Health Care For America Now

Much of the debate on the question of affordability is focused on how to make health insurance affordable for individuals. That framing of the problem misses the true challenge: making quality health care — not just insurance — affordable for us all, as patients, employers, consumers and taxpayers. Once we understand that is the true challenge, it becomes clear why we need a public health insurance plan option. Call your senators today to demand that option.

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The New York Times describes the trigger as "a possible compromise under which the government would offer its own health plan only if private insurers failed to provide affordable coverage." By that criterion, it's time to pull the trigger! Don't be fooled. The trigger is a bullet aimed straight at the heart of the public health insurance plan option.

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Today I participated in a "Big Insurance: Sick of It" in New York City, in front of the offices of the second largest health insurance company in the country. We came to say enough to insurance company hegemony over our health care. We came to say that "we the people" have to come before their profits. We came to represent the nearly 80 percent of Americans who want to be given a public health insurance plan option.

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I’ll give you a hint: This past July, UnitedHealthcare reported its profits had soared 155 percent because of "strong growth in its public-sector businesses, Medicare and Medicaid."

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Senator Rockefeller gives Senator Baucus evidence that health insurance cooperatives are “untested and unsubstantiated — and should not be considered as a national model for health insurance.”

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Yesterday, President Obama reassured the American people that health reform would not push them out of the health plan they like. Rather it would provide them with "more security and stability." The fact is without reform nearly one in five privately insured persons changed their health plan and most of them (72.2%) did so for reasons beyond their control. Reform can lower costs, which means less need for employers to change their health plan offerings. If you are afraid of having to change your health insurance plan, you should be pushing for health care reform. It is your best chance to keep the health plan you have if you like it.

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There is no reform without a public health insurance plan. Handing the private insurance companies 50 million more lives to cover and giving them a monopoly over health insurance coverage for working people is not reform. Progressives believe the way to truly solve our health care crisis is to institute Medicare for all and get rid of the for-profit insurance companies altogether. Conservatives fear a bigger government role in health care. Giving people the choice between private insurance companies and a public health insurance plan allows both sides to get some of their preferred solution in reform, adding much needed competition to our health insurance system.

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As the wheeling and dealing of getting a health reform bill passed takes center stage in news coverage, one aspect of the debate is not getting the attention it deserves: the affordability of health care. To keep the cost of the bill and of health insurance down, Congress seems to be moving toward more cost sharing by patients even though mountains of research shows that higher out-of-pocket costs lead people to forego medically necessary care. That leads us further from the goal of guaranteeing everyone has access to quality, affordable health care when they need it.

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The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its score of the House health care reform bill and opponents of health care reform are trying to use it to scuttle the bill’s success. The truth, however, is that without the Medicare physician payment fix, the House health reform bill is budget neutral and even produces a $6 billion surplus. We should applaud the House for tackling this long-term problem in Medicare’s fee structure, not punish it by falsely claiming its health care reform initiatives will add to the federal deficit.

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The American Medical Association has endorsed the House health reform bill, despite the fact that it prominently contains the very element it previously opposed: a public health insurance plan option.

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