The Universal Health Care Action Network - Minnesota (UHCAN-MN) is a network of organizations and individuals dedicated to fundamental health care reform in Minnesota and the United States.
Why a Minnesota Universal Health Care Program?
Under a Minnesota Universal Health Care System, one payer (a board of consumers) not hundreds of insurance companies, HMOs and government programs reimburses doctors, hospitals and other providers. The Minnesota Universal Health Care System would set fee schedules for individual providers and budgets for hospitals.
| Current System | Universal Health Care Plan |
|---|---|
| Causes High Administrative Waste: High insurance company overhead, high executive salaries and excessive provider paperwork. | Cuts Administrative Waste: Providers would be reimbursed by one payer only, not hundreds of insurance companies. |
| Causes High Fees and Prices: High prescription drug prices, hospital stays and doctor fees. | Cuts High Fees and Prices: Sets fee schedules for practitioners and budgets for hospitals. |
| Creates Excess Capacity: Duplicate machinery and empty hospital beds | Cuts Excess Capacity: Hospitals would have to submit budgets to the one payer. |
What Is Single-Payer? (5 min video)
Take Action Video (6MB download, 2 min video)
Universal Health Care Action Network-MN Mission Statement
UHCAN-MN believes the following principles are fundamental to any health care reform:
- Access to comprehensive, highest quality health care is a human right
- Provision of care should be based on need, not ability to pay
- The right to choose one's caregiver is fundamental to patient autonomy
- Personal medical decisions must be made by patients with their caregivers, not by corporate or government bureaucrats
- Personnel should reflect a diverse population, ensure interdisciplinary cooperation and continuity of care, with sensitivity to cultural and spiritual needs
- In a democracy, the public should set overall health policies
- Financing should be public, progressive, accountable and affordable
- Pursuit of corporate profit and personal fortune have no place in caregiving and they create enormous waste
Working to reform the health care system to encompass these eight principles is our top priority. We believe a single-payer system is the best way, indeed the only way, according to evidence-based, authoritative research and experience worldwide, to achieve a reformed system.
UHCAN-MN is also committed to advocating for changes in other legislative proposals and existing programs to ensure greater consistency with the eight principles and to move the programs or proposals closer to reforming the health care system.
Support UHCAN-MN in its fight. Here's how you can help.
"Of all the forms of inequality,
injustice in health care is the
most shocking and inhumane."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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