By: Mike Bell, Vice Chairman of Wyoming
Democratic Party
http://www.trib.com/news/editorial/forum/article_7303a04e-dfb2-556d-9905-46e4036b02db.html
A series of new
reports from the Treasury Department, the
Census Bureau and independent organizations
underscore something we’ve known in Wyoming for
a long time – we can’t wait another year for
health insurance reform.
Recent Census
data reveals that 46.3 million Americans lack
health insurance, up from 39.8 million in 2001.
Most of these people are middle-class – working
people who pay their bills but don’t get health
benefits through their employers or can’t
afford to buy it on the private market. In
Wyoming, there are now 72,000 of us without
insurance, who are just one accident or illness
away from financial disaster.
Even those
of us who do have insurance are at risk under
the current system. The Treasury Department
found that nearly half of all Americans under
65 will lose their health coverage at some
point in the next 10 years.
Bottom line:
each one of us could suddenly find ourselves
without health care coverage, and we all stand
to benefit from health insurance reform.
Over the past eight years in Wyoming,
health insurance premiums increased by 129
percent, bringing Wyoming to an average family
policy that now costs over $13,500 a year.
Alternately, wages in Wyoming rose a paltry 37
percent over the same period.
Today, an
unprecedented coalition of doctors, nurses,
hospitals, seniors groups – even drug companies
– support action this year. However, if
opponents of reform have their way, premiums
will continue to rise almost four times faster
than wages.
President Obama’s health
insurance reform plan takes the best from
Democratic AND Republican proposals to address
three broad goals: provide more security and
stability for people who have insurance;
provide affordable, quality choices for those
who don’t; and lower health care costs for
American families, businesses and our
government.
For the majority of
Americans who already have insurance – through
an employer, Medicare, Medicaid or the VA –
nothing about the President’s plan would
require them to change a thing about their
coverage. In simple terms, reform will just
make their coverage better by outlawing some of
the insurance companies’ worst practices. It
will be against the law for insurance companies
to deny coverage based on a pre-existing
condition, cancel your coverage when you get
sick or limit the amount of coverage you can
receive. Reform will also limit the amount
insurance companies can charge for
out-of-pocket costs and will require them to
fully cover preventive care like routine
checkups or mammograms.
For the millions
of Americans without insurance, President
Obama’s plan offers quality, affordable
choices. The President’s plan would create of a
new insurance exchange – imagine a marketplace
or mall, but instead of shoes or books you
comparison shop for health care plans – where
individuals and small businesses pool their lot
and leverage their purchasing power for more
competitive prices. It works – this is how
members of Congress get their insurance. People
(or small businesses) who still can’t afford
coverage would be eligible for subsidies and
tax credits to eek costs down even further.
The President’s plan also calls for the
creation of a public insurance option,
available only to those without insurance. As
the President has said all along, the public
option is simply the best idea he’s seen to
inject more competition into the market and
ensure that everyone has an affordable choice.
According to a new survey from the New England
Journal of Medicine, more than 60 percent of
doctors support a public plan.
President
Obama won’t sign a bill that adds “one dime” to
our deficits. In fact, the majority of his plan
will be paid for by finding savings in the
existing system – money that’s either being
used inefficiently or abused. Medicare
Advantage is an excellent example. This program
allows Medicare beneficiaries to receive
services via private plans. The problem? We pay
private plans an average of 14 percent more,
for the same exact care. Egregious overpayments
like that will end once we pass
reform.
We demand that our congressional
delegation give a good-faith effort to reform a
health insurance system that we all know is out
of control. Some Republicans in Congress have
decided that it’s better politics to kill
reform than to do what’s right for the people.
The people of Wyoming deserve better than that,
and we urge our delegation to reject that
unproductive partisan
approach.
President Obama inherited an
economy in shambles and escalating deficits,
but he has taken bold and necessary actions to
rescue our economy from the brink and is
starting to rebuild stronger than before.
Health insurance reform is critical to that
effort. The time for partisan bickering is over
– now is the time for action.