HCAC Benefit Concert - May 21st

Health Care for All Colorado is the only organization dedicated to single payer in the state of Colorado. We work on outreach to other groups and individuals who support issues of social justice, as in “Do what is right for the public good” and you and the community benefit.  We are happy to share our views and listen to others, although one Mother’s Day, I did receive a T-shirt saying “Everyone is entitled to my opinion.”

So why am I telling you this? 

Lannie Garrett, one of the owners of Lannie’s Clocktower Cabaret will open her night club on Tuesday evening, May 21 for a benefit for HCAC and a silent auction for the benefit of the HCAC Foundation (Foundation donations are tax-deductible).  You are all invited to this fun-filled FUNdraiser with entertainment provided by the 17^th Avenue All Stars, a nationally renowned a cappella group.  

Virtual tickets are sold through Lannie’s for $30 with all the proceeds going to our non-profit.  Go to Lannies.com and purchase your tickets today.  Seating is first come, first served.

Although, this is the “lusty month of May” according to the song Julie Andrews sang in the Broadway show Camelot, Colorado is not Camelot.  We have 800,000 people uninsured in Colorado and many more under insured.  62% of bankruptcies in our country are due to medical expenses, and two-thirds of those folks were insured at the time they were injured or got sick.  Many had been paying premiums through income deductions and “their share” of premiums.  Many insured Coloradans often forego needed care due to high deductibles and out-of-pocket costs, and most if not all are asked if they have insurance and to pay the co-pay the minute they show up for care.  

According to economist Gerald Friedman’s recent article (The Unhappy Marriage Of Economics And Health Care), “Rising costs drive up health insurance premiums so that a family health insurance plan now costs about 40% of the average family wage income, up from 7% in 1960.  Rising costs are denying ever more Americans access to health care even while businesses and governments wrestle with rising health care spending that squeezes resources available for other purposes.”

We can do better, and we will ask for what we want.  

We are working on a grassroots campaign to gain support for a ballot initiative that states that Health Care is a Human Right that should be publicly funded and available to all regardless of one's income.  It is not free, as premiums would be assessed based on income.  However, it allows freedom of choice of providers, the freedom to have health decisions made between patient and provider, the freedom from interference with corporate financial institutions (i.e., insurance companies) denying payments for services or increasing premiums yearly to pay CEO salaries and profits to shareholders.  A one payer system, like Medicare, spends 3-4 % on administrative costs; under Obamacare private insurance can still spend up to 20%, and it will!

Join the grassroots movement.  We can make health care the human right that it is.  And come join us on May 21^st to become part of the solution for all in Colorado.

Shelley Dworet, MD (Cohen)
President, HCAC