Campaigning for health care reform
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
A proposal for sweeping health care reform cleared critical hurdles in Congress last week. Monday Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz brought the campaign to Philadelphia's City Hall, where health experts urged lawmakers to adopt the overhaul soon.
(Photo Flickr/readerwalker)
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The legislation would tax the wealthiest Americans to help provide health insurance for millions who don't have it now. It also adds a new public health insurance plan that would compete with private companies.
Representative Schwartz says the reform plan keeps what works in US health care, while creating better access for more Americans.
Schwartz:And that includes critical consumer protections. So that if you buy insurance it will no longer be possible for insurers to say that 'We will cover you, but we won't cover your pre-existing conditions.'
Critics say the plan doesn't do enough to slow escalating medical costs. And that opinion was bolstered by an analysis last week from the Congressional Budget Office, which says the plan would not cut the overall cost of health care.
Schwartz says one in five Pennsylvania families pay more than 10 percent of their income toward health care expenses.
Schwartz: Pennsylvania families, as families across the country have seen a 100 percent increase in health care premiums in the last decade. That is unsustainable going forward.
Schwartz favors a reform proposal that would provide insurance coverage to nearly all Americans. It penalizes those who don't purchase insurance, while providing subsidies for the poor.
She gathered reform supporters at Philadelphia's City Hall to help her make the case. Dr. Richard Wender wants an overhaul that expands the role of primary care.
Wender: If all we do is insure everybody, although that will be a major first step, it will not be sufficient to improve the health of the country. The only way we are going to improve the health of the country is if we also transform health care delivery.
Wender leads the department of Family Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University. He says coordinated primary care can reduce health disparities and provide better care at lower costs.
The bill faces another critical vote in the House Energy and Commerce Committee this week.
The House Health Care Bill, 1,018-page document, released this week (July 14th, 2009) reveals some concerns as noted by http://www.dentalinsuranceutah.net and http://www.selecthealth.biz Mike Oliphant serves as health care consultant with these two popular websites in Utah. He also is a serving board member with Utah Association of Health Underwriters. A provision within this bill would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:
"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.
This translates into those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. It is likely that those same people will suffer abnormally high rate increases over time which would force them out of coverage. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.
From the beginning, http://www.dentalinsuranceutah.net warned that if the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither. Drawn by a public option that will be 30% to 40% cheaper than their current premiums because taxpayers will be funding it, employers will gladly scrap their private plans and go with Washington's coverage. The nonpartisan Lewin Group estimated in April that 120 million or more Americans could lose their group coverage at work and end up in such a program. That would leave private carriers with 50 million or fewer customers. This could cause the market to, as Lewin Vice President John Sheils put it, "fizzle out altogether."
What wasn't known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law. The legislation is also likely to finish off health savings accounts, a goal that Democrats have had for years. They want to crush that alternative because nothing gives individuals more control over their medical care, and the government less, than HSAs. With HSAs out of the way, a key obstacle to the left's expansion of the welfare state will be removed.
http://www.SelectHealth.biz states that the public option won't be an option for many, but rather a mandate for buying government care. A free people should be outraged at this advance of soft tyranny. Washington does not have the constitutional or moral authority to outlaw private markets in which parties voluntarily participate. It shouldn't be killing business opportunities, or limiting choices, or legislating major changes in Americans' lives.
Earlier, the revised HELP BILL with the public option and employer mandatory has got a green light from the CBO, yet still, a new 'incomplete' analysis of emerging House legislation said it would increase deficits by $239 billion over a decade.
But, CBO does not score any savings from prevention / wellness and the medical IT and the like, even as Prevention / Wellness is an actual and essential part of the savings, without which the reform would be meaningless.
Prevention / Wellness program can be compared to the 'levee' in flood time. Let's just imagine the cost before disaster and after.
And the company without IT system might be messed up with lots of paper works and hardly survive in the business.
It may be hard to assess the specific number on those parts, even so, at least the substantive amount of remaining $239 billion over a decade could be paid for and the remainder of it would be manageable over time one way or another, I think.
And I think the other things such as 'potential stem cell effect', 'mental stress relief', 'improved productivity / consumer confidence', and 'massive job creation', 'stock price effect' and etc considered, the reform might be within reach. Most importantly, a few years later, if the excessive war and military spending goes toward the health care program, the cost issue does not matter at all, I think.
Edward M. Kennedy argues, the perfect should not be the enemy of the good.
Thank You !