Rochester AfD takes action on single-payer health care

Rochester chapter organizer and Alliance council secretary Peter Mott writes:
A few years ago the Rochester Chapter formed a county-wide committee on health insurance for New York state. We have since merged with other local groups to become the Interfaith Health Care Coalition. That, in turn, became part of a state-wide campaign called Single Payer New York. Our goal is covering all New Yorkers with health insurance and from many good national and state studies it is clear that only a single payer system could actually save money over current total health costs. (Compromised plans--leaving insurance corporations alive--would greatly increase costs.

Single payer health care has been an AfD priority since our founding at Mo Ranch in Texas in 1996. At the 2007 AfD convention in Tucson we tried out a simple True/False exercise about single payer, and now have a slick version of it, "Health Care: Truths and Myths" in red, black and white, available by e-mail from afd@thealliancefordemocracy.org.

Of course the single payer system is a lethal threat to the insurance corporations, and they have more weight than we do --so far--in the State Senate and even with our Democratic Governor. We're next to Canada and visitors there see the truth about Canadian "Medicare": efficient, effective and with full experience and data since 1964. However, that doesn't prevent the corporate propagandists from bad-mouthing it. So we are now going door-to-door (with a pause for our election) to build support for a better plan for New York state.