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How Will We Know If Good Enough is Good Enough?
We now have four health care reform bills and a proposal from the Senate Finance Committeee, the last of the Congressional committees with jurisdiction over this topic. None of the bills are perfect and the Senate Finance Committee’s proposal, lacking both a public option and any Republican support, is the most disappointing. Still, as Paul Krugman writes in today’s New York Times, several countries, including Switzerland and the Netherlands, manage to provide health insurance for all largely through the private market.
So, how will we know if we should support what emerges as the final health care reform bill? Here are six key standards to determine whether the final bill is good enough to support – let us know if you have others:
- Will the bill make quality health care coverage available to all, especially to the uninsured, underinsured, and those who will fall into these categories in the future?
- Will the bill provide real competition in the market place, with or without, a true public plan, so that reform will be reasonably affordable?
- Will the bill provide adequate help for people of low and moderate incomes to purchase good quality health coverage ?
- Will the bill preserve and fairly enhance the Medicare program for future generations?
- Will the new coverage be adequately comprenhensive, understandable and easy to use?
- Will the new law provide a fair, accessible appeal system for people to contest denials?
I am often told not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We will not get “the perfect” health care plan. We may not even get “the good”. But – will we get “the good enough”? Too soon to tell.
Watch Robert Reich, Former Secretary of Labor, On Why We Need a Public Option (And what it is!)
In a new video, Robert Reich speaks about the necessity of a public option in health care reform. Secretary Reich wrote us today summarizing his thoughts:
“A true public option is necessary to pressure private insurers to compete on quality and price, and to pressure drug companies and other medical providers to offer better deals. It’s the only way to expand coverage while continuing to reduce overall costs. Every American should have the freedom to choose a public insurance plan if they wish. ”
Watch Robert Reich now, and spread the word.
They All Clapped
Okay, maybe not everybody, but most members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, applauded last night when President Obama pledged to safeguard Medicare, calling it a “sacred trust” with older Americans.
What the President didn’t say, and what too many people forget, or try to, is that Medicare IS a public health insurance program. It was created and is broadly implemented by the federal government; claims are administered by private insurance companies. For everyone who applauds Medicare – and most people do – support a public option so we can pass the sacred trust of health care security on to younger generations!
A Rabbi Writes About Health Care Reform – For All
“In an opinion piece recently printed [in my local paper], Newt Gingrich decried the possibility of rationing as a result of health care reform. What he fails to understand or admit is that there already is rationing in our current system. Tens of millions of Americans are rationed out of access to healthcare by their lack of income, by their employment status, or by “pre-existing conditions.” We also already have “death panels.” They’re the insurance company bureaucrats that decide to cut off cancer treatments because, for example, the patient neglected to report pre-existing acne. (That really happened!)
Our national fear and greed (and the health care system they’ve saddled us with) are literally killing us. According to Census Bureau and CIA data, the United States has the lowest life expectancy and highest infant mortality of any Western, industrialized country except Portugal. Let’s put that fear and greed aside and commit, as all our faith-traditions command, to care for each other. Let’s change the system so that every American has access to the preventive and curative care that our wealth and scientific achievement should make possible.”
Rabbi Jeremy Schwartz – Willimantic, CT
Thank You, Senator Kennedy
Thank you for reminding us to be civil, to bear life’s burdens, to sail and swim when you can, to expect mortality – and to seek health care for all.
Wake Up, America!
In a column in the Washington Post on August 24th, Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele purported to be worried about the damage health care reform will do to Medicare.
Really? Talk about raiding Medicare: Can you say “Medicare Advantage”? The last Administration privatized Medicare in 2003 with the Medicare Advantage system that lured private insurance into the program by paying huge subsidies of more than 14% on top of what the traditional, public Medicare program is paid for the same services.
Can you say “Part D”? The last Administration created the incomprehensible Part D prescription drug program that made Medicare drug coverage available ONLY through private plans and actually wrote into law a PROHIBITION against Medicare negotiating prices with drug companies. Talk about a boondoggle for Big Pharma!
The Bush Administration created a windfall for private insurance and pharmaceutical companies – all at the expense of the cost-effective public Medicare program, seniors, and taxpayers.
Come on, America, Wake Up! Don’t buy into using health care reform to create another welfare program for private insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Haven’t we given them enough by giving them Medicare?
So, I was at a Town Hall meeting …
Congressman Joe Courtney hosted a Town Hall meeting on Thursday (August 6th) to discuss health care reform. This is the third such meeting I’ve been at since mid July. The first two were sparsely attended and extremely civil. People listened, had questions, and told their own stories about problems and concerns regarding health care coverage. Last week’s meeting was entirely different. How?
- The room was packed. Standing room only. Hundreds of people in attendance, in the most out of the way area in CT on a summer night!
- The atmosphere was heated, literally and figuratively.
- People in opposition to health care reform had signs and repeated points. Suddenly there was talk of forced euthanasia, the Constitution, and limits on care for “retarded children” and older people. None of this was mentioned at the earlier meetings just a few weeks ago.
- When one woman ( a veteran) spoke about the problems getting health care coverage for her special-needs child she was shouted down with the question: “Why don’t you move?” When she asked back, “where is your compassion, my husband and I both served this country and have done everything right,” she was greeted with hoots.
- When a local farmer spoke about the loss of her family farm and cows and her brother’s chronic illness, she was told to hurry up and sit down.
- When a woman with cancer told about not being able to get a needed study covered by her private insurance, someone yelled out, “Why don’t you just switch plans?” As she had explained, she said, “I can’t, I have a pre-existing condition!” “Awww,” said a group seated together in the crowd, feigning sympathy.
Now I am reading about these same points being made and attitudes reflected in similar atmoshpheres throughout the country.
While many people did come to listen and learn, too many did not. Of course this was organized. It’s the only explanation for the dramatic difference between the meetings before and after the Congressional Recess and for the repeated talking points and style. Unfortunately, it appears to be aimed at intimidating, not at community building, discourse, or learning. While Congressman Courtney was prepared, respectful and even-tempered throughout, few people could have heard and too many people left scared and sad. What a shame.
For the health of our country, we need to reform. We need to back away from this noise soon, before someone gets hurt.
Oh – and we need health care reform with a true public option. It’s the only way to get coverage for everyone at a price taxpayers can afford.
Medicare, We Hardly Know Ya
44 years ago Medicare was enacted into law. All of today’s dire warnings about a public health option – socialism and government barring the doctor’s door – were made in opposition to Medicare. Despite such opposition from “conservative,” leaders, including Senator Bob Dole, Medicare passed.
Before Medicare, 50% of everyone 65 or older had NO health insurance. Now, as a result of Medicare, almost all older people are insured. Medicare, which is national, government-run health insurance, succeeded in insuring older people where private insurance failed. And, until the Bush Administration privatized Medicare with the extraordinarily subsidized private “Medicare Advantage” and Part D plans, Medicare was remarkably cost-effective too. It’s private Medicare, not the traditional, public program, that’s bleeding taxpayers of billions of dollars.
Medicare has been a success, fiscally and morally. It took on the job of insuring health coverage and care to people that private insurance had abandoned. Since 2003, on the other hand, private Medicare plans have cost us all tens of billions of dollars that went to support the private insurance industry, not to providing health care. In addition, private Medicare plans have too often engaged in marketing abuses and restrictive coverage practices.
As Paul Krugman recognizes in today’s New York Times, people with Medicare love it. They do not want government to fool around with the traditional program. Ironically, these are sometimes the same people who worry that a public health care option will cause long waits for health care and government invasions into their private medical decisions. They, and their family members, (which accounts for pretty much all of us), forget that the traditional Medicare program is a public health insurance option.
Hello, America, meet Medicare: Our 44 year-old public health insurance option that provides care to all its enrollees, anywhere in the country, and that has provided health and economic security for millions of older people, people with disabilities, and their families.
Happy anniversary, Medicare. Thank you for showing us what a true public insurance program can offer.
There’s a Way to Pay For Health Care Reform – If There’s The Will
Congress should heed a new report from the Urban Institue if it is truly concerned about cost containment and the best way to pay for health care reform. The Insitute recommends some adjustments to the way we deliver health care – increasing care coordination, improving chronic care and prevention, advancing electroninc medical records – and adjusting taxes.
Not surprisingly, the report also concludes that a public option must be part of the mix if cost is really a concern. In fact, the researchers found that including a public plan option in health reform would save between $224 to $400 billion.
Once again, an independent study concludes that there IS a way to afford to provide health care for all Americans – if there’s the will. Congress: Read the report – and find the will.
We need health care reform that is best for beneficiaries and most cost-effective for taxpayers. We need a public option!
The President on Health Care Reform: “It’s not about Me”
“This isn’t about me. I have great health insurance, and so does every Member of Congress. This debate is about the letters I read when I sit in the Oval Office every day, and the stories I hear at town hall meetings. This is about the woman in Colorado who paid $700 a month to her insurance company only to find out that they wouldn’t pay a dime for her cancer treatment ? who had to use up her retirement funds to save her own life. This is about the middle-class college graduate from Maryland whose health insurance expired when he changed jobs, and woke up from emergency surgery with $10,000 in debt. This is about every family, every business, and every taxpayer who continues to shoulder the burden of a problem that Washington has failed to solve for decades.”
– President Barack Obama, Press Conference, July 22, 2009
Health care reform is about the health of our country, both literally and figuratively. It’s about the health of the people, and it’s about fiscal health. It’s about providing for people, not the insurance or pharmaceutical industries. And it’s about care, not just insurance. People aren’t cars, which might possibly have an accident. People get sick. Period. Not “might” get sick. Will. People need real health care, not just an insurance plan. The President knows this. Most of Congress knows this. So why are some fighting so vehemently against the truth?
A Public Plan Will Work For You
Private insurers comprise a major for-profit industry. They serve their own interests and those of their stockholders before those of beneficiaries. First and foremost, insurers are in business to make a profit, not to take care of people. Their job is to calculate risks. Their goal is to maximize profits, which may conflict with providing health coverage. And they aren’t going to save the country money either, quite the contrary in fact. The cost of private Medicare has proven that.
Public coverage, on the other hand, saves taxpayers’ money. A recent study by the Commonwealth Fund, a non-partisan health policy research group, indicates that including a public health insurance option similar to Medicare in any proposed reform would save almost two TRILLION dollars more than any reform that does not include a public option.
We need real health care reform. With a public option and a standard set of benefits across all private and public plans, everyone will be better able to access coverage they can understand, at a price taxpayers can afford. It’s about our health and our quality of life. It’s about all of us.
CMA Health Policy Blog 