8:30 p.m.
Wednesday 8/10
WHERE:
Downtown Library
Room A; Lower Level
140 E Main Street
Lexington
Click here to view the event flyer. Print & post it.
Join us. Support Medicare. Expand it.
DETAILS:
The best way to hold down the cost of Medicare is to expand it. To learn more about this and about the threat of wealth and corporate interests to the current Medicare program, come to our August 10th panel discussion and community forum, “Medicare: Protect It, Keep It, Expand It.” Hear health care reform advocate Bill Mahan, rural health care advocate Dr. Ewell Scott, Nurse Professional Organizer and convenor of our parent group in Louisville (Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare) Kay Tillow, and health care advocate and Associate State Director of the Kentucky AARP Tihisha Rawlins.
We believe President Obama’s health care reform [the Affordable Care Act (ACA)] has made our insurance-based health care less unjust, but everyone will still NOT be covered (23 million Americans in 2019 ) and many more Americans will be underinsured. They will be underinsured because insurance under the ACA will be so expensive that many Americans will have no choice but to buy bare bones policies.
Louisville resident and national President of Physicians for a National Health Care Plan, Dr. Garrett Adams recently summed up the problem “our current way of financing care – using wasteful, inefficient middlemen known as private health insurance companies – is broken and economically unsustainable. Many also understand that the new federal health law, while containing modest benefits, is an insufficient remedy, among other reasons because it retains a central role for these same greedy insurers."
Medicare is important to healthcare reform because it delivers comprehensive healthcare at a cost much lower than private for-profit insurance companies can match. Overhead for private insurance is typically 12 - 15%; Medicare's overhead is under 3%. Moreover, Medicare utilizes the existing healthcare system to deliver care. Government's role is simply to fund the care.
IMACK spokesperson Richard Mitchell summarized the motivation for the event: "Medicare is the outstanding example of a publicly funded, privately run healthcare system. It is in many-ways a single-payer system. If made a truly single-payer system it could be even more efficient. Single-payer systems make sense but are hard to enact because they are opposed by the private health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Using big money and the rhetoric of fear, they have bought politicians and confused the public. Healthcare reform does not have to be complicated. All that is needed is to expand Medicare so that it is available to all Americans."
Some facts about Medicare include:
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Medicare provides healthcare coverage to 45 million older Americans and Americans with disabilities.
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Medicare is the second largest source of federal spending for HIV care and treatment.
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Medicare continues to be instrumental in reducing disparities in access and coverage for racial and ethnic minority groups.
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By 2030, 20 percent of the US population-77 million people-will be eligible for Medicare.
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Medicare supports US teaching hospitals and provides extra support to hospitals that serve a disproportionate number of low-income patients and to rural hospitals.
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Turning Medicare in to a truly single payer system will make Medicare sustainable for future generations.
SPONSOR:
IMACK
Improved Medicare for All - Central KY
Central KY Chapter of Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Richard Mitchell
(859) 327-6277
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