Letter to Editor
Star Tribune
June 23, 2010
by Amy Lange
Executive Director
Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition

It's heartening to see single-payer health care being debated by gubernatorial candidates. Our next governor will have the opportunity to enact the Minnesota Health Plan, a sustainable and fiscally responsible solution to our health care mess. The spiraling cost of health care is a huge contributor to the state's current budget crisis. This is precisely the reason we must enact a single-payer system like the Minnesota Health Plan.

Our current system is unsustainable. Tweaks, mandates and corporate insurance bailouts will no longer work. The Minnesota Health Plan would save money, lowering the per-person cost of health care and giving working families and small businesses relief from the crushing burden of health care costs. And by focusing on prevention and primary care, the plan would keep people healthier and more productive.

This plan creates jobs by lowering total spending on health care. This is especially important for the 500,000 small businesses in Minnesota. Jobs will expand in the health care delivery sector when everyone has access to care. People will be employed to provide health care rather than deny care and deny payment as the insurance industry often does now. We know what it will make abundantly clear: Single-payer uses the only proven means of cost containment; administrative simplicity, bulk purchasing, negotiated rates, capital planning, global budgeting and the creation of a large risk pool.

The Minnesota Health Plan would give everyone what they really want for insurance: the peace of mind that they have affordable coverage that can't be taken away, and the choice of a doctor who they think is best for them. The Minnesota Health Plan would assure health care when you need it, because that's what every Minnesotan deserves.

AMY LANGE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MINNESOTA UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE COALITION