Every year, nearly 18,000 people die unnecessarily as a direct result of their lack of health insurance.   There are over 46 million uninsured people living in America, the majority of which are working Americans.  Of those with health insurance, millions maintain inadequate, overly expensive coverage and face the peril of denials of claims or termination of benefits if a family member becomes seriously ill--one of the leading causes of bankruptcy in the U.S.

The private insurance bureaucracy expends one-third of health care money on waste, administrative paperwork, advertising and corporate profits. While spending twice as much on health care as any other industrialized country, our system performs poorly, spending more money for less coverage, maximizing profits by finding ways to deny care.   We cannot, as a country, allow our citizens, our family members, to lose their homes or to be forced to choose between food and medicine, simply because they have become ill.  

This is why Steve Harrison is an advocate for single-payer universal medical coverage for all Americans - a plan that would not only save more than $350 billion per year, but would save lives. 

The savings would create enough new money to provide guaranteed comprehensive health care for all. This system would insure portable and uniform benefits regardless of income. With no deductibles or co-pays, this plan would encourage preventive care and restore a doctor and patient controlled health care system affording choice of providers and fair, publicly negotiated payment for both treatment and medication.

Until such legislation becomes law, Steve proposes that we require Wal-Mart and other large employers in notoriously low paying and stingy-benefit industries to provide health coverage to their workers. Their failure to provide health insurance unfairly shifts the cost and burden to the taxpayer as employees.