Health Insurance Reform

Statement from U.S. Rep. DeGette on House introducing H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act:

Our health care bill will improve competition in the health insurance market and rein in rising costs for American consumers. A public option will offer a choice of health insurance while providing more Americans with health care coverage. The bill we are introducing today meets President Obama’s principles for health reform, and most importantly, it expands access to high quality, affordable health coverage for millions of Americans. [Press Release 10/29]

Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962)

Bill Text

The United States spends more per capita on health care than
any other developed nation—over $2 trillion per year—yet health outcomes in the United States are abysmal. The Commonwealth Fund’s 2007 International Health Policy survey compared the American health care payment and service delivery system with that of six other countries and found substantial cost and care disparities between the U.S. and its counterparts. Despite our higher health care spending, our health care indicators and outcomes are far worse than other countries.

Health care reform is one of U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette’s top priorities this Congress. That is why she voted in favor of President Barack Obama’s budget that included $634 billion reserved as a down-payment toward health care reform. President Obama’s commitment to health care reform should encourage all members of Congress to come to the table for serious negotiations over how to expand coverage, bring costs down, and improve health care quality and outcomes. Some of U.S. Rep. DeGette’s top health care reform initiatives include access to high quality, affordable care for all children, as well as a focus on prevention and wellness, strengthening the health care workforce, and strengthening primary care and community health center services.

U.S. Rep. DeGette Supports a Public Option

A report by Health Care for America Now found that “a public insurance option would force private insurance companies to compete – bringing down the cost, guaranteeing quality, and setting a benchmark for coverage and transparency.” Crafted to compete with private insurance on a level playing field, a public option would finally provide much needed competition in our struggling health insurance market. Without the pressure to return large quarterly profits derived from a system replete with perverse incentives, a public sponsored option would put pressure on private plans to bring their costs down, with the savings passed along to businesses and consumers. A public option would not engage in price-fixing or anything of that sort, but that it would merely promote honest competition and transparency in the field.

A public insurance option would be just that – an option. If you like the coverage you currently have, you can keep it. And better still, reforms under consideration, like eliminating discrimination for pre-existing conditions and prohibiting gender rating, should help make your current plan better and cheaper. Opponents of a public option seek to limit choice for consumers by requiring everyone to purchase insurance from a menu of only private, largely for-profit, plans.

Also, a public option won’t lead to rationing of care nor will it limit your choice of doctors. If the public option curtails coverage or doctor choice, no one will sign up for it. It’s that simple. Instead, the public option provides an opportunity to implement innovative models for providing greater access to comprehensive primary and preventive care services. This effort is especially important in areas of the country facing physician and nursing shortages.

The huge problems of access and cost have only grown worse over the last few decades. Enacting comprehensive health reform that includes a public option is the only way to ensure that everyone can access to their choice of insurance while at the same time bringing down the cost of health care and improving health outcomes.

July 10, 2009 E-News: Supporting a Public Option

Children’s Health

Comprehensive and continuous health coverage for all children should be one of the major objectives of health reform, whether through a mandate for coverage, automatic enrollment at birth with parental choice of coverage, default coverage to fill in if breaks in coverage occur, or a combination of these mechanisms. Ensuring that Medicaid and CHIP can work together with other sources of coverage — for example, through premium assistance or, in Medicaid’s case, as a secondary payer — can increase the stability of coverage for children and their families. However, Medicaid’s unique role in paying for services not traditionally covered by private insurance must be preserved. [Excerpt from The Hill Op-ed]