Fixing what is broken
| Sep 8, 2009Statistics like those show where we are at today. Individually, each fact may raise an eyebrow. Viewed together, it becomes painfully obvious why there is such a sense of urgency to this years' reform efforts.
Even Harry and Louise - the duo from the industry sponsored ads that derailed Clinton's health reform efforts in the 90's - are rethinking reform. Today, they support changes to the status quo, in a new series of ads sponsored in part by the very same lobby that trashed earlier efforts to revamp health insurance.
While the troubles in our health financing system have pushed health care reform to the forefront, recent policy innovations have also made health reform less of a giant leap. These new proposals do not call for the replacement of our current health care system with a new and untested product. We aren't reinventing the wheel, and socialism isn't creeping around in the shadows. The new approach can even attract bipartisan support. As an example, the Heritage Foundation - a leading conservative think tank - was instrumental in helping Republican Gov. Mitt Romney and Democratic lawmakers come together to pass comprehensive reform in Massachusetts. That state now has the lowest percentage of uninsured residents in the country - below 3 percent - with health access up by numerous metrics.
The new model of reform also allows us to protect the best parts of the American medical system while also fixing the loopholes that an increasing number of Americans fall through. A key principle is shared responsibility. Health benefits and employment have a long history of being tied together in this country, and employers rightfully acknowledge the benefits they receive from a healthy workplace. To this end, newer leading proposals do everything in their power not to tamper with existing coverage that works. And the potential for success isn't theoretical. In Massachusetts, the percentage of residents insured by employer-based coverage has actually increased since reform.
However, it'd be foolish to think that employers alone could solve the problems we face today. For many small businesses, the cost of coverage is simply too high. And many of Alaska's workers enjoy seasonal employment, whether it is fishing, guiding, tourism, or construction work. To this end, proposals must carefully consider the interests of all stakeholders - including industry groups, medical providers, and employers - to ensure that reform acknowledges and supports the unique ways that Americans - and particularly Alaskans - earn their paychecks.
And shared responsibility includes individual responsibility. While reform recognizes that the government has a role in shaping the health insurance landscape, it identifies the individual as the person most able to see to his or her own basic needs. Under most proposals being considered by states and Congress today, the so-called "individual mandate" requires each person to acquire some basic form of health insurance. In exchange, the bills require that insurance companies accept these new customers the way they find them and cannot make exclusions due to preexisting conditions. These two changes go hand in hand to make certain that reform works for us.
Opponents warn of acting too fast on health reform. Yet solutions for today's problems have been debated for decades, and now Congress or individual states must act, precisely because they haven't been responsive historically. Fixing our broken system in the midst of a recession won't be easy, but the economic downturn makes it all the more crucial that health access issues are resolved. According to a Families USA report, in these tough times, an estimated 480 Alaskans have been losing their health coverage every month.
We must also remember our main goals, and what health reform should achieve. First and foremost, reform must improve the quality of life in this country by ensuring that people don't have to choose between medical attention or avoiding bankruptcy court. Structured right, it can also create incentives which pay doctors for keeping healthy people healthy. And it can dramatically reduce the cost shifting that occurs where people with health insurance pay extra to cover those who do not.
Universal health care is achievable! We must reject the approach of lawmakers who wish to simply apply a band-aid to the problem. Using new models of health reform, we can keep what we like about our medical system while attacking the roots of the issue. And when we finally reach a sustainable solution, we'll look back and wonder what took us so long.
Sen. Hollis French was first elected to the State Senate in 2002, and he represents District M, which includes the Turnagain and Spenard areas of Anchorage. He has promoted health reform legislation since 2007, and presently serves as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. French has filed to run for governor in 2010.
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On the 29th, Alaska activist Dee Hubbard died. She was one of the prime movers in uncovering the corruption scandals that brought down so many executives, legislators and lobbyists. She had worked for the state, which doesn't contribute to Social Security, but not long enough to get vested in retiree health care. She lacked one quarter of the required 40 to be eligible for Social Security Disability Insurance. She had no health coverage at all, and the family struggled to pay her huge bills. She was not considered for transplant, and I can only imagine that her lack of coverage was a critical factor.
20,000 people die each year in the U.S. as a result of their lack of health insurance coverage or care. Despite this, and the fact that one of six Alaskans is uninsured, Lisa Murkowski can't be persuaded to support health insurance reform.
Republicans, including Don Young and Lisa Murkowski, passed the Medicare Modernization Prescription Drug "Improvement" Act six years ago. It forbade patients from getting prescriptions from Canada, even if the drugs had been manufactured in the U.S. It forbade Medicare from negotiating prices with drug manufacturers in the same way that the VA had the ability to do so. It founded the trillion dollar program that outrageously subsidized two of the most profitable industries in the country, the health insurance and prescription drug manufacturers.
The bill was passed through coercion and disregard of the rules of congress. Members were threatened and bribed to vote "aye." It passed in the House by only a single vote. It was written by and for the industries which have so handsomely profited from it and was engineered to actually prohibit reform. Only nine of the minority House Democrats voted for it.
This should be remembered during the 2010 election and at town halls, if any remain to be held.