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700 State Legislators Back Public Health Insurance Option |
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The health care reform debate is now on center stage on the national level. But for several years, state lawmakers have fought to develop health care reform initiatives to ensure affordability, quality and fairness in health care. One thing they have learned, says Christopher Donovan, speaker of the Connecticut state House, is that
we know that America wants the choice of a public plan because we’ve been out there in the trenches for years now coming up with models for one. We’ve been going door to door talking to our constituents. We’ve been drafting legislation that creates public insurance options and opens employee insurance pools to the private sector. We’ve passed these things, so we know people like them.
A public insurance plan option for workers and families who either have private insurance coverage or no coverage at all is one of the AFL-CIO’s key health care reform principles.
Donovan and several other state lawmakers took that message to the White House and Capitol Hill today. Organized by the Progressive States Network, they delivered a letter backing a public health insurance plan option, signed by more than 700 state legislators, to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). The letter says:
Americans recognize that the private sector alone has proven incapable of creating a high-quality, fair, and accountable health care system that works for all families. Therefore, a key priority for reform is the choice of a public health insurance plan that is available to businesses, individuals, and families.
The action comes as the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where Harkin is a senior member, is crafting its version of health care reform legislation. At the same time, the private insurance industry, its hired guns and anti-reform lawmakers have launched a multimillion-dollar propaganda and scare campaign to scuttle any proposed public plan option.
Harkin says the grassroots voices the state lawmakers represent are an important tool to fight back.
The signatures of over 700 state legislators speak loud and clear for numerous Americans who want us to act now to give them a full range of choices of the best quality, affordable care our country can offer.
It doesn’t matter if you’re shopping for a car or a washing machine or health insurance. Your best bet for getting a good deal is if two things are present: choice and competition. And that’s exactly why Americans need to have the option of a public plan as they shop for insurance under a reformed health system.
Texas state Rep. Garnet Coleman says the lessons in health care reform states have learned can be a valuable lesson on the national level.
For decades, states across the country have done the best we can to help working families cope with a broken health care system. We’ve learned many lessons about what works and doesn’t work, and we’re looking forward to sharing them with our colleagues in the White House and Congress.
Opponents of a public plan option are recycling the same shrill attacks and lies they used to kill health care reform in 1993. On Monday, President Obama, in a speech to the American Medical Association, said:
We know that there are those who will try and scuttle this opportunity no matter what, who will use the same scare tactics and fear-mongering that’s worked in the past. They’ll give dire warnings about socialized medicine and government takeovers; long lines and rationed care; decisions made by bureaucrats and not doctors. We’ve heard it all before—and because these fear tactics have worked, things have kept getting worse.
…no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away.
Let me repeat—if you like your health care, the only thing reform will mean is your health care will cost less. If anyone says otherwise, they are either trying to mislead you or don’t have their facts straight.
Don’t forget: On June 25, join thousands of union and health care activists on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., for the largest-ever rally for health care reform. Click here for more information.
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For years the unions have been fighting against a public plan because they know that it will kill privite plans in time.The only reason they are selling out on this is because they are in the tank with the O’bama whitehouse and just like the deal with the unions at GM and Chyslers they got a big pay off for there support and I’m sure more is on tap for now going along with this public plan.Its stinks period.
Hurray for these state legislators! The public health plan option needs all the support it can get. Keep up the good work!
Public plan? Not single payer and will cost tons of dough.
I support a single payer public plan, something not on the table. I am stunned that the congress and president has stacked the deck against single payer debate.
If they wished the most cost efficient, quickest start and best overhaul of the healthcare system, then the congress would look seriously at HR676
Single payer health care is having a tough time getting traction in the Health Care Reform talks. The right wing noise machine is busy scaring the living daylights out of their audience about health care reform. These shills for big business and the right (is there a difference?) make me sick!
(pun intended!) They are in the process of brainwashing their listeners & viewers with the propaganda of the the for profit medical industry and their intentions to swat down true health care reform like a fly. (I sure hope that the Obama fly was not true health care reform.
I draw a weekly left of center political cartoon series and I’ve dealt with the cries from the right that want to scare their audience away from the thought of single payer health care.
It’s up on my website now http://www.whatnowtoons.com
I sit on the board with Utah association of Health underwriters and http://www.BenefitsManager.net as well as http://www.HealthInsuranceSource.net for health insurance reform. Several interesting changes took place with H.B. 188 passage earlier this year that seems all too familiar on the federal level. The spirit of the bill allows private market place remedies. It essentially guarantees insurance providers a “no loss” or “no gain” over competing carriers in the insurance exchange portal which is http://www.UtahInsuranceExchange.info. On the surface it seems not to be attractive to participating carriers (voluntary at this point). But you have to understand the carriers’ goal is to cover their administration fees. That can be accomplished now. The other half of the equation is providers and their billing practices that need to be reformed. That is on the agenda. Keep an eye on Utah because the national health care debate seems much the same ground we have already covered.
In http://www.UtahInsuranceExchange.info which is the beginning of a state sponsored program addresses issues on a local state level that the federal level might look at. Coming from an underwriting background I know where the dime falls. I am of the opinion that large waste occurs from providers billing for procedures that developed “no outcome”. Insurance carriers are not the only bad guys on the block. In most of our purchasing decisions….don’t we pay ONLY when we know that we will get a desired outcome? Why is it if you ask the doctor how much a particular test or procedure is he doesn’t know? Shouldn’t providers be held to a transparent cost standard?
You must be in the health care business from some interaction point to make statements of fact in the face of historical changes. When you are in the system from any touch point (insurance, provider, hospital, Medicare or patient) you get the “real issues” because of real time experience.
I often quote the Switzerland health care system as an example of tough questions that we will have to face at some point down the time line. Did you know that premature babies are not resuscitate upon birth if they cannot draw breath? Did you also know that is the same with “senior care” experiencing system failure or failures? They don’t extend life of a senior with multiple failures like intubation as example. Anyone in the business of paying claims knows that the single most expensive bills in what we call “shock loss” is within NICU for newborns and seniors in acute / intensive care / hospital.
The Swiss apparently made decisions made based upon cost vs. quality outcome. Are we as a nation prepared to make that type of decision or to define when to incubate, resuscitate a newborn or a senior? To define the conditions and rules of practice? With a litigious society I think not. This is why we need tort reform. Without tort reform medical provider costs will never drop. Liability costs with medical providers are nearly half of operating expenses. With health insurance carriers it translates to about 10% of every premium dollar collected.
I don’t think we are hearing about tort reform because most of the house and senate on the federal level are lawyers and have practicing law firm interests / ownership. In the healthcare system there is no total innocence. Insurance executives with bonuses, doctors overbilling, hospitals overbilling because the street gang thug got dropped at their door with no insurance. The lawyers are there to stir the pot and promise lavish fortune at the end of the PERCEIVED misery chain. Am I saying we don’t need them? No, but I am saying there is clear and documented abuse of the legal system that awards outlandish claims in the millions for a $20,000 mistake. Ambulance chasers being the most abusive. What about those that educate their clients on defraud and then use the legal system to pirate insurers?
It is about time some of our elected officials start paying attention to the people instead of special interests and deep pocketed lobbyists