Let me start by quoting Pete Stark (D-Calif.):
"I hope it is true that these companies intend to be a positive force in health reform efforts, but I tend to be cautious when the fox starts drawing up plans for a new henhouse"
Following along with the launch of "Health Care for America NOW! (HCAN)" initiative, AHIP (American Health Insurance Plans, a special interest group for the health insurance industry) has launched their own initiative for expanding health insurance coverage (and profits?) called "Campaign for an American Solution (CAS)". Their plan is a mixed bag that throws a few bones to progressives while trying to change the current (profitable) system as little as possible. HCAN has come out against the CAS plan:
"Americans understand that (the industry) puts profits before people and is not interested in the health of America. The last thing we can do is trust the health-care industry to fix the health-care mess," said Richard Kirsch, the national campaign manager of Health Care for America Now.
Let's examine the AHIP/CAS plan:
- Making eligible for Medicaid every uninsured American living in poverty.
- Strengthening the Children’s Health Insurance Program to include all children from low-income uninsured families.
- Creating a health care coverage tax credit for working families.
- Giving workers real portability with a new tax-free portable health account that can be used to purchase any type of health care coverage. Individuals, employers, the federal government and state governments could all contribute to the account.
- Establishing a new federal performance grant program to assist states in expanding access to coverage, reducing costs and improving quality.
Ok, that's sounds good, I'm convinced! Just kidding. While this plan is better than John McCain's, it still suffers from the same fatal flaws.
- It doesn't guarantee every access to affordable coverage for everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions. Of course, this is the last thing that I'd expect to see in the AHIP plan. They don't want to cover the sick, they're unprofitable. They want the sick to be covered by the government or remain uninsured while they profit off insuring the healthy.
- It doesn't offer a public option! U.S. citizens should have the right to cut out the middle man (the private insurance company) and be insured directly by the government through a program like Medicare (but beefed up). I'd be happy if the public option was the only option--we don't need the insurance middlemen.
- Medicaid kinda sucks--it's been gutted and privatized so much. It needs to be better funded and reformed. Otherwise, just throwing people on Medicaid won't help them much (albeit, it's better than nothing).
- The tax credit for the uninsured may make current private group plans untenable in the long run by encouraging young, healthy people to drop their employer coverage for cheaper private coverage. I'm sure that AHIP is well aware of this.
Now you're aware of the health insurance industry's plans to co-opt the push for health care reform in 2009. We need to ensure that the Democrats we elect this fall believe in the reform principles laid out by HCAN and not those laid out by AHIP. Luckily Obama's plan is closer to HCAN's but he's not going to be the one to write the legislation, he's just going to sign it. It's Congress that we need to keep our eyes on.
Let's work together for UNIVERSAL health coverage, not increased profits for the health insurance industry.
~Scott