Health Care For America Now

It really is a different world inside the Beltway. Up till four months ago I'd spent my entire organizing career - 33 years - outside of Washington, D.C. I'd always known that the Beltway was a different place, with its own culture, dominated by lobbyists and disconnected from America. On a couple of occasions I'd sat in a strategy meeting with representatives from the Hill and found it an out-of-body experience. I was in a conversation that was talking about America but totally disconnected from America. At least the America I knew - the concerns of people in their daily lives.

The heart and soul of Health Care for America's campaign is based outside the Beltway. We believe that we can never compete with the lobbyists and campaign cash of the other side. We think we'll win by turning the Beltway inside-out, by making Congress listen and respond to the voices of people at home. That's why we based our campaign on the labor, community, online and constituency groups that have the greatest ability to move people at the grassroots and netroots. Why we have 120 organizers in more than 40 states, based in locally-rooted organizations with the demonstrated history and capacity to move people into action on local and statewide politics. Why we are building a coalition that of April 30th hit the 1,000 group member milestone; 848 of our members are state and local organizations and businesses in 46 states.

But make no mistake about it, we need to play inside the Beltway too and play big. We have to understand the conversation in D.C. and respond to it both inside and outside the Beltway. This takes a fully coordinated strategy - and a lot of translation.

Here's an example of how reality looks different based on where you sit. A couple weeks ago NY Senator Charles Schumer was reported by national AP to be promoting a compromise on the public health insurance plan that would allow private insurers to play a big role. Our folks in NY heard that and reacted strongly. They assumed - as I would have too just a few weeks ago - that Schumer was being pressured by the private insurance industry to cave. But the reality is more complicated, a lot more complicated.

Bear with me a little on the details here.

Make no mistake about it, yesterday's election was a mandate to enact legislation that will provide a government guarantee of quality, affordable health care for all. But to realize a promise of such historic magnitude, it will take our nation believing monumental change is possible. President-elect Obama announced last night his win was just the beginning saying, "This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were."

When the Obama campaign decided to spend 86% of its October advertising on health care, it both recognized that health care was the most important issue to break through with swing voters on the economy and raised the expectation that health care would be at the top of the Obama agenda. Obama himself made it clear he sees health care as an essential plank for restoring the economy when he gave his major health care address in Newport News, Virginia on October 4, 2008. He rhetorically asked whether the nation could afford health care given the economic crisis and answered, "In other words, the question isn't how we can afford to focus on health care – but how we can afford not to. Because in order to fix our economic crisis, and rebuild our middle class, we need to fix our health care system too. So it's clear that the time has come – right now – to solve this problem: to cut health care costs for families and businesses, and provide affordable, accessible health insurance for every American."

1. McCain will tax your health care benefits at work

McCain's health care plan will make people pay income taxes on the value of their health care benefits at work. So if your employer pays $10,000 a year for your health insurance, you will start having to pay taxes on that $10,000, just like you do on your wages or salary.

2. And give you a tax credit for less than five months of health care (after that you're on your own).

McCain will give a family a tax credit of $5,000 0 – paid to your insurance company -  but the average cost of a family health care plan in 2007 was $12,680. So McCain's plan will give you enough to pay from January to May. You'll need to come up with the money for June through December!

3. You may be one of 20 million people who will lose your health benefits

A study published in the respected journal Health Affairs found that 20 million will lose their employer paid for health insurance under the McCain plan, because many employers will decide they no longer have a responsibility to pay for health coverage for their workers.

4. And be forced to buy health insurance on your own

When you lose your health coverage at work, you'll need to look for coverage in the individual market. But you'll no longer have your employer doing the shopping for coverage and paying for coverage.

5. You won't be covered for pre-existing conditions - and may not be able to get coverage at all

When you are on your own, health insurance companies do not cover pre-existing conditions and they often refuse to sell any coverage to people who have had asthma, cancer or other common diseases. The federal law that protects people who get health insurance at work doesn't apply when you buy health insurance in the individual market.

6. But you will pay higher premiums as you get older or sicker or if you're a woman

In the individual market, health insurance companies charge higher premiums to people as they get older and charge more for people who have been treated for illnesses. Younger women get charged more than men of the same age, simply because they can become pregnant.

7. You may have deductibles as high as $11,200 a year

You may only be able to afford insurance plans with high deductibles, which under current federal law can be as much as $11,200 for a family plan.

8. With barebones benefits and no consumer protections

John McCain's plan would take away the protections that your state now offers people who buy health insurance on their own. Your state law requires health insurance to provide standard benefits and consumer protections. McCain's plan allows health insurance companies to get out of following your state's health insurance laws.

9. McCain protects health insurance profits - by passing the cost to taxpayers and the sick.

McCain's solution for people whom health insurance companies won't cover - because they've been treated for an illness - is to put them in a high-risk pool, paid for by state taxpayers and by charging high premiums.

10. Of course, John McCain won't have to worry about any of this for his health care.

You may not be covered, but John McCain will. As a Senator, he'll still get good coverage paid for by the federal government. As a veteran, he can also get cared for through the Veteran's Administration. And as a senior, he can get Medicare. That's three ways that the government provides health care for John McCain.

Health Care for America Now! (“HCAN”), a section 501(c)(4) issue advocacy organization, is a broad coalition of nonprofit and political organizations that are working to promote quality, affordable health care for all Americans.  HCAN and each of its members conducts and funds only activities appropriate to its tax and election law status. This statement was not funded or endorsed by HCAN’s 501(c)(3) members.

I guess it was predictable in this day of "balanced" reporting, where each side gets equal treatment regardless of the lunacy of its arguments, that Health Affairs would feature articles from competing economists about the faults in the health care proposals of Senator McCain and Senator Obama. That approach feeds into the mainstream press' balanced cynicism, as in the lead of the Associated Press article, "John McCain's health care plan won't lower the ranks of the uninsured. Barack Obama's fails to curb the soaring cost of health care…" I would have hoped instead that Health Affairs, which is after all a publication of Project Hope, would have also invited articles about why each plan would work, instead of featuring articles about each plan's shortcomings.

Fortunately, the problems with the McCain plan are so huge that they've been getting more attention than the charges made against the Obama plan by three conservative economists, one of whom is an advisor to the McCain campaign (The Obama Plan: More Regulation, Unsustainable Spending, Joseph Antos, Gail Wilensky, Hanns Kuttner, Health Affairs, September 16, 2008). In a nutshell, the McCain plan would mean even higher cost and worse coverage - as if that were imaginable, given the state of the health insurance system now. What's been getting less attention is that the conservative criticism of the Obama plan is based on the same fundamental misunderstanding of health economics that is at the heart of our health care problem and would be accelerated by the McCain plan.

Who are they kidding with their new campaign?

Last February, a poll by Lake Research Partners for HealthCare for America Now found 78% of voters believe that health insurance companies "put profits before people." It turns out that a few months later the CEO of WellPoint, the nation's biggest health insurance company, said yes, that's true! In April, WellPoint CEO Angela Braly told investors, "We will not sacrifice profitability for membership." In other words, we won't sell health coverage to more people if it means we will lose money.

We doubt that's what WellPoint will tell the uninsured Ohio residents that they and the health insurance industry lobbying group are gathering tomorrow (Tuesday July 22nd) in Columbus Ohio. That's when AHIP (America's Health Insurance Plans) is holding the kick-off for the health insurance industry's campaign to protect their profits in health care reform.

I want to take a moment and address those of you who have been asking why Health Care for America Now isnot focusing on creating a single-payer health insurance system. First of all, here is HCAN's official position:

The goal of Health Care for America Now is to build a national movement to win the implementation of health care reform that meets the principles in our Statement of Common Purpose. We believe that a properly designed single-payer bill is one way of doing that but not the only way. Many of the organizations that belong to HCAN support single-payer reform and have endorsed HR-676. But in joining HCAN, they recognize that the major focus needs to be on winning quality, affordable health care for all rather than advocating for only one approach. Health Care for America Now believes that the big divide in our country on health care is between those of us who believe that there needs to be substantial government involvement in guaranteeing quality, affordable health care for all and those who think that the solution is to rely ever more on an unregulated private market.

I was a leader of the fight for single-payer reform during from 1988 to 1994. I co-wrote with Richard Gottfried - then and now the Chair of the Health Committee of the New York State Assembly - the only fully-financed single-payer billto ever pass a state legislative body in the country. I shared the responsibility with Assemblyman Gottfried for presenting single-payer at twelve debates sponsored by Governor Mario Cuomo in 1991 on healthcare reform proposals. I wrote a training manual and talking points for candidates for Congress to use in running on single-payer in 1992. I could go on, but you get the idea.

About a year and a half ago I asked some of the folks I work with whether it was time to start a new campaign for national health care. Well tomorrow – on July 8th – that campaign is about to launch with a roar. In 52 cities around the country, including state capitals in 38 states, people will be standing up to declare that it’s time once and for all to guarantee good, affordable health care to everyone in our country.

We’ll have a DC launch too, with the heads of some of the biggest unions, community groups, women’s organizations, netroots and progressive think tanks joining to together to send this rocket aloft. And we’ll have a fun but pointed national TV and print ad buy that lays it out simply: you can’t trust the health insurance industry to fix the health care mess. Plus, more than 5 million people will get our first email blast.

But the heart and soul of this campaign will be outside the Beltway, where the high cost and endless hassle of trying to get past the health insurance companies to the health care we need is driving people nuts. And now driving us to do something about it.