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Senate Health Care Bill: Moving in the Right Direction

by Seth Michaels, Nov 19, 2009

Photo credit: Montana AFL-CIO  
  Around the country, union volunteers are taking grassroots action to get their senators to support real health care reform.  
 
   

Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) officially released the Senate’s version of health care reform legislation, a major step toward the health care reform bill America has been waiting for. The first vote to begin debate on this historic bill could happen as soon as Saturday.

It’s an improved bill from the one passed by the Senate Finance Committee last month. It still falls short of an ideal bill but, like the one passed by the U.S. House earlier this month, it greatly increases coverage, helps make health insurance more affordable and includes a public health insurance option to compete with insurance companies.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says Reid has shown courage and leadership in bringing a good bill to the full Senate. Trumka says the bill is a step in the right direction, because it would cover 31 million people, control costs, include a public option and cut $127 billion from the deficit in the first decade. Trumka notes that unfortunately, while many of the bill’s financing mechanisms are fair, it is still partially funded through a tax on health benefits.

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New Polls Show Public Demands a Public Option, and More Health Care News

by Seth Michaels, Nov 18, 2009

Photo credit: Scott Reynolds  
  Union members have delivered thousands of letters to senators in support of health care reform.  
 
   

We’re watching closely to see if the U.S. Senate begins its debate on health care this week. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will unveil the Senate bill tonight and we could see the first vote to begin debate as early as Saturday.

As we make some progress in the Senate, however, let’s remember we need to make sure the bill that passes isn’t just reform in name only, but really helps people. That means we need a public health insurance option to compete with insurance companies and keep health care affordable for everyone.

Across the country, people understand that a public health insurance option matters:

  • In a new AP poll: 52 percent support a public health insurance option compared with only 35 percent opposed.
  • In a new Washington Post/ABC poll: 53 percent support a public option compared with 43 percent opposed.
  • And in a new CBS poll, 61 percent of people said they wanted the choice of a public health insurance option.

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Here’s How the House’s Health Care Reform Would Help You

by Seth Michaels, Nov 9, 2009

Photo credit: AFT 5001  
  These Wisconsin nurses are among the thousands who have taken action for health care reform.  
 
   

With successful passage of a historic health care reform bill this weekend, experts are weighing in on the benefits that the bill would bring to working families.

Maggie Mahar, a longtime observer of health care policy, says the progress Congress has made on health care is “astounding” and the House bill would move millions of families to less expensive, more comprehensive health care coverage, protecting them from medical bankruptcy, lifetime coverage caps and other consequences of our current flawed system.

A study by MIT health care economist Jonathan Gruber suggests the changes in the House proposal will lower premiums by hundreds or even thousands of dollars for middle-class families who are looking to buy insurance.

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Doctors, Seniors Unite Behind House Health Care Bill

by Seth Michaels, Nov 5, 2009

Photo Credit: Sean Gallagher  
Members of CWA 3122 in Florida spread the word about the need for health care reform.  
   

In a massive show of support for health care reform, the nation’s largest organization for doctors, the American Medical Association (AMA), today urged the House to pass the bill it begins debate on today, H.R. 3962, Affordable Health Care for America Act.

The AMA’s historical backing for health care reform follows this morning’s endorsement of the House bill by the largest U.S. advocacy group for seniors, the 40-million member AARP. As we noted yesterday, the bill has many provisions that will immediately benefit to seniors.

The American Cancer Society Action Network also is throwing its support behind the bill, calling it “an exceptional opportunity” to improve our health care system.

These groups are joining a broad coalition, from businesses to civil rights organizations, groups for youth and for seniors, unions, medical professionals and faith groups, all asking Congress to pass this critical bill that will expand health care coverage, cut costs and put patients first. This support is critical, as the closer we get to real reform, the harder the insurance companies and their lobbyists and front groups will fight to block it through scare tactics and falsehoods.

Want to get involved? Click here to call Congress.

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Today’s Health Care News

by Seth Michaels, Oct 28, 2009

 
   

Here’s the latest news from the battle for health care reform: 

• While much of the media focuses on the Senate, the House bill is expected to be released tomorrow, with a vote coming soon. Call your members of Congress and ask them to support real reform.

• In the Washington Post, Harold Meyerson writes that a health care excise tax could hurt middle-class families because companies

have the power to impose health care costs and cutbacks on workers, who have little or no power to resist. if employers opt for cheaper policies to avoid the excise taxes on more expensive plans, their savings may not be passed on to workers as higher wages but simply kept by the employers. Out-of-pocket health costs for workers would rise, but into-pocket wage increases to cover those costs might not be forthcoming. 

The senators’ version of health care finance assumes that workers will pocket the benefits of a cost-conscious system. The senators assume wrong. 

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Taxing Benefits: The Wrong Way to Pay for Health Care

by Seth Michaels, Oct 23, 2009

 
   

One of the principles that must be at the heart of health care reform is making sure it’s paid for fairly. Unfortunately, some members of Congress are trying to fund it in the wrong way—by taxing working families’ health benefits.

The Senate Finance Committee’s bill, unlike the bills passed by committees in the U.S. House, relies on an excise tax on health coverage, starting in 2013, to fund health reform. That’s a short-sighted policy that could hurt millions of people that health care reform is supposed to help.

A new report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows that, under the current Senate Finance Committee proposal, the excise tax would hit about one-third of health insurance plans within the next decade. This could cause millions of middle-class families to suffer a tax increase or to get their benefits pared back, the report says.

To the extent that workers choose less expensive health plans for themselves and their families to avoid the excise tax, they will be faced with higher out-of-pocket costs. All else equal, lower premiums translate into less comprehensive coverage. Less comprehensive coverage often takes the form of higher deductibles, increased co-pays, higher out-of-pocket maximums, or other increased cost-sharing.

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Proposed Health Care ‘Excise Tax’ a Tax on the Middle Class

by Mike Hall, Oct 15, 2009

 
   

The Senate Finance Committee’s 40 percent excise tax on so-called “Cadillac” health care plans would hit 37 percent of family health insurance plans and 41 percent of single plans by 2019, according to an analysis of the committee’s original health care reform bill conducted by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT).

By 2015, according to this analysis, the excise tax would slam 24 million households, growing to 39 million households by 2019. Nearly one-third of middle-class households making between $50,000 and $100,000 would be affected by 2019.

According to a just-released Communications Workers of America (CWA) report on the JCT estimates, the excise tax-part of the health care reform legislation that the Senate Finance Committee passed on Tuesday,

will have a dramatic effect on those plans forcing steep reductions in benefits, shifting costs to workers, and a significant increase in taxes on millions of middle-class families.

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Jeff Crosby
Out in the grassroots, workers are mighty angry at the thought their health care benefits could be taxed in a health care reform plan.
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Ari A. Matusiak
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