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Health Care Summit: Good Start, Big Challenges Ahead |
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Ed Coyle, director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, describes President Obama’s Health Care Summit in which he participated.
On March 5, I joined several of my colleagues in the labor and progressive communities at President Obama’s health care summit.
President Obama deserves great credit for putting together a diverse, bipartisan group to sit down together to discuss this issue. There was a strong sense of cooperation from a wide range of elected officials and organizations around the table.
But even with this good start, I believe this is going to be a big test for all of us. The real challenge will come when the details of health care reform are proposed. Make no mistake—sharp lines will be drawn as this plays out in Washington. Retirees and workers must stay educated and mobilized to make sure that every American has access to quality health care.
I believe that any health care legislation Congress passes must strengthen and expand Medicare. Medicare has been a great American success story, helping millions of retirees afford medical treatment and get prescriptions filled. But to truly reform health care, we must strengthen Medicare so it can better help our growing retiree population.
There are several ways we can do this:
- Lower the cost of prescription drugs by closing the “donut hole” coverage gap in Medicare Part D and allowing Medicare to negotiate volume discounts with drug manufacturers. The Veterans Affairs does this and its prescriptions cost 30 percent less.
- Support President Obama’s call to end the wasteful taxpayer subsidies—$176 billion over the next 10 years—to private insurance companies who operate Medicare Advantage plans. We are paying them up to 20 percent more than what it would cost Medicare to provide similar service. Every senior enrolled in Medicare pays an extra $3 per month because of this corporate welfare.
- Provide early retirees, ages 55-64, the option to purchase Medicare coverage. There are 5.1 million Americans in this age group who lack health insurance, many of them victim of mass layoffs. Just think how our nation’s health care costs would go down if they were to have regular, preventive medical care during this critical period of their lives.
In the 2008 elections, all of us knocked on doors and made phone calls to demand sweeping changes in our health care system. The result: a president, a Congress and a political climate now primed for action. Working together, we can make 2009 the year we turn historic opportunity into lasting change.
1 Comment
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“Good start”? Ya gotta’ be kiddin’.
The “Summit” was going to ban single payer advocates until word came down that such a ban would result in a demonstration. Organizers of the summit reluctantly invited two single payer supports at the last minute. (Rep John Conyers, D-MI, and Dr. Oliver Fein, President of Physicians for a National Health Program.)
The medical-industry complex is fighting single-payer tooth and nail. It has lined up its surrogates in Congress, like Sen. Max Baucus from Montana, to do its dirty work. Sen. Baucus recently said that single payer “is off the table”. Sen. Baucus, it should be noted, received over $1 million in donations from the medical-industry complex in the past five years. Sen. Baucus is kissing the ring on the hand that feeds him.
Two-thirds of the people in our nation want publicly financed, privately delivered health care. They want expanded and improved Medicare. That’s what single payer is.
Isn’t it time for Congress to represent the huge majority of the people in our nation? Isn’t it time for us to hold corporately-purchased lawmakers accountable?
Most rank and file union members support HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act. (Single payer.) It’s time for those who purport to represent us to do just that! Represent us!