Health Care for All
Top Stories
Health Insurance Coverage Keeps Shrinking as Premiums, Family Costs Climb Even Higher
Skyrocketing premiums and out-of-pocket medical costs are battering family budgets, eroding U.S. competitiveness in the global economy and threatening the American standard of living. Health care reform that guarantees quality, affordable care for everyone in the United States—and offers the choice of a public health insurance plan—can do what our private health insurance system has failed to do: provide economic security for families and the nation.
This report documents the irrefutable conclusion that health care and health insurance are becoming increasingly unaffordable for a growing portion of the U.S. population. Half-measures, such as those being proposed by self-interested opponents of authentic health reform, will not provide Americans with health security or enable them to afford the care they need.
Featured Issues
Time to End False Bipartisanship
It's time to part ways with obstructionist Republicans and pass a strong health care bill with a majority vote, which is possible if efforts cease to get a handful of Republicans to cross over. ... more »
Broken Health Care: What It Really Costs Us
June 24th, 2009
Polls say most Americans who have health care are satisfied with it. But nobody ever asks them if they're satisfied with what they've had to do to get it, keep it, or afford it. How would your life be different if you never had to worry about getting, keeping, or affording health care again? ... more »
Make Health Care Affordable And Accountable
By Jacob Hacker
June 23rd, 2009
For national health care reform to succeed, it must create accountability in American health insurance, expand coverage while making it more affordable for workers and their families, and adequately fund our health care priorities while putting in place the preconditions for long-term savings to the federal budget. The draft legislation prepared by a special House of Representatives tri-committee promises enormous progress in meeting all three of these goals. ... more »
The Case
Why Health Care For All
The number of people in this country without health insurance is growing. And the likelihood of losing—or not being able to afford—good health care is striking fear in the hearts of many family breadwinners. more »
The Challenge
Costs are skyrocketing and squeezing working families. The administrative costs for private insurers are approximately four times the size as those for Medicare, Instead of providing coverage to all who need it, private insurers have a layer of bureaucracy to “cherry pick” their customers. They take on people who are less likely to get sick and deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. more »
The Facts
The Case for Public Plan Choice in National Health Reform
Public plan choice, when public and private insurance compete side by side to attract enrollees on a level playing field, rewards plans that deliver better value and health to their enrollees. According to opinion polling, most Americans want public and private insurance competing side by side so that they can choose the best option for themselves and their families. Both should have a chance to prove their strengths and improve their weaknesses in a competitive partnership. Read the report from Prof. Jacob Hacker.more »
More Uninsured Children
In 2006, 11.7% of children, or 8.7 million kids, went without health insurance. That's up from the previous year, when 10.9%, or 8 million children, were uninsured.
The News
Insured Bankrupted By Health Crises
July 1st, 2009
The Case
The Problem With The Public Option
The main goal of health care reform is to lower the cost of health insurance. Apropos, Olympia Snowe thinks that the problem with a public health insurance option is that a public option would ... wait for it ... lower the cost of health insurance.more »
Health debate: The president takes it to the streets
At his town hall today, the president may have signaled that he will go to the wall for a public option.more »
Latest from our Bloggers
jul
2
2009
11:29 am
11:29 am
Drug manufacturers are not acting out of a charitable impulse. They are trying to forestall strong health reform legislation that would cost the industry more than it is promising. PhRMA took action in 2003 when adding a drug benefit to Medicare seemed inevitable and managed to keep a public health insurance plan—Medicare—from cutting drug costs. Now the threat of a new public health insurance option for people under 65 has spurred the powerful lobby into action once more, with promises of cooperation and voluntary discounts. Don’t be fooled! We can do better.
jul
2
2009
11:12 am
11:12 am
When the CBO scored an early draft of the health care form bill from the Senate HELP committee as costing $1 trillion over 10 years but only covering one-third of the uninsured, obstructionists pounced and proclaimed the public plan option dead. more »
jun
30
2009
6:20 pm
6:20 pm
The leadership of the Democratic party reminds me of the classic fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin. more »
jun
30
2009
11:56 am
11:56 am
Why are all the alternatives to a robust public plan now being floated in the health care reform debate – cooperatives, state or regional plans, a “trigger” for the public plan, a public plan prohibited from bargaining with drug companies – such profoundly bad ideas?
For one simple reason: they would fail to rein in health care costs’ out-of-control growth rate. more »
jun
28
2009
10:41 pm
10:41 pm
During the Sunday talk shows the most important line came from White House advisor David Axelrod. His statements indicate the chance of bipartisan health care reform is becoming increasingly remote.
On This Week, David Axelrod redefined bipartisanship as simply including Republican ideas in the bill. more »
jun
27
2009
4:15 pm
4:15 pm
While President Obama has yet to tell his progressive grassroots supporters directly, his words and actions make it clear that he wants progressives to stop working to elect Democrats. The problem is that Obama has a strange, overwhelming bipartisanship fetish. more »
jun
25
2009
1:26 pm
1:26 pm
“My name is Wendell Potter and for 20 years, I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies, and I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick—all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.”
jun
23
2009
7:49 pm
7:49 pm
Very soon, the Congressional Budget Office will release a score for the House Democrats' draft health care legislation. Their bill contains a relatively strong self-financing public option. My research has led me to conclude that including a strong public option will result in the bill being scored several hundred billion dollars cheaper. more »
