“America doesn’t need ‘mandatory’ coverage, America needs guaranteed health care,”

“Senator Clinton’s $110-billion-per-year ‘mandatory coverage’ plan amounts to a gigantic subsidy for the HMO-insurance industry, while shifting the burden — and the blame for lack of coverage — onto people who desperately need health care,” said John Battista, MD, former Green Party candidate for state representative in Connecticut and co-author of his state’s single-payer legislation in 1999 (the Connecticut Health Care Security Act).

“As Michael Moore’s documentary ‘Sicko’ showed, predatory insurance companies are the reason for America’s health crisis, with 47 million uninsured and millions more whose coverage doesn’t give them adequate treatment,” added Dr. Battista. “Clinton’s solution is to reward these companies for their greed, giving them more money. Clinton has been Congress’s top recipient of money from the insurance industry [source: Center for Responsive Politics, http://www.opensecrets.org, which explains her dedication to corporate insurance and HMO profits.”

“America doesn’t need ‘mandatory’ coverage, America needs guaranteed health care,” said Linda Manning Myatt, Michigan Green and spokesperson for the National Women’s Caucus. “Unfortunately, the Democratic presidential candidates are pandering for their insurance lobby friends. They care more about profits for their campaign contributors than about health care for the American people. Sen. Barack Obama has even admitted that his plan would sustain HMOs and insurance firms. Calling the Democrats’ proposals ‘universal health care’ is fraudulent, cynical, and cruel.”


Green Party leaders claim that Clinton promoted a disastrous reform plan in 1993, under her husband’s administration, and has introduced an even worse plan in 2007. Greens have insisted that fair and accurate discussion of Single-Payer/Medicare For All be included in the media debate over health care.

“The only political party that supports Single-Payer Medicare For All is the Green Party,” said Connecticut Green Justine McCabe, PhD, a psychologist and co-chair of the Green Party’s International Committee. “We demand that the Green Party and Green candidates and other Single-Payer supporters be allowed to participate in the health care debate. Just as urgently, we need to get a few Greens elected to Congress. A few Green wins in congressional races in 2008 will jolt more Dems and even some Republicans into backing Single-Payer.”