CHESTER COUNTY, PA – Representative Joe Pitts, the Republican congressman from Pennsylvania has introduced a bipartisan bill intended to make health care insurance more affordable for small businesses. "Unfortunately", according to the 16th district Independent Congressional Candidate John Murphy, "as long as the insurance companies and HMOs remain part of the healthcare system we will never bring costs under control which will not only make health care affordable but accessible to everyone.

"This bill might be well-intentioned" continued Murphy. "We never want to think that any of our elected representatives are passing legislation which will deliberately benefit corporate America at the expense of working America. I certainly share Congressman Pitts’ concern that close to 50 million Americans have no health care insurance and millions of others have inadequate healthcare insurance. Experience shows however that these types of ad hoc, pool programs whether they are state subsidized through tax credits or otherwise do nothing to control insurance company policies like denial of claims, excluding the sick through ‘pre-existing condition clauses’ and do nothing to control costs."

Murphy went on to say, "we can certainly understand why our congressmen might jump the gun and look for a quick fix – especially in an election year but these piecemeal, ad hoc, patchwork plans, to the extent that they leave private insurance companies in the driver’s, seat will not be able to deliver what they promise in any meaningful or long-lasting way. They always end up crashing on the rocks of spiraling health care costs which are the result of corporations which are selling healthcare insurance for a profit and consequently incur all of the associated costs such as $100,000,000+ paid CEOs, executive perks, stock options, corporate profits, along with sales and marketing expenses.

"All of these expenses, representing over 50% of the cost of providing health care, would be eliminated through universal single-payer health care. Eliminate the middleman, the insurance companies and HMOs, which are in business not to provide health care, because that reduces profits, but to deny health care as much as possible and to control how Americans receive health care.

Murphy added that "producing an automobile in Windsor Canada cost $1,700 less than it does right across the river in Detroit, Michigan simply because in the United States we have put insurance companies in charge of our health care system instead of physicians with a system funded by the government. The government is essentially better at some things than private industry. Medicare operates at a 2% overhead while private insurance companies operate at a 20% overhead. Universal single payer health care would essentially be Medicare for all. No deductions; no co-pays; no exclusions; no denial of services; no charge for pharmaceuticals; all at half the current cost! Everyone gets full coverage and the taxpayer takes home about $300 more of their paycheck each month."

"Imagine going to a doctor", Murphy suggested "who diagnoses your problem correctly but then, instead of prescribing an antibiotic, prescribes a placebo. It is possible the placebo may actually make the patient feel better for a while but the disease continues to increase in severity threatening the very life of the patient. This is what these hodgepodge, piecemeal, ad hoc programs are all about. They especially look good to our representatives around election time!

"When both corporate owned party gang up on a piece of legislation with what they call ‘bipartisanship support’ like the USA Patriot Act or the Military Commissions Act or the FISA bill, the people know they are in trouble. This disgraceful, so-called "Small Business Choice" Bill, should be rejected by the House of Representatives because it is clearly an election year ploy to keep healthcare firmly entrenched in the hands of the for-profit insurance companies by providing a placebo instead of a cure. Under universal single-payer health care, costs per capita would be $2,902 as opposed to $5,711 per capita under our so-called "private"corporate health care system.

"The Corporate-Free Candidate"