This morning, millions of people all over this country woke up hoping today isn't the day they get sick. Millions of Americans went to work wondering whether today would be the last day they get paid in a while. And millions sat up late last night at the kitchen table, to try to balance the family budget as health care bills piled higher and higher.
Access to secure, affordable health care is one of the brightest lines dividing our country. When the system works, it's at worst inconvenient. When it doesn't - and too often, it doesn't - it can leave families, businesses, whole communities devastated.
There has to be a better way. We have to do better than 47 million uninsured, and millions more teetering on the brink. We have to do better than 100,000 people dying each year from avoidable medical errors. America can do better than this.
That's why for the past several weeks, Senate Democrats have worked hard to craft a sensible, comprehensive health care reform that will begin to reduce costs for families, businesses, and our government; protect people's choice of doctors, hospitals and insurance plans; and offer affordable, high-quality health care for every American.
Our reform upholds President Obama's promise: if you like the health care you have, you can keep it. But for the many Americans who want different choices - or don't have health insurance at all - we also offer a new, public health insurance option. The Community Health Insurance Option will be a national plan, administered by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and available in every state and territory. It will offer benefits that are as good as those available through private insurance plans - or better. The Secretary will negotiate provider payment rates to encourage doctors and hospitals to participate, and individuals who need financial help purchasing coverage will receive it. Local advisory councils will assure the plan receives community input.
Overwhelmingly, Americans agree that healthy competition and a broad range of choices will help keep costs down and insurance plans honest. Our Community Health Insurance Option will be a clear, affordable alternative to for-profit insurance companies.
Your health insurer should be your advocate - not your adversary. The Community Health Insurance Option will invest in prevention, so that when you're healthy you stay that way. It will invest in care management and coordination, when you have a chronic condition. And it will fight for you, not with you, to get you get the best possible care with the least possible hassle.
Some people will try to scare you into thinking that having a public option will drive all private health insurers out of the market. But we all know the truth: the only place the public option will drive private health insurers is back onto the straight and narrow. Your health insurer should never deny you coverage because you've had a heart condition. Your insurer should never carve out your diabetes from your coverage. Your insurer should never deny payment for the MRI they didn't pre-authorize because in the haze of your breast cancer diagnosis, you hadn't read the fine print.
They'll also try to scare you into thinking that our plan will put the government between you and your doctor, and ration your care. The truth is just the opposite. Private insurance rations care by ability to pay - and puts insurance company bureaucrats between you and your doctor. Our plan rejects this failed system - because every American deserves the very best care, no matter what.
The HELP Committee's plan is the right path for our country as we work to reform our health care system - and we look forward to the day when it's available to millions of Americans desperately in need of comprehensive, low-cost, high-quality coverage. This should have happened long ago.
The writers are Democratic U.S. Senators representing Ohio and Rhode Island, respectively. They are members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
It is profit that has corrupted the system, denied needed health care, distorted the meaning of employment, and gouged the public and the government.
"Profit" has NO PLACE in health care.
Just one thing does, and that is "healing".
Covered or not covered is not the only question.
Most people that are covered are covered by insurance provided by their employers. Since insurance companies take a third of the costs out, employers are increasingly pinched by exploding health care costs and companies are choosing to provide insurance coverage with lower high limits. So, those individuals who are tied to their employers for healthcare are, increasingly, at risk for their financial health should they get a serious health problem.
Employees have become tied to their corporations just like in the early 20th century those families in company towns were tied to their company stores. And, Congress, including the Democrat members, are assisting in this cycle of dependence on employers by so clearly favoring corporations under the outdated cynical guise of preventing socialism.
This bill does not provide a "public option". Basically, the enrollees are limited to those without insurance now. That's not "public". That's little choice.
This HELP bill preserves the bloated costly fragmented health insurance extortion scheme we use now.
People will be required to pay between 1 and 12.5% of their income for this new coverage unless they qualify for a "subsidy". I won't qualify, I don't have health insurance, and my income has surely not increased by 12.5% recently. I do not have thousands sitting about to pay for this new coverage. Most people don't have thousands sitting idly.
This bill is actually a financial windfall for the health insurance companies as employers are MANDATED to provide coverage (except companies with less than 50? employees). Good protection in the bill for insurance corporations as they salivate for these new enrollees.
Single payer is a much cheaper and better alternative.
People--
Read http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2009/06/15/hold-o... /
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/6089 , and
http://www.centerforpolicyanalysis.org/id3... for parts of the HELP bill
It's not the kind of reform I want.
"The Congress, on the other hand, trusts the health insurance industry and feels compelled to come up with a “solution” that avoids a big fight with them, not only writing them into the legislation but assuring further growth of that industry. The Congress wants to believe that the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries will be good citizens and voluntarily lower their prices to save some of the money that is necessary to fund health insurance."
Exactly.
I'm so mad this Congress and apparently President are so eager to please big industry!
bb
On February 13th my S.O. and I driving 15 miles per hour hit invisible ice, spun out of control and went over a cliff plunging over 45 down.
Our medical bills are $15,000.00 and rising. Both work. No insurance.
And in my volunteer job I see stories like this every day.
Correct.
Have you tried it?
I have. I used a comparable zip code and it is shocking. I would be forced to pay nearly $1,000 per month to a bloated greedy insurance company and get no benefits at all (because I can't afford the sky high annual deductible).
Duane Hurt: "Calm down Single Payer Advocates !!! I think the Single Payer System is excellent. I live in Canada. I use it often. I will defend and advocate it until the day I die. However, I think you guys need to get over the idea that Single Payer is the only way to go. What is being proposed is an excellent idea."
Have you read the Dodd bill? It's a piece of total crud. It's all about forced payments to insurance companies for the middle and lower middle class.
Now lets assume the Gateway group system (read the Dodd bill please) lowers premiums by 15 percent. It's still about 600 per month for no coverage.
A boon to the insurance mismanagement system. Say NO to public option.
Single payer.
Single payer!
BB
We want true SINGLE PAYER, MEDICARE Type plan for everyone.
GET RID of THE FOR PROFIT HEALTH PLANS !
I voted for these Democrats but won't support anyone again who does not support a SINGLE PAYER Plan.
Everyone , every employer would pitch in, no one would be excluded even the rich ' of course they would pay in more " hell" since the past years they have been benefiting of the backs of the poor and middle class, it's time to shut down the HMO's and go strictly government.