Testimony of Lori J. Pelletier,
Secretary-Treasurer,
January 4, 2006
Good Afternoon Senator Crisco and
Representative O’Connor and the Members of the Insurance and Real Estate
Committee I am Lori Pelletier and I serve as Secretary-Treasurer of the
Connecticut AFL-CIO, I am here on behalf of our 900 affiliated local unions
from all across this great state who represent 211,000 working men and women,
and I appreciate the invitation to address this committee.
First let me say that we applaud
this committee’s effort to deal with the growing problem of health care in this
state. Unfortunately my affiliates and their members face the onslaught of
diminished benefit levels every time they sit at a negotiating table, and a
perfect example of this was what happened last year at Sikorsky.
It’s an extremely uneven playing
field when it comes to insurance coverage, and many employers, good employers
are struggling with the decision to provide health care or not. One way to
begin to repair this horribly broken system is to make it easier and more cost
effective for employers to provide health care. Universal Health care is just
what the doctor ordered!
As we all know, just because someone
doesn’t have health insurance doesn’t mean they don’t get sick or injured it
just changes the treatment options.Treatment is often in the emergency room
where it is most expensive, instead of at your Doctor when the condition first
arises.
For the past twenty five years the Connecticut AFL-CIO has supported a Single Payer health care system. Single payer comes from the fact that doctors and hospitals are paid by one organization: a single payer. By having only one payer, you can simplify the health care system enormously.
1. Single
payer saves lives because everyone has health insurance. According to the
2. Single payer saves time. If you were to accumulate all the time spent by doctors and hospitals on the infinite number of insurance forms (there are nearly 1500 separate insurance carriers nationwide), all that time could be spent on patients instead of paperwork.
3. Single payer saves money because have only one organization handling all the administrative duties of this health care system greatly decreases the cost of that administration. Over 30% of every health care dollar goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits and other non-clinical costs. As compared to Medicare which operates at about 3%.
4. Finally single payer is about choices. Within a single payer system, patients could decide which doctor or hospital they want to utilize, instead of having to pick off a list provided by some HMO. Patients would also be covered even if they lose their job or are starting their own business. Workers wouldn’t be stuck in a job because it provides health care coverage.
Health care costs are responsible for nearly 50%
of all bankruptcies filed in the
Billions
of dollars are spent annually on health care yet millions of Americans and
nearly 400,000
The current crisis in our health care system
needs to be addressed immediately. The longer we wait the harder it will be to
correct the problems.
I want to Thank the Committee for their time this afternoon and would be glad to answer any questions you may have.