This weekend, historic health care legislation was passed by the House of Representatives - an essential first step in Congress' attempt to comprehensively overhaul our medical insurance system. Not since the 1960s has a health care bill of this magnitude come this far. For this, we can be grateful to our Representative Ron Kind and two prominent organizations, AARP and the American Medical Association. They stood up to the withering criticism of both the far right and the far left, as well as some of the most powerful special interest lobbying groups in America, to support this reform.
Let's take a brief look at the bill to see whether it deserves our support. On the positive side of the ledger, the bill fixes many of the most serious ills of our current insurance system. Pre-existing health conditions no longer will prohibit people from getting insurance. Caps on insurance payouts also will be eliminated. The bill encourages every U.S. citizen to purchase affordable insurance by providing subsidies based on income. If you presently receive insurance through your employer, you will keep it. If you are not enrolled in employer-based insurance, you can purchase insurance from a national exchange that will allow you to compare various offerings in a straightforward manner. One among many offerings will be a public option that will operate on a level playing field with private insurers. The infamous "donut hole" of Medicare Part D will be eliminated.
Yes, we will need to do more to address the urgent issue of escalating medical costs by restructuring our system of medical care to provide better quality care at lower cost, employing practices so successfully used by the Mayo Clinic and Wisconsin's Gundersen Lutheran and Marshfield Clinic. But as the cost-conscious Concord Coalition stated recently, "Policymakers must recognize that rising health care costs are too large of a problem to solve in a one-shot reform." As citizens, we must press for medical cost cutting measures in the future as pressures build for cost reduction.
Let's get behind this historic effort. Send your constructive ideas for reform on to our senators, where their version of legislation still is far from completion.
Let's take a brief look at the bill to see whether it deserves our support. On the positive side of the ledger, the bill fixes many of the most serious ills of our current insurance system. Pre-existing health conditions no longer will prohibit people from getting insurance. Caps on insurance payouts also will be eliminated. The bill encourages every U.S. citizen to purchase affordable insurance by providing subsidies based on income. If you presently receive insurance through your employer, you will keep it. If you are not enrolled in employer-based insurance, you can purchase insurance from a national exchange that will allow you to compare various offerings in a straightforward manner. One among many offerings will be a public option that will operate on a level playing field with private insurers. The infamous "donut hole" of Medicare Part D will be eliminated.
Yes, we will need to do more to address the urgent issue of escalating medical costs by restructuring our system of medical care to provide better quality care at lower cost, employing practices so successfully used by the Mayo Clinic and Wisconsin's Gundersen Lutheran and Marshfield Clinic. But as the cost-conscious Concord Coalition stated recently, "Policymakers must recognize that rising health care costs are too large of a problem to solve in a one-shot reform." As citizens, we must press for medical cost cutting measures in the future as pressures build for cost reduction.
Let's get behind this historic effort. Send your constructive ideas for reform on to our senators, where their version of legislation still is far from completion.
