EOL Press Release

SUPPORT GROWS FOR COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH
SYSTEM REFORM AS MAJOR GROUPS JOIN NATIONAL COALITION

Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is strong and growing recognition of the need for comprehensive health system reform. This has led 15 major groups and individuals to join the National Coalition on Health Care, the nation’s largest alliance working to assure high quality, affordable, and cost effective health care to all Americans.

The Coalition’s current 80 members include large and small businesses, the nation’s major labor unions, consumer and religious groups, and all the primary care provider organizations. With the latest additions, the members now include a Foundation and two of the country’s largest pension and health insurance benefit funds. Those who have recently become members include:

• Businesses – involved in the telecommunications, food and financial industries:
        Ahold U.S.A., Inc.
        AT&T;
        National Association of Chain Drug Stores
        Safeway
        SBC Communications
        Yucaipa Companies
• Unions
• Foundation
• Retirement and Health Benefit Funds:

In announcing the new members, the Coalition’s Co-Chairs, former Governor Robert D. Ray (R-IA) and former Congressman Paul Rogers (D-FL) said, “The Coalition is extremely forunate to have such important and influential additions to its members. These new members can contribute immensely to the continuing success of the Coalition in educating the public about the serious problems in our health care system and in bringing about the changes needed to solve these problems.”

“These employers, unions, and manageres of our largest retirement funds purchase billions of dollars in health care each year for their employees and members. By joining the Coalition, they have indicated their recognition of the seriousness of the issues facing our health care system and of the need for our nation to address these issues through comprehensive reform,” said Henry E. Simmons, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.P., president of the Coalition.

NCHC is the nation’s largest and most broadly represented alliance working to brin about greater public understanding of the problems in our health care system and the reform which will be necessary to address them. The Coalition is non-profit, regorously non-partisan, and is committed to the achievement of five basic principles in our health care system: health insurance for all, improved quality of care, cost containment, equitable financing and simplified administration. Its Honorary Co-Chairs are former Presidents George Bush, Gerald R. Ford, and Jimmy Carter.

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NOTE: Listings of all the Coalition’s members and individual supporters can be viewed on the Coalition web site at www.nchc.org