Over two years ago, delegates to the Labor Party's founding convention adopted a call for major healthcare reform.

 

Universal Access to Quality Healthcare

Health care is the most profitable industry in the nation and it is the most shameless example of unbridled corporate greed in the U.S. In the guise of cost-containment, it redistributes resources from sick people and their caregivers to wealthy businessmen and shareholders.

Forty-two million Americans have no health insurance. Eighty percent of the uninsured are working people and their dependents. And tying health care coverage to the job encourages companies to use part-time and temporary workers to evade providing benefits.

We spend more on health care than any other nation in the world. But a poorly regulated, corporate-dominated health care system eliminates choice, erodes care, and inflates administrative costs while boosting profits and CEO compensation.

Health care is a critical social good that demands collective interests prevail over private gain.

We call for:

Universal entitlement for all residents to comprehensive health care benefits including preventive, curative, rehabilitative and long-term care. There must be freedom to choose one's own doctors and health professionals.

Single-payer health insurance, publicly administered and funded, delivered by a non-profit system.

Full funding of public health programs performed by the public sector to provide services to vulnerable populations, monitor population disease trends, and to prevent and treat communicable diseases.

Funding for research that serves the public good, not private gain. Academic health centers must have support for their research mission.

Informed choice and unimpeded access to a full range of family planning and reproductive services for men and women.Strong representation and a decision-making role for health care recipients and health care workers in public planning and oversight bodies.