About Us
Health Care for America Now is a national grassroots campaign organizing millions of Americans to win a guarantee of quality, affordable health care for all. We are grounded in organizations that can mobilize people at work, at home, in their neighborhoods, and online. (*see Organizational Members below)
We're bringing together community organizers, nurses, doctors, small business owners, faith-based groups, organizations of people of color, and seniors who believe it's time we had an American solution that provides quality, affordable health care for everyone.
We're offering a bold new solution that gives you real choice and a guarantee of quality coverage you can afford: keep your current private insurance plan, pick a new private insurance plan, or join a public health insurance plan.
We're also calling for regulation on health insurance companies. We need to set and enforce rules that quash health insurance companies' greed once and for all. There is a huge divide between our plan and the insurance companies' plan for healthcare reform. We want to make sure you have the quality coverage you need at the price you can afford. They want to leave you alone to fend for yourself in the unregulated, bureaucratic health insurance market.
Our plan is affordable for people and business. Their plan is profitable for them. With no regulation, health insurance companies can and will charge whatever they want, set high deductibles, and continue to drop coverage when you get sick. Now is the time to pick a side. Which side are you on?
Where we stand
Statement of Common Purpose
We believe that all of us benefit from healthy communities, where we all have access to affordable, quality healthcare from a provider of our choice, at the time we need it, at a cost we can afford. Our mutual goal is affordable, quality health care for everyone in America and for our nation.
Our current health care system in America is not affordable for families, businesses or government. We need an American solution to secure our families’ health and a healthy economy. All of us, individuals, employers and government have a shared responsibility to realize comprehensive reforms in our health care system.
Our government’s responsibility is to guarantee quality affordable health care for everyone in America and it must play a central role in regulating, financing, and providing health coverage by establishing:
- A truly inclusive and accessible health care system in which no one is left out.
- A choice of a private insurance plan, including keeping the insurance you have if you like it, or a public insurance plan without a private insurer middleman that guarantees affordable coverage.
- A standard for health benefits that covers what people need to keep healthy and to be treated when they are ill. Health care benefits should cover all necessary care including preventative services and treatment needed by those with serious and chronic diseases and conditions.
- Health care coverage with out-of-pocket costs including premiums, co-pays and deductibles that are based on a family’s ability to pay for health care and without limits on payments for covered services.
- Equity in health care access, treatment, research and resources to people and communities of color, resulting in the elimination of racial disparities in health outcomes and real improvement in health and life expectancy for all.
- Health coverage through the largest possible pools in order to achieve affordable, quality coverage for the entire population and to share risk fairly.
- A watchdog role on all plans, to assure that risk is fairly spread among all health care payers and that insurers do not turn people away, raise rates or drop coverage based on a person’s health history or wrongly delay or deny care.
- A choice of doctors, health providers and public and private plans, without gaps in coverage or access and a delivery system that meets the needs of at-risk populations.
- Affordable and predictable health costs to businesses and employers. To the extent that employers contribute to the cost of health coverage, those payments should be related to employee wages rather than on a per-employee basis.
- Effective cost controls that promote quality, lower administrative costs and long term financial sustainability, including: standard claims forms, secure electronic medical records, using the public’s purchasing power to instill greater reliance on evidence-based protocols and lower drug and device prices, better management and treatment of chronic diseases and a public role in deciding where money is invested in health care.
What it will take
It will take money- Taking on a multi-billion dollar industry means TV advertising and massive organizing. We'll need serious money to take these guys on.
It will take all of us- This is a coalition that will require all of us, from activists to big institutions. We need to do as much as we can to build an institutional coalition and activists across the country to work together to create this movement and to win.
It will take take teamwork - They're going to spend billions of dollars trying to stop us and trying to divide us.
It is going to take urgency - We can't wait any longer. We have to work together, now
*ACORN, American Federation of State, Children's Defense Action Council, County and Municipal Employees, Americans United for Change, Campaign for America’s Future, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Center for Community Change, MoveOn.org, National Council of La Raza, National Education Association, National Women’s Law Center, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Service Employees International Union, United Food and Commercial Workers, and USAction.
Legal Disclaimer
Health Care for America Now! (“HCAN”) is a section 501(c)(4) issue advocacy organization. Members of the HCAN coalition include a wide range of nonprofit and political organizations that are working to promote quality, affordable health care for all Americans. HCAN’s members are tax-exempt public charities, advocacy organizations and unions, as well as political action committees (“PACs”) and “527” organizations. HCAN and each member organization only conduct and fund activities appropriate to its tax and election law status.
HCAN is related to Health Care for America Education Fund, a project of The Tides Foundation, a section 501(c)(3) public charity.
