Mission Statement:
One Payer States fights to win high-quality, cost-effective health care for all. Working together, we build powerful state, regional, and national solutions.
Vision: We envision a national healthcare system in which everyone has equal access to high-quality comprehensive health care, including mental health, vision, dental, and in-home and residential care.
Values: Integrity, Life, Equity, Transparency, Learning, Love, Peace, Trust, Optimism, Freedom, Dignity, Duty, Justice (for all), Opportunity, General Welfare/Public Good, Nonviolence, Reason, Inclusion.
Principles:
- Healthcare is a fundamental need for the well-being of individuals, democratic citizens, families, and the general welfare (Article 1, Section 8, U.S. Constitution).
- One Payer States promotes the establishment of a publicly-funded, privately- and publicly-delivered healthcare system for all. That system must be inclusive, efficient, not-for-profit, politically sustainable, high-quality and comprehensive, in terms of care and delivery.
Concerns the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed:
- A public health planning process must be re-established and funded to ensure resources are distributed where they are needed, so that hospitals and clinics can serve rural and urban, low-, middle-, and high-income residents, equally, and at all times. Income-blind public health planning will allow for surge-capacity delivery, where needed, during times of urgent need.
- Social determinants of health must be emphasized and funded at all times, but especially during crisis periods. In addition to individual disease and injury prevention, funding should be provided for community-level primary preventive healthcare.
Basic Elements of One-Payer Plans
- One Payer States recommends these key principles when creating and evaluating state and regional universal health plans:
- Eligibility: The health plan should cover everyone residing in the state or region regardless of age, employment, pre-existing condition, or other characteristics.
- Benefits: All medically necessary and appropriate care should be covered. There must be free choice of licensed health care providers. Care decisions must be based upon the clinical needs of each patient, not the financial goals of institutions.
- Financing: The system should be publicly-funded with broad-based and progressive taxes.
- Cost Constraints and Affordability: To control costs, a system should have sufficient size to negotiate prices and to establish budgets for institutions and defined populations.
- Transparency – Prices should be transparent for all health care goods and services. The public should be able to view and comment on the budgets for institutions and populations as they are developed.
- Political and Financial Sustainability One plan, for all people who live in the state or region, should be established for administrative simplicity, financial stability, and political sustainability for the program.
- Accountability – Those administering the plan should be held accountable to upholding the principles and maintaining policies to achieve the desired outcomes of high quality, equitable health care to all; fiscal responsibility with public money (or, tax-payer dollars); and sustainability of the system.
State-based or regional advocates can refer to documents developed by groups working in states where such systems are being developed, such as California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.
OPSMission&Principles/msw/2022
Working together, we build powerful state, regional, and national solutions.