Trying to get your kids to wait patiently in line at the
grocery store or sitting at the table is next to impossible. Have you tried
making them wait for health coverage? Probably not, because that would make you feel fidgety and nervous.
California is considering a move that would do just that-put
uninsured kids who qualify for the State Children's Health Insurance Program
(CHIP) on a waiting list for health coverage. The Los
Angeles Times reports:
State
officials are considering capping enrollment in California's health insurance program for
children of the working poor, as an influx of new clients overwhelms it.... As
many as 162,750 children could end
up on a waiting list within six months.
The
economic crisis is taking a toll on working families, leaving more and more
without jobs and without health insurance. The corresponding increase in demand
for public programs like CHIP and Medicaid puts extra pressure on state budgets
just when states can least afford it. Over half of state budgets are currently
in the red, with worse news coming every day.
However,
states should not balance the budget on the backs of children. States must
protect the safety net, which is all the more valuable to working families
during tough economic times.
States
can't do it alone, though; they need greater support from the federal
government (which currently picks up more than half the tab of the SCHIP
program). Last year, President Bush vetoed the bill Congress passed to provide
adequate funding to cover 4 million uninsured kids. Twice. Now the 111th
Congress has the opportunity to complete this unfinished business and
strengthen the safety net for uninsured kids. They can also helps kids by
providing a temporary increase in federal funding for Medicaid, since half of
all Medicaid enrollees are kids.
Encourage
your members of Congress to act swiftly and boldly. Kids can't wait. Nor should
they have to.
This week, we sent letters to President-elect Obama and key
Congressional leaders, asking them to make health reform a top priority.
The letters were signed by 100 national groups, and organized by Families USA,
SEIU, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, and the Catholic Health
Association of the United
States.
Our nation is in a period of unprecedented economic
uncertainty, and the current financial crisis threatens to depress economic
growth for a prolonged period of time and lead to hardship for families and
businesses, while government budgets will be under stress. The new President must
get our economy back on track and that depends on addressing health care.
We, a diverse group of organizations representing tens
of millions of Americans, urge you to include meaningful health care reform as
one of your first domestic priorities, and we stand ready to support you in national
reform efforts to address our health care crisis. We respectfully request that
you begin the urgent national conversation on health care immediately by
convening a health care "summit" that brings experts, leaders, advocates, and
patients together to set an ambitious agenda for our nation's health and health
care.
We cannot afford to delay identifying and implementing
solutions to the disturbing health care trends that undermine the economic
security of our families, limit the productivity of our workforce, inhibit job
creation and wage growth, and threaten to crowd out investments in energy,
education, and infrastructure.
Those trends are well known to most Americans. Between
2000 and 2007, family premiums for employer-provided coverage rose 5.4 times
faster than median worker earnings. Year after year, health care costs grow at
a rate that outpaces our overall economic and wage growth. Health care expenses
drive families into debt; nearly half of foreclosures were caused at least in
part by a medical problem. Families forgo necessary care and jeopardize the
health and productivity of the next generation of American students and
workers. Each year we spend more on health care, yet our spending is not improving
the health status of millions of Americans.
Over the last 20 years, whether the economy was
growing or contracting, the number of Americans without health insurance continued
to climb. The undersigned organizations share a common understanding that
expanded coverage is an integral component of a comprehensive solution to
contain health care costs and improve health outcomes.
We stand ready to support you in a national
conversation to fix health care, to focus on prevention and chronic care, to
give patients more tools to manage their health, to give all Americans
meaningful coverage, and build a more sustainable health care system that
consistently delivers value to all of us, and that strengthens us as a nation. We
pledge our support for such a conversation as well as an early effort to secure
meaningful health care reform.
In a sign that President-Elect Obama means business, former
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) was selected to fill the top spot at
the Department of Health and Human Services. This is good news. Very good news.
"The appointment of Senator Daschle as Secretary of the Health and Human
Services Department is the best news possible for those who want to achieve
meaningful health care reform," said Families USA's Ron Pollack.
In addition to leading HHS, Daschle will also serve as the health
"czar" - or White House point person who will report directly to the
President.
This is a
perfect role for Daschle. Although he was always been interested in health
care, in the last few years he's become a true wonk on the subject, publishing
a book called Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis. It
urges precisely the sorts of reforms President-Elect Obama and his
congressional allies are promoting right now.
Daschle's track-record as Senate Minority leader turned
health wonk gives him incisive knowledge of both the political environment and
the policy required to push legislation through Congress.
Speaking at Families USA's Health Action conference last
year, Daschle
said:
One of the biggest tactical
mistakes we've made, the opponents of health reform have defined the debate. As
a result, we've lived under a number of myths. Perhaps the biggest myth of all
is that the US
has the best health system in the world. So before the debate can begin, we
need to all understand the same basic facts. We need to understand how we got
here and where we need to go.
Incremental change in our
system is no longer a viable option. Instead we need comprehensive reform. In
growing numbers the American people are demanding that we do something. Our
goal should be to build what current and retired members of Congress have
today, and make that available for all Americans.
Daschle's commitment to health care, combined with his astute
understanding of the political climate, gives us reason to believe that health
care reform is not simply a campaign promise, but a likely reality in an Obama
administration.
While kids are unable to enter the voting booth and cast ballots,
they did prove to have some political power in this last election. If you
recall, an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)
passed Congress, but President Bush sided with tobacco companies and right-wing
ideologues to veto the bill - twice. Looks like that vote haunted the members
who stood by the President.
Here are the 10 Republicans who
stuck with their leaders on SCHIP, voted against children's health care, and
for that reason (among others), got swept aside:
Rep. Steve Chabot (Ohio)
Rep. Thelma Drake (Va.)
Rep. Tom Feeney (Fla.)
Rep. Robin Hayes (N.C.)
Rep. Ric Keller (Fla.)
Rep. Joseph Knollenberg (Mich.)
Rep. John R. Kuhl (N.Y.)
Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (Colo.)
Rep. Bill Sali (Idaho)
Rep. Tim Walberg (Mich.)
Sometimes, doing nothing can cost you. Such is the
conclusion of the New America Foundation's new report, The
Cost of Doing Nothing, which addresses the economic threat of rising
health care costs:
Our economy loses hundreds of
billions of dollars every year because of the diminished health and shorter
lifespan of the uninsured. Rising health care costs undermine the ability of U.S. firms to
compete internationally, threaten the stability of American jobs, and place
increasing strain on local, state, and federal budgets. As health care costs
continue to rise faster than wages, health insurance becomes more and more
unaffordable for more and more American families every day.
Yet, the recent financial services meltdown has led some people to suggest that
we cannot afford health reform and that fixing our broken health care system
will have to wait once again. But waiting comes with a price. The crisis
worsens every day that we do not act.
What's more:
The economic cost of failing to fix
our broken health care system is greater than the upfront expense of
comprehensive health reform.
By projecting out future health care costs based on historical
trends, the authors make the point that households will spend a greater share
of their income to purchase health insurance, while also facing rising
deductibles, and wages
that can't keep pace. If family coverage through employers continues to rise at a
rate of 7.9%, the projected cost will rise to $24,291 by 2016 - nearly double
what it is today. (Check out their website for state-by-state
analysis in the form of colorful charts and graphs.)
The cost of doing nothing also hits our nation's ability to
compete in a global economy. As more individuals become underinsured and
uninsured, their productivity level declines and their contribution to
our economy also decreases. In 2007, the economy lost as much as $200 billion due
to shorter lifespans and poor health of the uninsured.
This analysis comes out at a critical time when the
opportunity for health care reform is more promising than it has been in the
last 15 years. Key members of Congress are poised
to take action, and some new members even cite the promise of reform as key
to getting elected.
Lately, it seems like all the headlines about health care are
pretty grim. How about a success story to brighten your day?
Massachusetts
enacted comprehensive health reform in 2006, and its progress providing
high-quality health coverage to the uninsured has been irrefutable. At least
439,000 people who were uninsured now have health insurance; about 191,000 of
them found unsubsidized private health coverage.
According to the Urban Institute, the largest gains in
insurance have been made by populations that are among the most likely to
be uninsured nationally and whose participation in the insurance pool is critical:
adults earning less than about $30,000 a year, young adults aged 18-34, and workers
in small firms.
Reform of this scale undoubtedly
invites criticism and concern. Before the law was implemented, people worried
that firms would drop employee health benefits in light of the financial responsibilities
imposed on them-a phenomenon known as "crowd out." Two years later, researchers
at the Urban Institute say there's no
evidence that crowd out is a problem in MA.
Onlookers also fretted that the
law's individual mandate-the requirement that all individuals obtain health
insurance-would push people to take up bare-bones coverage that would leave
them without sufficient protection from high health costs (underinsured). Again, Urban Institute
research indicates that while a growing share of Americans is underinsured,
the number of underinsured Bay Staters is shrinking under health reform.
The share of insured adults who were
underinsured...dropped by about 2 percentage points between fall 2006 and fall
2007....It appears that the gains in insurance coverage in MA under health reform
represent a gain of comprehensive insurance coverage....
Surely there's some bad news, right? Well, health reform
costs money-that can be bad news depending on your point of view. Massachusetts strikes a
delicate balance among stakeholders to fund this worthy undertaking, turning simultaneously
to consumers and taxpayers, employers and employees, health plans and health
care providers, the state and the federal government. The state is also going
after the slippery issue of underlying health care costs, which they realize
could undermine their effort.
But, if you asked the 439,000 Bay Staters who now have
high-quality health care, "But where's the rub?" they might tell you to look
elsewhere.
Today, Senator Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance
Committee, revealed his long awaited white paper on
health care reform. According to the Senator,
...the
Call to Action has three equally important legs: (1) a policy that ensures
meaningful coverage and care to all Americans; (2) an insistence that any such
expansion be coupled with an emphasis on higher quality, greater value, and -
over time - less costly care; and (3) an absolute commitment to weed out waste,
eliminate overpayments, and design a sustainable financing system that works
for taxpayers as well as for the nation's recipients and providers of health
care.
Creating ahealth insurance "exchange," where individuals and small businesses
could compare and purchase plans - which would include a range of private
plans and a public plan option.
An expansion of Medicaid and SCHIP.
The plan would allow people between 55 and 64 to
"buy-in" to Medicare as a temporary transition provision until quality,
affordable insurance options are available through the exchange.
Support for the employer based model where
employers would be required to offer coverage to their employees, and
small businesses would receive a tax credit if they comply.
Senator Baucus, along with
Senator Kennedy, is expected to play a very important role, as Ezra Klein explains
here, in the road
to reform. Baucus chairs the Senate Finance Committee, which has broad
jurisdiction, overseeing health care reform, Social Security, unemployment
benefits, and taxes and trade. As chairman, it is up to Baucus to schedule
markups, hearings, and votes - and ultimately serves as the gatekeeper for
legislative action on, say, health care reform.
Having Baucus on board with such a comprehensive plan is
certainly encouraging. To quote Families USA's own Ron Pollack:
"The white paper
released today achieves a sound balance between public- and private-sector
approaches, and it blends good policy with a sound view of what is achievable.
"There has never
been a more auspicious opportunity to secure meaningful health care reform: The
President-Elect has made it a top priority; key congressional committee chairs
have made it their top priority; and the large and diverse health care interest
groups are working cooperatively to find common ground.
"As a result, we
have a unique opportunity to succeed this time in securing much-needed health care
reform."
We heard encouraging words from Michael Myers, staff director for the Senate
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee, chaired by Senator Ted
Kennedy, at Families USA's post-election health care briefing:
"With the Obama victory, the
question is no longer whether we'll pursue comprehensive healthcare reform, but
when and in what form."
Determined to see health care reform come to fruition, Senator
Kennedy has wasted no time in convening regular meetings with key stakeholders in
the hopes of introducing comprehensive legislation in early January. In an
op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post., Kennedy reiterated
the urgency for reform:
"...despite the current economic downturn, we must forge
ahead with this urgent priority. The system is broken. And it's no longer just
patients demanding change. Businesses, doctors and even many insurance
companies are demanding it as well."
The specifics of his reform proposal remain under wraps,
according to Kennedy's office, but Myers
suggested that it will look much like Obama's plan and the Senator will
pursue a "single bill" strategy.
Senator
Obama's proposal builds on our current system of health coverage, preserving
what works and strengthening aspects of the system that need improvement. Under
his plan, workers who are satisfied with their employer-based coverage would
keep it. A new National Health Insurance Exchange would enable individuals and
businesses to purchase health coverage that's as good as the coverage for
members of Congress and other federal employees. His proposal requires that all
children have insurance. It would also cap out-of-pocket expenses and regulate
insurance companies so that they can no longer cherry-pick the young and
healthy and deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
Many observers are poised
to see reform finally happen. Having learned a thing or two from the last
reform efforts in 1993 led by President Clinton, and understanding that reform
is not inevitable, many stakeholders (who don't always see eye-to-eye) are
searching for common ground. In Congress, staff from three jurisdictional
committees -- Finance, Budget, and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP)
-- have met to form working groups to discuss coverage expansion, systems
reform, and financing. In addition, Senator Baucus, chair of the Finance
Committee, which must approve any legislation before it goes to the Senate
floor, is also committed
to reform:
"I made sure the finance committee
spent this year learning and preparing for action on a comprehensive overhaul
of the healthcare system, and I intend for us to move swiftly and decisively with
legislation in early 2009."
We'll hear more from Baucus this week when he releases his
white paper on health reform.
Having had a few days to process such an historic election
and adjust our lexicon from Senator
Obama to President-Elect Obama, it's
now time to hit the ground running. Our
first order of business: quality and affordable health care for all. And we're
not the only ones who feel that way. According
to exit polls, of the issues that swayed voters in the voting booth, 60%
ranked the economy, followed by Iraq,
and then health care.
A closer look will show that within voters' economic concerns, health care is numero uno. According
to survey data recently released by Lake Research Partners, health care ranked
as the number one economic concern of voters, followed by rising gas and food
prices, and jobs. Specifically, affordability was the top priority for reform.
So what does this mean? When it comes to economic security,
voters also seek health care security and access to affordable coverage. Health
care has become
too costly.
The correlation between the economy and health care is sometimes
overlooked, but one recent study found that
half of home foreclosures were due, in part, to medical crises. Just as health care costs were a growing burden
to families (uninsured and insured)
leading up to the economic downturn, they continue to be a source of distress,
especially with today's news that the unemployment
rate is soaring. As individuals lose their jobs, they are likely to lose
their health coverage, putting them in the precarious position of searching for
coverage on the unregulated private market unless they qualify for Medicaid.
Yet
even Medicaid, which covers 50 million Americans, is
facing troubled times. In times of economic distress, as un- and
underemployment rates rise, more people qualify for Medicaid. According to the
Kaiser Family Foundation, "for every 1% jump in unemployment, about 1 million
more people enroll in Medicaid." But states - which are losing revenues in the
downtown and which face much stricter budget limits than the federal government
- are forced to cut critical programs like Medicaid.
And those who can't find private insurance or who can't
enroll in Medicaid? Too often, tighter household budgets force them to forgo
medical treatment, care, medications, tests, and so on.
As voters experienced first hand, the economic crisis isn't
happening in a vacuum. When the economy shrinks, more people rely on safety net
programs, like Medicaid, for health care. This is one more reason why health
care reform must be a priority in the Obama Administration - to give Americans
a better sense of health and economic
security that they are so loudly demanding.
Posted by: Ron Pollack, Executive Director, Families USA on Nov 05, 2008
The election we witnessed yesterday was not simply historic - it was truly transformative.
Just 43 years ago, Congress passed, and President Lyndon Johnson signed, the Voting Rights Act. For decades, since the end of Reconstruction, voting for many in the states of the old Confederacy was an act of unmatched heroism. To vote was to lose a job - even the laborious job of chopping and picking cotton for a meager $3 a day. To vote was to have your house shot into in the dark of night. To vote was to risk, and for too many to lose, one's life.
The Voting Rights Act was borne out of the heroism of many. Most visibly, it was catapulted onto the national agenda by the hundreds of brave souls, led by John Lewis in March of 1965, who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge leaving Selma, Alabama east on Route 80 to march towards Montgomery. As they crossed the bridge, they were brutally assaulted by police and highway patrolmen on horseback. They were beaten but not defeated.
Dr. Martin Luther King re-started the march soon thereafter. Thousands marched with him, sleeping in the fields at night. Singing their defiance of then-Governor George Wallace, they chanted:
Wallace, you never can jail us all,
Wallace, segregation's going to fall!
And they made it triumphantly to Montgomery. At night, after the final speeches were over near the State Capitol, Viola Liuzzo - a then-unknown civil rights activist who participated in the march - was murdered.
In the first election in Mississippi after the Voting Rights Act, a number of brave heroes decided to run for local office: sheriff, county board of education, mayor, county supervisor. They knew they wouldn't win, but they were undaunted.
I remember in the all-black town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi - in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, in the poorest part of our nation - black leaders assembled in houses before the elections, not knowing what violence they would face. Some had guns and other weapons to protect themselves and their families; others, more schooled and adherent to Dr. King's admonitions of non-violence, simply brought their bodies and heroic determination to vote for the first time.
Now, only four-plus decades later, we have witnessed an election that no one could realistically have dreamed about during those dark and difficult days. President-Elect Barack Obama's triumph - more profoundly, the triumph of our nation - is, in no small part, the victory of so many people who risked all they had to work for a better day.
For those of us fortunate to see, and participate in, this transformative election, our work must continue and start anew. This election is an opportunity - an opportunity to bring fairness and decency and dignity for those who have yet to share our nation's bounty. It is only the achievement of such justice that will enable us to realize Dr. King's dream: "Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we're free at last."
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Category: Children's Health
