Senate version of healthcare reform represents giant step forward

[babylonsister]

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/story/1395381.html

Pass healthcare reform bill
OUR OPINION: Senate version of healthcare reform represents giant step forward

snip//


Even the American Medical Association, one of reform's most entrenched opponents over the years, appears to have seen the light. In a historic endorsement issued this week, the AMA noted approvingly that the bill ``will increase coverage for preventive and wellness care that can lead to better disease prevention and management.''

Among the unequivocal benefits cited by AMA President-elect Cecil B. Wilson were the elmination of lifetime benefit limits on health coverage and restrictions on higher premiums based on medical conditions or gender.

By itself, the prohibition against discrimination by insurance companies on the basis of medical history is an important step forward. It makes the bill worthwhile, both for those who are already insured and those who want insurance but can't get it.

In practical terms this means that millions of Americans with ``pre-existing conditions'' will no longer have to fear that they could face disaster becuase of the inability to get insurance. Americans who lose their jobs won't have to fear losing their insurance, either. And the prospect that serious illness will result in bankruptcy will be greatly reduced.

At the heart of this measure is a compromise with the insurance industry. The insurers get about 30 million new customers who must either obtain coverage in the private market -- some of that subsidized by the government -- or pay a fine. As a result, the Congressional Budget Office estimates, the insured portion of Americans not covered by Medicare or Medicaid rises to 94 percent from 83 percent.

That's not universal coverage, but it's a huge improvement.

In return, the industry accepts an increased dose of government oversight and regulation. The insurance lobby managed to stop the Senate from including a government-run ``public option'' in its version of the bill -- although there is one in the House version -- but that was always a stretch.

Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, the bill's principal manager, said months ago the votes weren't there to support such a provision. He was right.

The bill could be stronger in many ways. For example, new penalties on hospitals with high rates of preventable infections don't begin until 2015; that could be moved up two or three years. Similarly, a new pilot program to ``bundle'' Medicare payments to hospitals is set to begin in 2013 instead of a year or two earlier, which would save money.

Overall, however, this is the best bill that could be expected from a fractured and deeply partisan Senate where it now takes 60 votes to get anything done. It's the best chance for reform in nearly 20 years.

Congress can't let this opportunity slip away.

[Skink]

1. The fact that the republicans keep opposing this says that there is some real reform

in this. Stuff that could be built upon.