WASHINGTON — Two Senate panels are closing in on the toughest unresolved issue in healthcare reform: the scope of a public role in providing insurance. What’s not on the table as the Senate reconvenes next week is a government-run, single-payer plan – an option backed by some 80 House Democrats but not by their party leadership. President Obama favors having a government-run plan compete for customers alongside private insurers. But moving from an employer-based system of private insurance to a single-payer system run by the government ‘could be hugely disruptive, he said at a town-hall meeting in Annandale, Va., on Wednesday. ‘My attitude has been that we should be able to find a way to create a uniquely American solution to this problem that controls costs but preserves the innovation that is introduced in part with a free-market system, he said. If not single-payer, then what? Debate over alternatives to the single-payer approach is taking place primarily within Democratic ranks. In a new draft plan, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee is calling for a public option to pool purchasing power, reduce administrative costs, and expand coverage to all Americans. This […]
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
A Hot Button in Healthcare Reform: US Role As Insurance Provider
Author: GAIL RUSSELL CHADDOCK
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
Publication Date: 3-Jul-09
Link: A Hot Button in Healthcare Reform: US Role As Insurance Provider
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
Publication Date: 3-Jul-09
Link: A Hot Button in Healthcare Reform: US Role As Insurance Provider
Stephan: Being on Medicare with the top AARP supplemental I am experiencing as close to Canadian health care as one can get in the U.S. That is I am not stressed about it, and get good care.
The other day my partner, Ronlyn, left her job as a teacher and chairman of the Early Childhood Department of a Wadorf School, which had the effect of throwing her back into the illness profit system as an individual seeking health coverage. I had forgotten how truly awful the experience of pre-medicare health care is. How hard it is trying to get coverage. It took most of two days comparing policies, coverage, and price, to figure out which program to try for -- It is not a given you will get the policy you want. Now she is going through the qualification program and, then, follows a probation period of six to nine months. Never has it been clearer to me how specifically this entire area of our society is built on profit not health care. To a Canadian or European it must seem an insane system. To me this experience has been further proof that we must completely restructure the illness profit industry into a true health care system.
