Health Care and Common Sense: HR676

Of course, the plan Kennedy refers to in his recent Washington Post article is one like that proposed by Health Care for America Now, which is the one that overwhelmingly has dominated the articles of CAF's writers and which is presently being supported by Obama.

One of the many flaws in that proposed plan is that it is a needs based program, which makes it kind of like a welfare program:

"Health care coverage with out-of-pocket costs including premiums, co-pays and deductibles that are based on a family’s ability to pay for health care and without limits on payments for covered services." [source: HCAN website]

It also has a feature that I haven't seen discussed here at CAF (did I miss it?):

"To the extent that employers contribute to the cost of health coverage, those payments should be related to employee wages rather than on a per-employee basis.
" [source: HCAN website]

I guess that means that the amount your paychecks are docked at work for health insurance depends on how much you earn.

There is a much better alternative, the plan proposed by Conyers and Kucinich in HR676, The United States National Health Insurance Act, which is supported by a very large number of labor unions:

http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/fact/hr-676-union-endorsers

Since Kennedy refers to the cost of the Obama plan as being expensive, maybe folks should consider more seriously the following:

"Physicians For A National Health Program reports that under a Medicare For All plan, we could save over $286 billion dollars a year in total health care costs":

http://pnhp.org/news/press_releases.php

There is significant support for HR676 from health care professionals:

“Doctors, citing mandate for change, call on Obama, Congress to 'do the right thing' on health reform: 15,000 physicians urge enactment of single-payer system”:

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/november/doctors_citing_mand.php

Sure, 15,000 is only 2% of the number of physicians in the U.S., but then, what percentage of people calling themselves progressive Democrats are in CAF?

Further, from the HCAN plan: "Health coverage through the largest possible pools in order to achieve affordable, quality coverage for the entire population and to share risk fairly."

But the largest pool is of course that of a single-payer plan, not the HCAN plan alias Obama plan alias Democratic Party Platform plan.

HCAN would include: "A watchdog role on all plans, to assure that risk is fairly spread among all health care payers and that insurers do not turn people away, raise rates or drop coverage based on a person’s health history or wrongly delay or deny care."

That sounds like some real bureaucratic overhead compared to a Medicare for All plan like HR676 from Conyers and Kucinich, for which most of the minimal overhead already exists in Medicare.

But what do we care about efficiency and equity? What do we care about $300 billion per year saved? Let’s see how balkanized we can make our health care in America. Let’s leave all those existing insurers and public health programs for the segmented population of seniors, veterans, native Americans, children, employed persons with employer-based private insurance, employed persons without insurance, unemployed persons, homeless people, etc, etc. It’s all good. Don’t rock the boat. And above all, don’t use any common sense.

Why not have a plan where anybody can get care independent of their status within any of those market segments? You need care, you go get it. Single-payer.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future