Health Care
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the maintenance of good health. We acknowledge that personal health depends on public health. Public health requires the health of the natural, built, and social environments. The health status of others provides benefits to all, including future generations. Health Care Action Items:
- Institute a single-payer health care system for Oregon by seeking a waiver from the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, just as Oregon got a waiver for the initial introduction of the Oregon Health Plan (1993).
- Until a single-payer system is instituted, no private health care insurance provider will be permitted to operate in Oregon unless it covers preexisting conditions, contraception, and abortion services for all its members.
We the People must:
- Use precautionary, preventive approaches in decisions regarding public and private health concerns.
- Insist that comprehensive health care not be tied to employment alone.
- See that health care includes medical, vision, dental, mental health services and hospitalization, and is protected as a basic right for all Oregonians.
- Guarantee the right of all patients to choose their health care providers.
- Support all modalities of healing including yoga, dance, herbs, homeopathy, acupuncture, ayurvedic, massage, reiki, et al., thus supplementing allopathic medicine with many forms of healing.
- Guarantee the right of all patients to make personal medical decisions, including those involving abortion and the end of life such as Oregon's Death with Dignity law.
- Support Oregon laws that protect children from parents irresponsibly withholding safe and effective medical care.
- Ensure the availability of rehabilitation and adaptive aids, to allow those with disabilities to achieve maximum independence.
- Monitor toxic chemical facilities and high voltage power lines and prohibit locating such facilities near residential areas, other public areas such as schools, and minority and low-income communities.
