The health care reform bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Sen. Max Baucus is not the reform we need and is not the reform we promised the American people. In its current state, the bill reinforces health insurance monopolies, does not provide access to affordable care for all Americans, and does not present a full and honest accounting of its costs. While I am encouraged that the Finance Committee has moved forward, I hope our Congressional leaders will embrace the legislation passed in my committee (Education and Labor) in the House that better controls cost, expands coverage, and improves care.
The Senate Finance committee is the last of five Congressional committees to advance a health care plan. It is the only one that lacks a public health insurance option.
The public option is crucial if we want to introduce competition and bring down costs. The current health insurance industry is highly monopolized, with a small group of insurers exercising an almost "cartel" like power to dictate prices and continually raise premiums and fees on American families. Nationwide, an astounding 94% of insurance markets meet Department of Justice criteria for being "non-competitive." In Pennsylvania, two insurance companies control 70% of the market; one company has 74% of all the insurance plans in Southeast Pennsylvania.
A public option will guarantee competition and, as it will not be subsidized by the government and will operate on a fair playing field, it will use market forces to bring down prices and raise the quality of care. As the Senate moves forward, it must incorporate a public option.
Our goal is to provide affordable care to all Americans, but the Baucus plan will leave about 16 million of the approximately 40 million uninsured Americans without coverage. The bill does not do enough to assist working families, and it even leaves out an additional two million people from the requirement to have insurance because they would not be able to afford it.
One flaw in the bill actually discourages businesses from hiring low-income workers. Instead of requiring employers to provide insurance, businesses that do not provide insurance have to pay a penalty if at least one of their employees needs federal assistance to purchase insurance. These employees would traditionally be lower income, working class individuals. This approach, though appealing to the business community, would establish a serious disincentive for companies to hire workers from larger or single-income families. This is a regrettable and unintended consequence that clearly has to be fixed.
Though the Senate bill may appear less costly than its House counterpart, the numbers do not tell the full story. The Senate Finance bill, unlike the House bill, ignores an impending 20% cut to Medicare doctors' payments that will occur as a result of current law and threatens seniors' access to their caregivers. The House bill confronts this issue and puts in place a long-term solution, while Senate Finance just kicks the can two years down the road in order to save costs now.
The Baucus bill also disguises cost by using Medicaid expansion to shift too much of the burden to the states. Medicaid will be a crucial component of any substantial health care reform, but it should not be used to make the cost of this reform seem less expensive, especially when many states are coping with budget deficits.
Funding of the plan also relies on an excise tax on higher cost or "Cadillac" insurance plans -- those costing more than $8,000 for individuals or $21,000 for families. Unfortunately, because this tax is pegged to overall consumer price inflation and not skyrocketing health costs, within the decade it will begin to hit "Chevy" insurance plans as well. We cannot pay for health care reform by making health insurance more expensive for working families.
Symbolically, the passage of the Senate Finance Committee bill is a big step -- every committee asked to produce legislation has done so -- and comprehensive health care reform is closer to passage than it has been in decades. Now, as we begin to meld various bills and proposals, let us not forget that the goal here is good governance, not political gamesmanship. The Baucus bill, in areas, creates perhaps as many problems as it solves. The House version does a better job of meeting the President's goals and should be the focus of our efforts. It is the meaningful, effective reform we promised, and owe, the American people.
Rep. Joe Sestak (PA-7) is a member of the Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee on the Education and Labor Committee. He is a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.
Follow Rep. Joe Sestak on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sestak2010
Dawn Teo: Sen. Kyl Not Sure People Die From Lack of Health Insurance
Sen. Kyl: "I'm not sure that it's a fact that more and more people die because they don't have health insurance."
To date, Big Insurance has flexed a relatively small degree of its massive lobbying muscle. Yet look at how Congress has all but rolled over. Committees have dismantled or eliminated critical components of healthcare reform. The insurance cartel's complete dominance over the legislative process is further proof of their unmitigated power. Compared to that power, the public option as competition will be brushed aside by the insurance companies like a gnat off an elephant's butt.
How can things change when Congress is so overwhelmingly influenced by the insurance lobby? The money, staff, and resources that Congress people so gladly accept from the industry is the real problem. Until Representatives and Senators escape the cartel's clutches, nothing like real progress toward healthcare reform can be made.
With regard to your own campaign, will you go on record now to state exactly how you will oppose the health insurance industry's anti-reform efforts? How about a firm commitment now to not hire current or former insurance industry executives or lobbyists as staff or advisors? And to decline all current and future campaign contributions from such sources?
The Senate is and always has been more corrupt and for the plutocracy than the House.
It was designed that way as a comprise to states.
Notice how the most anti people senators are from the states with the least people.
Were I in need of continuous medical care, I would use four or five proxy servers before I posted comments against their monopoly and their REAL "death panels" lest they figure out my identity and...accidentally...lose my paperwork.
lolll...does that tell you?
Or does my belief that they routinely violate doctor/patient confidentiality and reveal patient medical conditions - particularly if those conditions promise to be debilitating eventually - to those corporations who purchase group plans from them - which the latter corporations may...unintentionally...allow to influence promotion and retention decisions suggest anything?
are not forced to compete for customers, are regulated on
costs of policy, and restricted on dropping people from
insurance they already have or apply for, because of a pre-
existing condition. Call it "Public Option" or whatever, just
make health care affordable for everyone and available before
thousands more die because of lack of health insurance!
http://countdowntohealthcare.com/
Please support the Public Option, we need it desparately to counteract the greed and outright "thievery" by for-profit health un-insurers!
the right has shown whatever they are the patriot does not apply to them.
"a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth"
glenn beck
information czar fox news
the view 5/20/09
Now our new young President has to rise to his own historic moral moment and insist on a public option.
I believe he will.
Dr. Rick Lippin
Southamprton ,Pa
Either the Texas Legislature would prevent it from coming to a vote or the die-hard so-called conservatives would vote against their best interests.
http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com
I see this assertion made over and over again by fans of the "robust public option". What's your proof? Given that the "public option" will by design only accept 5% of Americans at MOST how is that going to "guarantee competition"? And if "Competition" is going to magically cause an industry that produces NOTHING RELATED TO HEALTH CARE to suddenly become an economic benefit why haven't GENERATIONS of competition done so already?
Your faith is touching but I prefer fairy tales to be limited to sleepy children while people in charge of the ship of state pay more attention to reality.
If you want the benefits of REAL health care reform then you need to suck it up and deliver REAL HEALTH CARE REFORM like Single Payer. Corporate welfare will not get you there.
And BTW you can't make a "Right Step, Wrong Direction". I hope for the sake of the people of Pennsylvania that your thinking isn't always that muddy.
"Take heed in your manner of speaking
That the language ye use may be sound,
In the list of the words you are choosing
"Impossible" may not be found."
great article, clear and concise for any lay person to read and understand.
as someone else commented you are preaching to the choir here, every chance you get on the media circuit please address and explain what you have done here, half of the country simply doesn't understand what is stake here...they have been mislead, misguided and manipulated.
looking forward to to your upcoming Senatorial WIN!