{"id":9330,"date":"2006-12-13T14:44:43","date_gmt":"2006-12-13T19:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9330.html"},"modified":"2006-12-13T14:44:43","modified_gmt":"2006-12-13T19:44:43","slug":"i-think-the-country-wants-health-care-fixed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/i-think-the-country-wants-health-care-fixed\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I think the country wants health care fixed’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a Democratic Congress, this<\/a> might even get some much-needed attention.<\/p>\n

A dozen years after Congress rejected a Clinton administration plan for universal health care, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden is readying a proposal to provide health care coverage to all Americans through a pool of private insurance plans.<\/p>\n

“Employer-based coverage is melting away like a Popsicle on the sidewalk in August,” said Wyden, a Democrat and member of the Senate Finance Committee’s subcommittee on health care.<\/p>\n

Wyden’s proposal, which he planned to unveil on Wednesday, is an outgrowth of work by the Citizens’ Health Care Working Group, a 14-member panel that went to 50 communities around the country and heard from 28,000 people about how to reform health care.<\/p>\n

The group, created in 2003 by legislation sponsored by Wyden and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, recommended that the government take steps to guarantee all Americans have basic health insurance coverage by 2012.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If the Citizens’ Health Care Working Group sounds familiar, I mentioned<\/a> the panel in September when the group found, after hearing from 6,650 people at 84 meetings around the country over 18 months, that “Americans clearly want a system that guarantees health care for everyone<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Needless to say, the Bush White House will likely resist any and all attempts to reform the system, in large part because the president believes<\/a> Americans already have too much<\/i> health-care insurance<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Wyden’s “Healthy American Act” sounds like a step in the right direction and an important measure to help change the nature of the debate.
\n
\nIt is not, alas, a single-payer system. I don’t doubt that conservatives will reflexively call this “socialized medicine” — no matter the details, that’s what too many on the right call any attempt to reform the system — despite the fact that there’s nothing socialized about it. From Wyden’s press release<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Following 60 years of gridlock on a desperately-needed overhaul of the nation\u2019s health care system, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, a member of the Finance Committee, today unveiled a groundbreaking new proposal to provide affordable, high quality, private health coverage for everyone regardless of where they work or live.<\/p>\n

The plan, known as the Healthy Americans Act:<\/p>\n

* guarantees private health care coverage that cannot be taken away for all Americans;
\n* provides benefits for all Americans equal to those of Members of Congress;
\n* provides incentives for individuals and insurers to focus on prevention, wellness and disease management;
\n* provides tough cost containment and saves $1.48 trillion over 10 years; and
\n* is fully paid for by spending the $2.2 trillion currently spent on health care in America.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I haven’t even begun to look into many of the particulars of this proposal, and I’m confident that plenty of serious people will find elements to disagree with. But Wyden is right when he says it’s time to put the issue back on the front-burner.<\/p>\n

“I think the country wants health care fixed,” he said, citing skyrocketing costs and an estimated 46 million people who are uninsured. “There’s been lots of rhetoric and position papers. It’s time for action.”<\/p>\n

Action will, in all likelihood, be slow and incremental, but the more universal coverage plans are part of the policy dialog, the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a Democratic Congress, this might even get some much-needed attention. A dozen years after Congress rejected a Clinton administration plan for universal health care, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden is readying a proposal to provide health care coverage to all Americans through a pool of private insurance plans. “Employer-based coverage is melting away like a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}