WE, your Memorialists, the Members of the One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Legislature of the State of Maine now assembled in the First Regular Session, most respectfully present and petition the President of the United States and the United States Congress as follows:

WHEREAS,  administrative costs and profits inherent in our current private insurance-based system consume 31% of health care spending, nearly twice that spent by other national health care systems; and

WHEREAS,  it is estimated that the cost for the United States National Health Insurance Act, H.R. 676 would only be 5% of income for a vast majority of employers and employees; and

WHEREAS,  today medical bills contribute to 1/2 of all personal bankruptcies, the majority of which happen to people who have insurance when illness occurs; and

WHEREAS,  proposed mandatory private for-profit health insurance plans will be affordable only for those people who choose high deductibles and minimal coverage, discouraging preventive care and saddling many families with huge medical bills; and

WHEREAS,  over the last 35 years managed care, health maintenance organizations and private for-profit health reforms have failed to contain health care costs, which now threaten the international competitiveness of United States manufacturers; and

WHEREAS,  researchers at Harvard University have estimated that more than $300,000,000,000 per year could be recovered by replacing private insurance companies with a public single-payor plan, enough to cover the uninsured and to improve coverage for all those who now have only partial coverage; and

WHEREAS,  the United States National Health Insurance Act would ensure universal coverage for all medically necessary services, contain costs by slashing bureaucracy, protect the doctor-patient relationship, ensure that patients have a completely free choice of doctors and hospitals and allow independent private physicians to make decisions about needed care rather than the profit-oriented corporations; now, therefore, be it