Winter 2025 Newsletter
Director’s Report
Committee Reports
Of Interest
- Report by Kurt Bateman on HCFAO for the Columbus Free Press
- Predatory Health Insurers by Dr. Brad Cotton, for the Athens, OH, Messenger
Recommended Reading
- Debunking Every Myth You Hear Against Universal Healthcare
- Bernie Sanders: A Mass Movement Can Beat Health CEO Greed
- The Flawed Corporate Health Care Model
- A Man Was Murdered in Cold Blood and You’re Laughing?
- What Doctors Like Me Know About Americans’ Health Care Anger
- The Deadly Consequences Of UnitedHealth’s Unchecked Growth
- A Manifesto Against For-Profit Health Insurance Companies — by Michael Moore
Director’s Report
**Subject: The Importance of Single-Payer Healthcare in Light of Recent Events**
Dear Members,
I hope this letter finds you well. The recent passing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has brought significant attention to the for-profit healthcare insurance industry. This tragic event has sparked a broader conversation about the role and impact of for-profit entities in our healthcare system
As many of you are aware, the for-profit model often prioritizes financial gain over patient care, leading to higher costs and sometimes inadequate coverage. The death of Mr. Thompson has underscored the urgent need for a more equitable and patient-focused approach to healthcare.
Our Single Payer membership stands as a testament to the belief that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. We are committed to providing comprehensive, affordable coverage that prioritizes the well-being of our members over profit margins. In these challenging times, it is more important than ever to support and advocate for a healthcare system that serves the needs of all individuals, not just the bottom line.
Thank you for your continued support and dedication to our mission. Together, we can work towards a future where healthcare is accessible and equitable for everyone.
Sincerely,
Kendall Mays
State Director, Healthcare for All Ohioans
| Regional Meetings |
| Region 1 (Cleveland, Northeast Ohio) Coordinator: Cathe Caraway (310-749-6111) cathe@carawaylaw.com Cleveland SPAN group — Monday, Jan 27 at 5:00 PM, on Zoom For the Zoom link, contact clevelandspan@spanohio.org, or contact Cathe above. |
| Region 4 (Cincinnati, Southwest Ohio) Coordinator: Deliah (Dee) Chavez (513-413-1178) dee49@fuse.net Region 4 – Wednesday, Jan 29, 7 PM For details, Contact Dee Chavez, Coordinator Region 4 |
| Region 7 (Dayton, West Central Ohio) Co-Coordinators: Matt Noordsij-Jones (NJ) mattnj78@gmail.com (937-321-8698) Bill Davis (wndavis@acm.org) Region 7 – Thursday, January 9, 7PM Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87357971268?pwd=7Sbbfi72jt3LfXEf5GBeZc3o7NlcMr.1 Meeting ID: 873 5797 1268 Passcode: 295073 |
Committee Reports
Equity Committee Report
This year has been a year of momentous growth for our Health Equity Committee! We will be sharing a full report come January, but some of the highlights have been:
- 3 health equity workshops, most recently learning how to implement inclusive leadership into our work
- Over 300 persons reached through our events
- NEW health equity emails monthly to event registrants
- >30 people added to the database
- NEW diversity statement/rationale, DEI toolbox, and contact sheet
We encourage you to continue using the DEI toolbox – which includes guidelines, recommendations, and tools for you to increase engagement with diverse populations – and implement the four R’s of inclusive leadership: respect, responsibility, recognition, and relationships . If you are a regional coordinator, please fill out our end-of-survey to let us know how we can serve you better.
All the best,
Amber Prater, MPH, CHES®
Lobby Committee Report
The Lobby Committee has added 4 members who are motivated to speak to legislators about the dire state of healthcare in Ohio and urge action toward single payer.
Our Committee continued to speak to nominees running for state office and overwhelmingly found support for our cause.
We found there is a commitment to work together if elected. Many joined HCFAO/SPAN Ohio.
On November 22nd we hosted a meeting with the four joint sponsors of The Ohio Health Care Act (date changed so all 4 could attend).
All state legislators were invited and several attended (or their aides) as well as many members of HCFAO/SPAN.
The meeting was led by Representative Mike Skindell, who is retiring at the end of this General Assembly but states he will remain active in the healthcare movement.
He spoke about more details of the bill and took questions.
The Lobby Committee will meet next on January 15th by Zoom.
Dee Chavez,Chair SPAN Ohio Lobby Committee
Phone: 513-413-1178 dee49@fuse.net
Membership Committee Report
Help Healthcare for All Ohioans and SPAN Ohio grow and be successful.
Does your employer match charitable contributions?
Do you belong to a union or club that would support SPAN with an organizational membership? We’d be happy to speak to your group on the benefits of Healthcare for All Ohioans.
We appreciate the generosity of our members and other donors.
Many are hesitant to help raise funds to operate Healthcare for All Ohioans and the Single Payer Action Network Ohio. Fundraisers take time and energy for planning, execution and follow-up. That’s among the reasons our state council decided to create paid memberships: to provide a steady flow of funds to facilitate budgeting. If you have attended a state-wide conference, you’ve seen all the printed matter, t-shirts, buttons, stickers, etc. on display for people to take home to help deliver the SPAN Ohio message. It all takes money. As we have been refocusing our use of Healthcare for All Ohioans as a primary name in marketing, regional coordinators all have updated kits for tabling at events to spread our message across Ohio.
After offering paid memberships for years, we have found that while many have joined and renewed their membership, a minority is steady at responding to emails. Consequently, I follow-up with a postcard which costs time and money with hopes of getting more renewals, especially with the rising cost of postage. If you would like to support our organizations, you could save volunteer time and expense of supplies by checking for the emails we send and responding on-line to renew your membership.
When membership is not a stretch, we have members who also make a monthly gift. Some use the amount given to HCFAO as a charitable tax deduction. Others apply to their employers to match their contributions.
Please add HCFAO/SPAN to contacts so calls, texts and emails are not blocked.
If you would like us to remove you from our Membership list, please let me know and we can do that. We can remove you entirely or continue sending newsletters and announcements.
Universal Healthcare is UP TO US. We The People will only win the human rights we are entitled to if we grow our movement and organize sufficiently to be heard.
In Solidarity!
Bill Davis
wndavis@acm.org – 937-264-0377
Of Interest
Commentary: Predator Health “Insurers”
This article by HCFAO/SPAN Associate Director Kurt Bateman was written for the Columbus Free Press, December 6, 2024
Though the results of the national election were razor thin by my assessment, I think the turn toward authoritarianism and away from more pluralistic public policy making is troubling for all of society, not just those of us advocating for universal single payer healthcare. This billionaire lead DOGE advisory organization being formed will undoubtedly propose further monopoly of all aspects of our society.
Public statements about the austerity to be visited on broadly defined segments of our society, will only lead to further upheaval and division. Without extreme popular push back I feel we’re in for a very fraught future in total.
Health Care For All Ohioans / SPANOhio.org has contracted with the Action Network to help our organizing and outreach. It is evident that the majority of the public understand the issue and support a public financing solution, however, getting that message more widely understood among the public is hampered not only by political leaders but also the news media whose revenue is dependent on the same economic monopolists we struggle against every day, namely Big Insurance and Big Pharma. Whenever we do tabling at festivals and other public events, those we talk to all have stories of financial hardship and even death resulting from exorbitant costs associated with care access.
We are also undertaking a reassessment of our organization with the goal of developing a new strategic plan for the years ahead. This process has a target date of April to present for approval by our state council.
The State elections have been somewhat more positive with GA [General Assembly of the Ohio Legislature] members who are somewhat younger and have a deeper understanding of the dysfunction we fight against. Sadly the gerrymandered nature of our representative districts wasn’t changed and I fear the majority will move rapidly in the lame duck to slam the door on any reform.
Our past leadership conducted outreach to other social and economic justice organizations. More of this needs to be pursued. Further movement building and cross participation between groups can help.
If there was one thing that local activists might do, is to simply invite presentations about our legislation so that broader understanding/activism might be encouraged.
Funding is always an issue so at these presentations if thousands of people tossed in a couple of bucks every month to maintain information systems and continue outreach we could do more to advance this issue.
Recently on a zoom call one of our newly elected GA members, who will sign onto our legislation, suggested getting 1000 or more people to the Capitol at the time of the next reintroduction.
Sometimes it’s just about showing up!
—————-
Healthcare for All Ohioans (SPAN Ohio) is a non-profit that has been championing universal healthcare in Ohio for over 20 years. We focus on educating the public and supporting Single-Payer Action Network Ohio, our allied 501(c)4 organization. Our core mission is achieving healthcare reform in Ohio and the United States, guaranteeing healthcare access for all residents.
Recommended Reading
Debunking Every Myth You Hear Against Universal Healthcare
Whether you are politically left or right, you should want Universal Healthcare as a human right—here are the receipts on why
By Qasim Rashid, Dec 10
On May 20, 1962, JFK delivered an impassioned speech at Madison Square Garden in favor of universal healthcare . Then, decades later in 2006 nearly 7 in 10 Americans believed the government should fund healthcare. And now, a new Gallop Poll reports that 62% of Americans believe in guaranteed universal healthcare . And despite this decades of support, not a single Presidential candidate this cycle had the courage to run on this wildly popular platform. Over the last week I’ve written in detail about America’s Violent Health System , and likewise, shared a deeply personal story about When Insurance Rejects Life Saving Care about our daughter Hannah Noor.
In response, I’ve received overwhelming empathy and compassion from conservatives and liberals alike, Republicans and Democrats, from those who self-identify as “Ultra MAGA” to those who label themselves as “Bernie Social Democrats.” Americans get it. Healthcare needs to be a human right.
Sadly, politicians, Republicans and too many Democrats alike, don’t get it. They worship at the altar of corporate donations. The health insurance industry annually spends a harrowing $700,000,000 on lobbying politicians to do their bidding. And that doesn’t even include what they spend on SuperPACs to block out candidates who dare run on a platform of guaranteed universal healthcare. Those same healthcare corporations then engage in a mass media blitz of misinformation and disinformation to convince people to vote against their own self-interests. In reality, guaranteed universal healthcare is a proven model adopted by every single developed nation on Earth ( and many lower income developing nations). And while I do not have $700,000,000 to counter the lobbying propaganda health insurance corporations infuse into our politics, I do have access to the facts that health insurance corporations hope the American people don’t realize.
Below I address five of the main arguments against universal healthcare in the United States, debunk them with facts, and hope you feel compelled to share this far and wide with your networks. We can achieve healthcare as a human right in this country, but it requires us activating, organizing, and educating ourselves to successfully achieve that needed transformational change.
Let’s Address This.
Myth 1: We Can’t Afford Universal Healthcare
Fact: The opposite is true. Dozens of studies prove that universal healthcare will save Americans billions of dollars annually. In fact, 22 studies reviewed all concluded that universal healthcare would save approximately $450 billion a year. And this is a universal conclusion. For example , “ Even the Mercatus Center , a right-wing think tank, recently found about $2 trillion in net savings over 10 years from a single-payer Medicare for All system. Most importantly, everyone in America would have high-quality health care coverage .”
. . .
Myth 2: If Costs Go Down, So Does Quality of Care
Fact: This is simply not true. It is important to understand why costs decrease, because contrary to the myth, every single one of the above studies found that quality of care would not decrease with universal healthcare. Costs under a universal healthcare model decrease instead because we stop wasteful spending. As consumer rights activist and scholar Diane Archer further explains in a point I reference above:
Medicare for All is far less costly than our current system largely because it reduces administrative costs. With one public plan negotiating rates with health care providers, billing becomes quite simple…
Myth 5: Universal Healthcare Causes Long Wait Lines
Fact: For primary physician appointments, Americans already wait longer under our exploitative for profit model than do people in nations with universal healthcare. Frankly, I marvel at this allegation as I reflect over the fact that it took us more than two years to get our daughter the critical life saving medication she needed, only because our exploitative for profit health insurance company refused to accept our doctor’s medical instruction. In reality, wait times in the United States are shorter only for elective surgery, but for primary care or for critical care, the United States is the worst out of any nation with universal healthcare .
Moreover, think about how illogical the claim is that universal healthcare results in wait times that hurt our health. If that were true, why does every developed nation have a higher life expectancy than does the United States? Why do each of them have lower maternal mortality than does the United States? Why do each of them have lower infant mortality than does the United States? Why why do none of them have medical bankruptcy, while we have 500,000 annually? . . .
Bonus Myth: Why Should I Pay For Other People’s Healthcare?
Fact: How do you think health insurance works? Once you figure that out, you’ll realize that you’re already paying for other people’s healthcare, as they are paying for yours. You’ll also realize that having a larger pool of money from which to cover costs for everyone actually saves you money. And finally, you’ll realize that because more than 75 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, every time they can’t pay a bill, for profit insurance companies raise your rates to make up the difference. So when people don’t have healthcare, it costs you. Therefore, even if all you care about is yourself, you should want everyone to have healthcare because it will lower your costs as well.
Conclusion
As I posted on BlueSky , “ If the killing of the UnitedHealth CEO has taught us one thing, its that we’re maybe not as divided as we think. When 90% of people empathize with the people the CEO exploited more than with the CEO, it should tell our politicians something. Stop bowing to billionaires & actually work for the people .”
The facts are clear. Universal healthcare costs less, renders the same high quality care, will save at least 68,000 lives annually, prevents 500,000 medical bankruptcies, ignites job creation, increases life expectancy, decreases infant and maternal mortality, and eliminates for profit health insurance lobbying, which is a major source of exploitative lobbying to America’s politicians. Literally the only people who believe we need to spend hundreds of billions on administrative costs are insurance executives who need that money for their precious private jets and yachts. I think I can speak for at least 99% Americans when I say, America will be better off with more healthcare access and few private jets for billionaires.
For full article, go to: Debunking Every Myth You Hear Against Universal Healthcare
Bernie Sanders: A Mass Movement Can Beat Health CEO Greed
An interview (by Chandler Dandridge
Chandler Dandridge We are approaching the fifteenth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act [ACA] and the US is still in the throes of a serious health care crisis. In fact, over the past ten years profits have only increased for insurance companies, premiums keep going up, and basic claims continue to be denied. Why did President [Barack] Obama’s signature legislation fail to fix our health care system?
Bernie Sanders Because the ACA’s major function is to increase health care coverage by subsidizing the insurance industry. Its function was never to get to the root causes of the problems and ask why we spend about twice as much per capita on health care as the people of other countries. It didn’t address the issue that the function of the current health care system does not — underline not — provide quality care in a cost-effective way.
The function is very clear, and that hasn’t changed: it is to make as much money as possible for the insurance companies and the drug companies. So if you have a system that is designed to make tens of billions a year in profits for insurance companies and drug companies, by definition it is not going to address the needs of the American people.
Chandler Dandridge
Despite the current crisis, health care was largely absent from the 2024 general election — a stark difference from when you ran for president in 2016 and 2020. You’ve traveled all across the country these last few months: Have average people lost interest and resigned themselves to the status quo?
Bernie Sanders [shouting] NO! Is that clear enough?
Look, when we talk about the health care crisis, in my view, and I think the view of a majority of Americans, the current system is broken, it is dysfunctional, it is cruel, and it is wildly inefficient — far too expensive. That’s what people understand that the situation is. When I give public speeches most of the time, I’ll say, “Listen, I want you to tell me what you think. How many of you think the current American health care system is working well? Please raise your hand.” Very few hands go up. “How many of you think it’s broken?” Almost every hand in the room goes up. That’s what the American people understand for obvious reasons.
We’ve had eighty-five million people uninsured. We pay the highest price in the world for prescription drugs. Our outcomes are worse than most other health care systems. Our life expectancy is lower. Some sixty thousand people a year die because they don’t get to a doctor on time. You don’t have to be a genius to understand that this is a wildly dysfunctional system. We spend twice as much per capita on health care, and we get less in value than other countries.
. . . .
People understand the system is broken. You had two campaigns: The Democratic campaign saying, “Hey, the status quo is working okay, we’re going to fix a little bit around the edges.” And Trump coming in saying, “The system is completely broken and I’m going to fix it.” Well, unfortunately, he’s going to make a broken system even worse. But he won support because people know that the system is broken. It is broken. The campaign finance system is broken, the health care system is broken, the housing system is broken, the education system is broken. It is broken. And we need a movement to create a society that works for all of us, and we can do it. It ain’t easy, but that is what the struggle is about.
. . .
But the real crisis is not a health care debate. It’s a political debate. It’s a campaign finance debate. The reason we have not joined virtually every other major country on earth in guaranteeing health care to all people as a human right is the political power and financial power of the insurance industry and drug companies. They spend huge amounts of money making sure that we do not challenge the basic premises of the current system, and that we continue to maintain a health care system run by insurance companies and drug companies.
. . .
So we’ve got to work on a nonprofit health care system, universal, covering all people, cost effective, and not insurance bureaucrats making decisions but doctors making decisions. It exists all over the world — not a radical idea. There is study after study showing that we are wasting huge amounts of money in bureaucracy, billing, and compensation costs for CEOs rather than providing the health care that we need.
. . . You turn on the television, who’s talking about Medicare for All? Me occasionally, a few other people. Yet despite that, you got a lot of support for it. Imagine if you had a political party that said that.
For full article, go to: A Mass Movement Can Beat Health CEO Greed
The Flawed Corporate Health Care Model
(The following are remarks by Don McCanne of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), commenting on an article in the New York Times by Andrew Witty, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, parent of United Health Care. That article, 12/13/24 is titled The Health Care System is Flawed, Let’s Fix It. What’s below are the comments by Don McCanne
. . . In an attempt to assuage the sorrow and anger of the public at large, Witty explains that no one would design a health care system like the one we have now, but that their mission is “to help make it work better.“ Andrew Witty says that they will carry forward Brian Thompson’s legacy of “making health care more affordable, more transparent, more intuitive, more compassionate — and more human.”
But let’s look at their business model. Half of the company is about health insurance, and we all know about the dysfunctional changes that have taken place in the health insurance we have ended up with — massive profits, narrow & flawed provider networks, prohibitive deductibles and cost-sharing, and rising prior authorization denials. Ours is the most expensive health care system, yet it significantly underperforms compared to other wealthy nations. Far too many are left underinsured or even uninsured. This is a legacy of making health care more affordable, more compassionate, and more human? Don’t think so.
It hardly seems that their mission is, as they claim, about improving health care for all. About half of their business model is in Optum. Optum isn’t about the rendering of health care; it’s about the business of health care. It’s about taking our health care dollars and moving them into their business model. It’s about money! It’s about profits!
Andrew Witty wants us to be impressed by the humane nature of their model, even if it has not performed as well as we think it should. In fact, their hidden mission of wealth creation for their executives and investors might be better exemplified by his compensation increase of $2.6 million in the latest year for which we have a breakdown of his $23.5 million compensation. That’s quite a reward for someone who is supervising the degradation of our health care financing system. . . .
For full article, go to: The Flawed Corporate Health Care Model
A Man Was Murdered in Cold Blood and You’re Laughing?
UnitedHealthcare had two hundred and eighty-one billion dollars in revenue in 2023, and Thompson, who became C.E.O. in 2021, had raised annual profits from twelve billion dollars to sixteen billion dollars during his tenure. He received more than ten million dollars in compensation last year.
. . .
People’s Action [a group which has organized protests at United Health Care] leaders referenced endless hours on the phone trying to get medical care covered, and denials of coverage for lifesaving medication and surgery. A recent statement from the group, in response to Thompson’s death, read, “We know there is a crisis of gun violence in America. There is also a crisis of denials of care by private health insurance corporations including UnitedHealth.” They urged political leaders to “act on both.” UnitedHealthcare has the highest claim-denial rate of any private insurance company: at thirty-two per cent, it is double the industry average.
. . .
Reporting in the Wall Street Journal has found that these private insurance companies, which cover more than a third of American seniors on Medicare, collect hundreds of billions of dollars from the government annually and overbill Medicare to the tune of around ten billion dollars per year; UnitedHealthcare has used litigation to fight its obligation to repay fees that were overpaid. In 2020, UnitedHealth acquired a company called NaviHealth, whose software provides algorithmic care recommendations for sick patients, and which is now used to help manage its Medicare Advantage program.
For full article, go to: A Man Was Murdered in Cold Blood and You’re Laughing?
What Doctors Like Me Know About Americans’ Health Care Anger
By Helen Ouyang
Dr. Ouyang is an emergency physician and an associate professor at Columbia University.
[While on duty in the Emergency Room, a patient] beckoned me closer. His forehead furrowed with concern. I thought he would ask if he was going to be OK or if he needed surgery — questions I’m comfortable fielding. But instead he asked, “Will my insurance cover my stay?”
This is a question I can’t answer with certainty. Patients often believe that since I’m part of the health-care system, I would know. But I don’t, not as a doctor — and not even when I’m a patient myself. In the United States, health insurance is so extraordinarily complicated, with different insurers offering different plans, covering certain things and denying others (sometimes in spite of what they say initially they cover). I could never guarantee anything.
. . .
Among these grievances is the great unknown of whether a treatment recommended by a doctor will be covered. It’s critical for me as a physician to build trust with my patients by giving them clear answers. But the conversations we’re seeing now about health care remind me that insurance unknowns don’t just compromise the care I can deliver to my patients — they also undermine the fragile doctor-patient trust. It’s an unsustainable dynamic.
. . . .
I said what I could to get him to stay, but I understood why he wanted to be certain. The average cost of a three-day hospital stay is $30,000. He had heard the health insurance horror stories. Maybe he had lived through one himself.
What Doctors Like Me Know About Americans’ Health Care Anger
For more on United Health Care, check out:
The Deadly Consequences Of UnitedHealth’s Unchecked Growth
UnitedHealthcare has the largest market share of all health insurance companies, raking in $372 billion in revenue last year. The behemoth sells commercial policies and provides over nine million plans through Medicare Advantage, a federal program through which private companies provide insurance for people over 65 and those with disabilities.
The corporation has also gone far beyond just selling insurance.
In an investor conference this year, UnitedHealth Group’s chief executive officer Andrew Witty promoted its sprawling reach, which now includes making medical products, providing loans for medical services, and owning pharmacies that set drug prices. The company currently employs about 10 percent of all physicians in the United States, giving it vast leverage with hospital networks.
For full article, go to: The Deadly Consequences Of UnitedHealth’s Unchecked Growth
A Manifesto Against For-Profit Health Insurance Companies — by Michael Moore
. . . Here’s a sad statistic for you: In the United States, we have a whopping 1.4 million people employed with the job of DENYING HEALTH CARE, vs only 1 million doctors in the entire country! That’s all you need to know about America. We pay more people to deny care than to give it. . . .
For full article, go to:
A Manifesto Against For-Profit Health Insurance Companies
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