Why We Need
Healthcare

for All

 

What I Believe

​

• Healthcare is a human right, other countries do it. We can figure it out.
   

• Need to protect Medicaid and mandate health insurance companies operating in Indiana cover pre-existing conditions
   

• People shouldn’t have to choose between buying their medicine and their groceries
   

• People shouldn’t have to go bankrupt when they have the misfortune of becoming ill
   

• Surprise billing is immoral and wrong. Some may say that the legislature is working on it, but they are only working on the “surprise” part, not the billing part, except for emergency services. I believe the incentive for lower income patients will be to not receive that surgery their doctor recommended and scheduled, once they’ve been notified of the amount they will have to pay. Following that, their condition will likely worsen, negatively affecting their health and perhaps their ability to continue working
   

• Planned parenthood should continue to provide health services without restraint or criticism. When a woman chooses to have an abortion, it is a gut-wrenching decision that should be between her, her doctor and her faith. Government has no value-add in her decision.
   

Why I Believe It

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• Wages in Indiana have been stagnant while the cost of insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays have risen. The current healthcare system is collapsing
   

• My own daughter has paid over $300 for a vial of insulin and has had to choose between buying food and birth control, when her provider, Planned Parenthood’s funding was in question. Another daughter has “good’ insurance but pays a $15,000 annual deductible for her family of 6. All three daughters have received surprise bills that they continually struggle to pay. The legislation being considered in the Indiana legislature now, i.e., SB 3, only covers emergency facility services, excluding emergency medical services, such as ambulance medical services.
   

• Over 50% of births are unplanned. Access to no-cost contraception, reduces that rate.
   

• Women with unplanned pregnancies are less likely to receive prenatal care contributing to Indiana’s tragic maternal and infant mortality rates.
   

• Access to no-cost contraception reduces abortion rates by 75%

 

Data Supporting My Belief

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• 23% of Hoosiers in central Indiana currently have medical debt that is in collections. That means, as of September of this year, 678,942 Hoosiers owe nearly $900 million. Maybe it's you. Maybe it's a loved one. Often times, it's someone hit by an unexpected emergency. ("Hoosiers Have $900 Million in Medical Debt Collection" Fox59)
   

• When obtaining care at emergency departments and in-network hospitals, patients treated by an out-of-network provider may receive an unexpected “balance bill” for an amount beyond what the insurer paid... A man experiencing a heart attack who is rushed to the nearest emergency room or a woman in labor who needs an anesthesiologist will face difficulty in identifying the network status of the treating physician prior to receiving care. ("Balance Billing", The Commonwealth Fund)
   

• In countries with single-payer health systems [such as Medicare for All], governments exert much more influence over the entire health care process. In England, for example, the government has an agency that negotiates directly with pharmaceutical companies. The government sets a maximum price it will pay for a drug, and if companies don’t agree, they simply lose out on the entire market...driving down the price of drugs. ("Why Is Insulin So Expensive?" Vox)
   

• Employer-sponsored insurance premiums have jumped dramatically in the last 20 years, from almost $6,000 in 1999 to more than $18,000 in 2016, according to a report released Wednesday by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive Washington-based economic think tank. Those health-care expenses accounted for 51.7% of the average annual earnings for the bottom 90% of the workforce in 2016, compared to 25.6% in 1999. ("The Hidden Ways Rising Healthcare Costs Affect You", Market Watch)
   

• U.S. state and federal government expenditures for unplanned pregnancy-related care totaled $21 billion, with public insurance programs, such as Medicaid, financing 68 percent of unplanned births, compared to 38 percent of planned births. This number does not capture additional costs stemming from an unplanned pregnancy’s impact on educational attainment, family economics, and child health and wellbeing. ("Preventing Unplanned Pregnancies", National Conference of State Legislatures)
   

• Over the past six years, Colorado has conducted one of the largest experiments with long-acting birth control….The birthrate among teenagers across the state plunged by 40 percent from 2009 to 2013, while their rate of abortions fell by 42 percent, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. ("Fact Check: Birth Control Prevents Unintended Pregnancies", Planned Parenthood)