Why we need health care reform

The degeneration of the health care reform debate into a fire storm of misinformation and smears has overshadowed the fact that as many as 14,000 Americans were joining the ranks of the uninsured this summer.

Unfortunately, the reality of being uninsured afflicts millions of Americans. Since the 1980s, the percentage of Americans without health insurance has been steadily rising so that nearly one in five non-elderly Americans have less insurance and less access to quality care.

The trend has its roots in skyrocketing health insurance costs. Premium cost more than doubled during the past decade, rising four times faster than wages. As a result, fewer employers are offering benefits, and more and more people are finding themselves unable to afford insurance.

The problem will only get worse with the Congressional Budget Office predicting that premiums will double again in the next decade to an average of $25,000 per family of four.

Needless to say, our health care system is not working for far too many people. We need health care reform now, and that reform must insure that every American will have access to quality, affordable health care.

That goal is at the heart of bills produced by Democrats in the House and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Universal health care would be achieved by requiring all Americans to buy insurance, providing subsidies to make it affordable, banning some insurance industry practices – such as the exclusion of people with preexisting conditions – and regulating other segments of the industry.

Health insurance exchanges would also be set up, similar to the model currently used by federal employees, to provide functional markets for individuals and small businesses. Given time, they would open up to larger businesses as well.

If the bills stopped there, they would result in an incredible improvement in the health and economic security of millions of Americans.

However, each plan also contains a public option that would be available for people who are eligible to buy insurance off the health insurance exchanges. The provision has drawn much criticism and calls for it to be dropped from the final product.
The public option should not be dropped. Its important benefits should make it an integral part of any final bill.

As for benefits, universal health insurance would cost the federal government $150 billion during the next decade if the bill has a public option, according to the CBO. The savings would come from the public option’s cheaper premiums, which would lower the cost of subsidies.

The public option would also have the ability to inject competition into an un-competitive insurance market. The option provides a viable alternative operating at lower costs, keeping private insurance companies honest, pushing them to develop more efficient business practices and helping to create a more sustainable health insurance market to benefit all Americans.