OBOS endorses single-payer health care

Our Bodies Ourselves, a nonprofit, public interest women's health education, advocacy, and consulting organization that began in 1970, has released a position paper in connection with its endorsement of a single-payer health care plan.

Single-payer health care plans offer the best chance to reduce payment incentives that lead to overuse and misuse of drugs and medical procedures, which translates into an enormous problem for women of all ages. With resources better allocated and women's needs more effectively addressed, a single-payer plan would improve women's health more than any other system under consideration.

In addition (and as highlighted on the organization's blog), Judy Norsigian, OBOS executive director, and Jennifer Potter, MD, director of the Women's Health Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and director of women's health at Fenway Health, co-authored an op-ed in today's Boston Globe that summarizes some of the key arguments and outlines what women stand to gain.

"The only national plan for health care reform that explicitly includes women's reproductive health services, including abortion, is one sponsored by Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat," they wrote. "Other sponsors of single-payer plans are also amenable to including women's reproductive health services."

Lee is expected to re-introduce H.R. 3000, the United States Universal Health Service Act, this legislative session.