Healthy Americans Act Gets Noticed
Senator Ron Wyden's proposal for universal health coverage, the Healthy Americans Act, continues to attract attention around the country. Columnist Ruth Marcus discusses the plan and its backers in the Washington Post:
Away from the distorting glare of the campaign trail, away from the inflammatory rhetoric about socialized medicine and Hillarycare, garnished wages and millions left uncovered, a remarkable thing is happening in the national health-care debate.An unlikely pair, Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden and Utah Republican Bob Bennett, have assembled a group of 12 senators, equally divided between the parties, to sign on to health-care legislation far more radical than anything the presidential candidates have proposed.
A dozen senators -- 13 for an instant, when Mississippi Republican Trent Lott signed on just before retiring -- may not sound like much. But this is, Wyden says, the biggest bipartisan group of senators ever to sponsor a measure for universal coverage.
Wyden takes a long-term look at the plan's prospects:
"What Senator Bennett and I hope to be able to do," Wyden says, "is to have this ready so that around Thanksgiving 2008, when the new president will have gotten about four good nights' sleep, people will say, 'Mr. President or Ms. President, there is a significant coalition in the Senate we've gotten together.' "Under their measure, instead of paying for health coverage, employers would pay workers higher wages, reflecting what they would have spent. Employers that don't now offer insurance would be assessed varying amounts based on their size and profitability. Individuals would buy insurance through state or regional purchasing pools, with premium payments withheld as taxes are now.
Market forces would come into play because various plans would compete on price, but insurers would have to take all applicants and charge the same amounts regardless of age or health status. Medicaid would be eliminated; those in poverty would have their premiums fully subsidized, with partial subsidies for those at up to four times the poverty level.
The result -- as Wyden cheerfully acknowledges -- would be to blow up the existing health insurance system.
Wyden has been hard at work building even more support for the bill:
To that explosive end, Wyden has visited 70 of his colleagues to sell the Healthy Americans Act. He is aiming for all 99. He checks in almost weekly with such players as Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union, Safeway chief executive Steve Burd and Todd Stottlemyer of the National Federation of Independent Business, the influential small-business lobby."He's the Energizer Bunny," says Stottlemyer, whose group hasn't endorsed the measure. "What he's showing is that you can actually, even in a presidential election year like this one, coalesce both Democrats and Republicans around a proposal."
Some of them, anyway. An analysis by the Lewin Group, a consulting firm, found that, even as coverage expanded, the plan would slightly reduce national health spending by lowering administrative costs and increasing competition (read: lower profits for insurance companies and providers). Employers would save money overall, but families earning more than $40,000 a year would end up paying more on average.
Read the rest. You can find more information on Wyden's plan at his website, Stand Tall for America.
Discuss.
|
Feb. 28, 2008
Posted in in the news. |
More Recent Posts | |
Albert Kaufman |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
Kari Chisholm |
Final pre-census estimate: Oregon's getting a sixth congressional seat |
Albert Kaufman |
Polluted by Money - How corporate cash corrupted one of the greenest states in America |
Guest Column |
|
Albert Kaufman |
Our Democrat Representatives in Action - What's on your wish list? |
Kari Chisholm |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
connect with blueoregon
Feb 28, '08
As a political move, I like Wyden's plan because it doesn't promise everyone the moon, sun, and stars. Wyden is explicit that most middle class families will see an increase in costs, but he argues that most of them will be happy to pay that in return for the guaranteed stability of health coverage that can't be taken away. And while Wyden's plan is "radical", it still works within the existing health care system, which seems the only realistic option when you're talking about a $1 trillion industry.
The problem, as the article points out, is that there is something for everyone to hate. The left won't support it because it's not single-payer. The unions may oppose it because it takes away their ability to bargain for future health care benefits. Businesses may oppose it because it seems their costs are certain to go up since they're converting all health benefits to wages and also losing their tax deduction. Conservatives may oppose the "big government" nature of state and local purchasing pools, and the risk of more government regulation in the future.
But Wyden is tenacious, and I suspect if nothing else he'll succeed in altering the substantive debate when health care gets taken up next year with a Democrat in the White House.
12:11 p.m.
Feb 28, '08
Wyden is explicit that most middle class families will see an increase in costs...
For the record, the increase in costs that middle class families would face is very modest.
From Stand Tall for America:
[Full disclosure: My firm manages Stand Tall for America, Senator Wyden's policy website for Senator Wyden, but I speak here only for myself.]
Feb 28, '08
This is by far the best proposal I've read about for addressing our health care problems. I doubt, unfortunately, that the President-elect (whomever that will be) will listen.
Feb 28, '08
Good lord, why waste time with this junk when there is the option of single payer (expanded medicare). Why are we wasting time, energy, money with private insurance companies which are nothing but a fat middle man that says "no" to anything that is not ridiculously standard.
Does anyone at all think about how to stimulate the creation of more jobs? Don't have companies pay for insurance! Hello? Anybody out there?
Feb 28, '08
This is by far the best proposal I've read about for addressing our health care problems. I doubt, unfortunately, that the President-elect (whomever that will be) will listen.
The plans promoted by the candidates are designed to get votes and not necessarily to fix the health care problem. The final plan, if any, will be decided by Congress which will probably mean including those senators and representatives purchased by insurance and medical corporations with campaign donations.
American Prospect has an interesting article on why health insurance doesn't work. "It is actually against their interest for insurers to compete on giving us the best care. It's not simply that they're not doing it, but given the structure of the marketplace, they shouldn't do it."
Feb 28, '08
"American Prospect has an interesting article on why health insurance doesn't work. "It is actually against their interest for insurers to compete on giving us the best care. It's not simply that they're not doing it, but given the structure of the marketplace, they shouldn't do it.""
The American Prospect, which has published a number of very positive pieces about the health americans act is exactly right here, and it's what makes Senator Wyden's bill so interesting - from my reading of it, YES, it keeps the private health insurance system, but it CHANGES the rules of their game, restructuring the market so that the ONLY way they can make money is to a) make the people they insure healthier through preventive care and incentives and/or b) control the costs of health care (they can't cut benefits or deny treatment, both are verboten under the law) essentially being the informed consumer that individuals can't be (uh, doc, I know I'm bleeding from a head wound, but why are you using the $100 dressing instead of the $10 dressing...) and government never will be (do we really need to talk about government's ability to be a low cost consumer.)
It's interesting that the "expanded medicare" folks never talk about how the medicare system is specifically designed to take care of seniors and their rather unique health issues, a medicare-for-all system would have a much different, and much more expensive cost structure. Once you add in the services that the rest of the government provides to medicare their cost of providing care is comparable to the more efficient insurance companies (as opposed to the less efficient ones that are milking you, me and the system for all we are worth)
4:19 p.m.
Feb 28, '08
The unions may oppose it because it takes away their ability to bargain for future health care benefits.
Most of the folks I know who do negotiations for labor unions would rather not have health care on the table as something they have to negotiate. Increasing health care costs is one of the biggest chips that employers play in order to avoid cost of living increase and retirement when negotiating contracts.
Feb 29, '08
It's all become a symbol, no one cares about real meaning in peoples' lives.
Where's the topic post about Oregon spending more on prisons than schools? Rather whinge for more money to pay incompetant middle managers than talk about what you do with what you have, I guess. Same with labor. Maybe realizing that the contemporary police state is largely- purely on the numbers- the creation of Bill Clinton and locally Democratic Oregon governors, isn't conducive to fund raising. Maybe you just don't care. Hypocrites, either way.
Face it, you say "health care is important", "children are critical", then act as controlling others' behavior to reinforce your narrow world view far outweighs real, consequential considerations. You can have universal health care and plenty of funding for education, just quit putting the creation and punishment of victimless crimes first and get real about behavior.
You don't know what time it is, do you?
Feb 29, '08
Market forces would come into play ...
There are plenty of examples of "market forces" in health care that have cost thousands of people their lives and health.
8:35 a.m.
Mar 1, '08
Last year, Time magazine wrote this:
I saw Wyden discuss his plan in depth last week at the Portland City Club. Wyden was impressive. And I'm glad to see his efforts start to get the attention it deserves. The Healthy Americans Act is, by far, the most comprehensive, thoughtful and detailed plan out there. Among other things, it has the benefit of being real: you know, with actual numbers and stuff.
Wyden's plan focuses on prevention and health: which is also what I like about single-payer. It's not just about covering everyone, it's about providing quality care to all Americans. Wyden's is a serious effort that deserves to be a central departure point for how we address one of our country's biggest problems.
Mar 1, '08
Wyden's plan, which basically involves extending the current health plan for members of Congress to the nation as a whole--and removing responsibility for health insurance from employers--is simple and smart.
I have the same health plan as Senator Wyden - the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan - and I'm appalled at the duplication and inefficiency in the administrative part of it. This has to translate into an enormous waste of money. I hate to think of how much worse it must be for people with both this health plan and Medicare.
12:40 p.m.
Mar 1, '08
For what it's worth, Bill, Wyden's plan really isn't just "extending the current health plan" to the nation.
It's about providing all Americans a package of benefits that's comparable to Congressional health benefits. But it would be administered by a diversity of for-profit and non-profit private insurance carriers.
The point is that the minimum plan available would be the very high-quality one -- so that nearly all insurers would provide roughly equivalent minimum plans (rather than crappy catastrophic-only plans). Those roughly-equivalent high-quality plans would then compete on price (since everyone would pay the same for the same plan, within a region) -- which will tend to drive down costs.
Unlike the current system, which has very little price-sensitivity for consumers, imagine a world where you'd see billboards driving down the street - "Buy Kaiser! Only $228/month!" and "Buy Blue Cross! Only $235/month!" You can see how the price-sensitivity will keep consumer costs down.
Given that the insurers will be forbidden from cherry-picking (they most cover anyone who applies), forbidden from discriminating on price, and forbidden from using "pre-existing conditions" to deny coverage... the only way they can compete is to reduce the internal bureaucracy and focus on prevention and wellness.
Mar 1, '08