Name
Address
April 20, 2007
The Honorable______________
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Representative Name
I am writing to you as a constituent, a future physician and a member of the American
Medical Student Association (AMSA) who is deeply concerned about the state of our
nation’s health care system. I urge you to support bold legislation to fix health care in the
United States – the United States National Health Insurance Act (H.R. 676). The rising
number of uninsured, skyrocketing health care costs, and unaffordable prescription drugs
– these are some of the problems health care faces today. Many of these problems can be
traced back to a root cause: the failure of a private, for-profit, market-based health
insurance system.
The United States spends almost double on health care expenses per capita than any other
nation in the world, yet we remain the world’s only industrialized democracy that does
not guarantee health care for all its people. Too much of this money is spent on wasteful
bureaucracy and profits for private insurance companies. H.R. 676 would replace this
deeply flawed non-system with a single, publicly accountable, and publicly financed
health care system. The savings from streamlined administration would be more than
enough to provide all medically necessary health services for all Americans.
Recent reports show that 75 million Americans, fully one in three non-elderly adults,
were uninsured for all or part of last year. Furthermore, the Institute of Medicine reports
that uninsurance in individuals leads to drastic implications for families and communities.
Indeed, as the title of the latest IOM report suggests, we all, the insured and the
uninsured, have a shared destiny.
Even for those with insurance, the rising costs of health care and the greater burden put
on individuals and employees leads to greater health insecurity. All attempts to use
private, market-based competition to control costs and improve quality have failed. H.R.
676 would set a global budget for health care expenditures, so as to reward cost-saving
innovation, prevention, and timely care.
Not only is it morally reprehensible that we currently ration care based on ability to pay,
but this non-system is bad medicine and bad economics. As the future of medicine, I
cannot accept incremental changes; it is inevitable the number of uninsured will rise
again until we agree that all Americans deserve equal and quality health care. Americans
deserve a health care system that will be there when they need it most. I want to practice
in a system that I know is secure and whose health will not be dictated by the whim of
markets and profits.
I urge you to support the United States National Health Insurance Act (H.R. 676). To
sign on as a co-sponsor, please contact Joel Segal in Rep. John Conyers’ office.
Thank you.
Name