The Green State of the State - Single Payer Health Care

The State Green Party invited me to attend a press conference in Albany to respond to Governor Patterson's State of the State. Here is a link to WNYT's coverage and below is a text copy of my remarks.

http://wnyt.com/article/stories/S735158.shtml?cat=10114

My name is Matt Funiciello. I am the owner of a bread bakery and cafe in Glens Falls, N.Y. I currently employ 36 people. I am here today to deliver my own brief state of the state from a small business owner’s perspective. This is not the perspective of a lobby group purporting to represent small business. It is the perspective of someone who has actually run a small business in New York state for over 20 years.

As this economic downturn began, small business owners, like the majority of Americans, saw substantial increases in energy costs and commensurate increases in most other goods and supplies. In my industry, we were already struggling with the negative impact of increasing wheat prices as corn subsidies encouraged many wheat farmers to grow corn for ethanol. This created a terrible “food for fuel” quandary in which the corn lobbies seem to have been the only clear winners.

While our costs have steadily increased so has the cost of living for our workers. Even so, we have not been able to make pay increases to keep up with cost of living as our sales have been in decline. We were actually forced to implement a small pay cut in September of 2008 and I was eventually forced to sell my home and borrow a substantial sum of money to keep my business afloat as the year progressed and we suffered the additional negative effects of a fire.

We ceased carrying health insurance about a year ago as costs skyrocketed along with co-pays and pharmaceutical prices. We had to discontinue our retirement plan as we were no longer able to afford to participate in it. Many of our restaurant and retail accounts have been adversely affected as well by decreased consumer spending. Several long-time customers have even thrown in the towel.

I say all of this not as some kind of litany of woes but as an example of what the typical business owner is actually going through. We are a tough bunch and we will make it but, make no mistake, we are hurting. If you wish to understand the direct impact the recession is having on those in the working and middle class, look no further. We have tightened our belts, cut costs and minimized our needs, but we are still prepared to sacrifice more if we have to. We would, however, like to know that every single person in the state is joining with us in this suffering and sacrifice and that we are not being asked to shoulder the burden entirely.

Governor Patterson said yesterday that, “We cannot solve our problems overnight or without sacrifice - they run too deep for that. These problems may last for many more months or even years. But we can solve them and, with courage, we can craft a brighter, smarter future for New York.”

I agree with those sentiments, but I think we need to put a little bit of common sense in there before we continue with the sacrifice.

I don’t know about your economy but bailing out banks and insurance companies seems to have had very little impact on mine, thus far. I know that the Wall Street bailout was hardly Governor Patterson’s doing but I know that it is a perfect example of why we HAVE to find answers at the state level for the problems of the day. We simply cannot depend on the federal government to do what is right or just when things are broken.

If we leave it up to the fed or follow their lead, the problems New Yorkers are now facing will go unsolved. The biggest problem, without any doubt, is health care. In fact, according to a recent survey conducted by the Business Council of NY, health care is the single biggest issue for business owners in New York State. Worker’s comp rates came in a distant second.

Governor Patterson says we “need the courage to balance our budget as well as our priorities.” Well, he is absolutely right and small business has spoken loudly about the priority; it is health care. The question becomes, How do

we balance our budget while insuring the millions of New Yorkers who lack coverage?

I know the answer and, in reality, so does the Governor. That’s why I was absolutely horrified yesterday to see him openly advocate for more bureaucratic and incremental answers to our health care crisis rather than the sweeping reform we so desperately need.

Where health care is concerned, there is one clear answer and it is Single-Payer Health Care. It is basically the Canadian Health Care system with a few twists. It’s a clear and intelligent answer to a pressing problem. The Governor’s advocacy for building additional bureaucracies in our state with substandard care and inconsistent access is not such an answer. We need to get rid of the HMO’s and administrate our state’s health care through one mechanism instead of the hundreds that currently exist. It is projected that just that one bold move would save us 25-30% of what we currently pay for health care.

The Canadian system costs about $5200 per person with universal coverage and if you question its efficiency, you should know that, propaganda aside, Canadians live a full year longer than we do. You should also know that no sober, literate, Canadian would even consider switching health plans with anyone living in the U.S. unless they were forced to at gunpoint.

Here, in the U.S., we spend about $7200 per person on health care. Bear in mind that this is with about 60 million people completely uncovered and another 50 million or so ‘underinsured’. With all the layoffs projected from the recession, these numbers will increase dramatically. The incredible truth is that if we adopted Single-Payer Health Care in this country, we would actually be spending far less on care and everyone would be covered. It’s really a common sense approach to the problem.

Thanks to John Conyers and Denis Kucinich, there is already a resolution before congress, HR 676, which does have sponsors, but we need to be realistic about its chances in Washington. The resolution is unlikely to pass. There is simply too much HMO and pharmaceutical money floating around the Capitol for our public servants to do what is just. Many people think of my congresswoman, Kirsten Gillibrand, as a progressive of some kind. She, just like Barack Obama, and now New York’s Governor, has refused to discuss single payer at any level and has refused to support HR 676 even though she knows it is the best, most economical answer.

With our federal representatives doing such a poor job of representing us, we need Governor Patterson to help us resolve this issue right now, right here at home. We can have a single-payer system right here in New York state. We are projected to spend some $140 billion dollars in this state on health care in 2009. If we were to set up a single-payer health plan and spend a similar amount to what the Canadians do per capita, we would be saving $1,800 per person over what is already being spent with EVERY New Yorker covered. Who knows? Maybe we could start living a year longer, too!

Governor, business leaders are telling you that health care is the single biggest issue on the state's agenda but we can also tell you that there is a simple solution. Now is the time for our state government to implement solutions that actually make sense and not just those that seem politically feasible. We have suffered enough. Our workers have suffered enough. How, as a state, can we lose? How can it not make sense to save boatloads of money during a recession while ensuring that every citizen of New York has total access to health care?

The Governor called this recession “the gravest economic challenge in nearly a century.” Well, it seems to me that it really doesn’t have to be if we can just make decisions together which benefit everyone in our state and not just special interest groups and lobbies. Please, Governor Patterson, do what is right and support single-payer health care. Support common sense