Andy Stern - A Path Forward: It's Time to Pass Health Insurance Reform

[ProSense]

Andy Stern

A Path Forward: It's Time to Pass Health Insurance Reform

The question on everyone's mind today is what went wrong in Massachusetts? The tea leaf-reading and hand wringing will no doubt monopolize much of Washington's time over the coming days and weeks. But there's a better question for today: What's the path forward to passing meaningful health insurance reform?

For Pat Dejong and the millions of working families like her's across the country, today is no different than yesterday when a Democratic senator held Ted Kennedy's old seat. Pat DeJong will still wake up in Libby, Montana. She'll still mourn the loss of her husband and the family ranch they lost because of his medical bills. And, Pat will still go to the bedside of her patients each day, still lacking coverage of her own.

So what's next for Pat? What's next for a country frustrated by leaders who seem to be governing out of timidity versus conviction?

Step one: The House should pass the Senate's health insurance reform bill - with an agreement that it will be fixed, fixed right, and fixed right away through a parallel process.

Reform can work -- the Senate bill can serve as the foundation for reform and include at minimum the improvements the Administration, House, and Senate have negotiated. We cannot squander the opportunity to make real progress. The House and Senate must move forward together. And, there is no reason they cannot move forward together to make those changes through any means possible -- whether through reconciliation or other pieces of moving legislation.

Some in Washington may want to throw their hands up and walk away; others may call for walking back reform by passing something smaller. So let's just say it: the Democrats own health reform. They own the votes they already took. And, they own what health reform will stand for. Most importantly, it will be a major achievement the American people need and deserve. There is no turning back. There is no running away. There is no reset button.

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[SaveOurDemocracy]

1. hmmmm... Whatever happened to Health CARE Reform?

[sandnsea]

2. People like their Health CARE

Reforming their health CARE freaked people out. It's how their health care is paid for that has people pissed off. The insurance companies, which is why they're being reformed.

[SaveOurDemocracy]

3. Is that so? And the poor and working/middle-class

families who have NO access to health care, other than ER's, do they like their's too?

And, those of us WITH plans who have coverage denied due to pre-existing conditions, unauthorized (expensive) methods of treatment, etc ... do we like our health care?

And, is the answer to reward the very industry that wishes us dead rather than pay our claims?

[sandnsea]

4. You are describing payment problems

Not health CARE problems. Once a person gets a plan that PAYS, they're usually quite happy with the CARE they get, even if they have to go to a couple of doctors to find one they like.

Since our payment system is insurance, and not even every union would support the demise of health insurance, the only way to deal with the issues you mentioned is to reform insurance.

And to expand coverage to low income people, which is why we should have rallied around Kennedy's bill back in July that expanded Medicaid to everyone up to 150% of poverty. That would have gotten people into doctors and out of the ER.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

6. +1

The problems with the actual CARE one receives from the system are minor compared to the problems of getting people ACCESS to the system. The reform that we've been concerned with the past several months is really a matter of the access to health care.

[TheKentuckian]

5. The House had better get a signed contract and put it on video

There is no reason to trust the Senate to do a damn thing, they'd love to cull the "malcontent liberals" by making them take that long walk off a short pier.