Why is a public health plan option important?
What does Medicare have to do with health care reform?
Why do we need heath care reform at all?
With the economy in such a bad state, how can we afford to be thinking about health care reform?
Why is a public health plan option important?
A successful public plan option is the key to reforming the health care system. It's the only way to provide secure coverage for all at a price taxpayers can afford. And, since key opponents of health care reform have admitted they won't likely vote for any proposal, even if it only includes private plans, why not continue to insist on real health care reform? Real health care reform means reform that includes a public plan option.
A public plan option will offer more coverage and cost less, period.
What does Medicare have to do with health care reform?
As the discussions regarding health care reform continue, and decisions are made, the Center for Medicare Advocacy reminds policy-makers that Medicare, the country's only experiment with national health insurance, has a lot to teach about how best to provide health care coverage for all.
For over 40 years, until it was morphed into a system of expensive private plans in 2003, Medicare was a resoundingly successful public/private partnership. Before Medicare began in 1965, half of all older people had no health insurance and nearly 35% lived in poverty. Today, poverty among older people has dropped by two-thirds and the vast majority of Americans over 65 and people with significant disabilities have Medicare health insurance.
The Center for Medicare Advocacy urges reformers to develop a public option in any final health care legislation. With some updating and adjustments, the public/private partnership of the traditional Medicare program could serve as that option. President Obama, Congress, and those who are able to participate in serious efforts to reform health care coverage should look to the lessons from Medicare Parts C and D. Let’s not repeat the mistakes made in those programs – specifically, the enormous complexity and excessive costs resulting from multiple private plans. People want choices of health care providers, not health insurance plans.
Reformers should learn from Medicare's past and present. Medicare Parts C and D moved Medicare much too aggressively toward private plans, alienating and confusing many beneficiaries, costing taxpayers billions of unnecessary dollars, and threatening Medicare's viability. Rather than repeating those errors on a grand scale, we should look instead to traditional Medicare which balances a public program with a private claims processing infrastructure. That is a reasonable model for a national health plan. The traditional Medicare program – with the addition of a cap on out-of pocket spending and phased in coverage for coordinated care, dental, vision, hearing services and long-term care – could serve as the basis for a national health plan.
The standard for any health care program should be what's best for its beneficiaries and what's most cost-effective for taxpayers. Until it was privatized, Medicare met that standard; it worked well for older people and people with disabilities, and it was cost effective for taxpayers. A Medicare model with appropriate fine-tuning could also work to provide health care for all Americans.
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Why do we need heath care reform at all?
Every American needs access to health care. And successful health care reform will include elements rooted in access, care and community. The plan should be available to all throughout the United States, without exclusions and should work so that people get the care they need to lead healthy, productive lives.
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With the economy in such a bad state, how can we afford to be thinking about health care reform?
Private insurers comprise a major for-profit industry. They serve their own interests and those of their stockholders before those of beneficiaries. First and foremost, insurers are in business to make a profit, not to take care of people. Their job is to calculate risks. Their goal is to maximize profits, which may conflict with providing health coverage. And they aren't going to save the country money, either – quite the contrary, in fact. The cost of private Medicare has proven that.
Public coverage, on the other hand, saves taxpayers' money. A recent study by the Commonwealth Fund, a non-partisan health policy research group, indicates that including a public health insurance option similar to Medicare in any proposed reform would save almost two TRILLION dollars more than any reform that does not include a public option (See our Weekly Alert of June 25, 2009).
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