Washington, D.C.—As a prelude to the Health Reform Summit this week, nine national organizations sent joint letters to the President and bipartisan congressional leaders urging the passage of “meaningful health care reform this year.”
After an explicit description of what constitutes “meaningful health care reform,” the joint letters indicate that “in their entirety, we believe the bills that the Senate and House have passed would achieve meaningful reform. They move close to securing quality, affordable health coverage and care for all Americans.”
The letters were designed to discourage a focus at the Summit simply on small, incremental steps rather than “meaningful” reform. The groups also indicated that they “welcome alternative ways for truly achieving meaningful reform” but they indicated that “doing less than that is not acceptable.”
The signatory organizations are the American Cancer Society-Cancer Action Network, the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association, the American Nurses Association, Consumers Union, Families USA, the National Association of Community Health Centers, PICO, and SEIU.
“To serve America’s families and businesses,” said Ron Pollack, Executive Director of the consumer health organization Families USA, “it is incumbent on Summit participants to focus on meaningful reform, not ‘small ball’ increments or partisan bickering. Failing that, Congress and the President should move expeditiously to enact a blend of the House and Senate bills.”
The text of the letter to congressional leaders is below. The letter to the President is virtually identical.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
S-221 Capitol Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-7020
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
S-230 Capitol Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-7010
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
H-232 Capitol Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-4188
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner
H-204 Capitol Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-6537
Dear Senate and House Leaders:
The Health Reform Summit convened by the President provides an important opportunity to find out if bipartisanship can be achieved to enact meaningful health care reform.
We welcome this effort.
We also believe that the success of the Summit is dependent on whether it truly moves the nation to meaningful health care reform this year.
Meaningful health care reform must realistically achieve the following objectives:
1. It must make health coverage affordable and protect families against financial devastation when they need care. Health insurance premiums are increasingly unaffordable for America’s families and businesses. Additionally, too many people are being forced into huge debts and bankruptcy when they need care. Health care reform must realistically fix these problems.
2. It must extend health coverage to the tens of millions of working Americans who are uninsured. Health care reform needs to aim towards quality, affordable health coverage for everyone. It must extend adequate coverage so that people get the care they need.
3. It must eliminate insurance company and health system waste. Health care reform must reduce high administrative costs, unnecessary tests and services, waste, and other inefficiencies that consume money with no added health benefits.
4. It must provide portability of coverage and eliminate insurance company abuses that deny coverage for people needing care. Health care reform must ensure that workers are not locked into their job just to secure health coverage, and no American should be denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition.
5. It must place the nation on a path of fiscal sustainability. Health care reform should significantly help to reduce budget deficits in the decades ahead.
These are the key yardsticks for measuring whether health reform proposals constitute meaningful reform. They form a sound basis for evaluating the existing House and Senate bills as well as alternative ideas that may be offered during the Summit.
In our judgment, both the Senate and House bills meet these yardsticks and constitute meaningful reform.
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They protect families’ financial health by providing subsidies to middle-class and lower-income families so they can afford health insurance premiums; placing limits on out-of-pocket expenses that families must pay when they receive needed care; providing special subsidies to lower-income families so they won’t face bankruptcy when they get needed care; offering subsidies to small businesses so that they can provide affordable health insurance for their employees; investing in cost-effective prevention and primary care improvements; and providing relief to seniors requiring multiple medicines by ameliorating the “doughnut hole.”
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They not only aim to cover everyone, they come close to achieving it by adding health coverage to approximately 31-37 million uninsured people.
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They make numerous cost efficiencies. As two illustrations among many others, they make health coverage more affordable by reducing premium dollars that can be used for purposes other than health care, and they provide payments to hospitals based on quality of care rather than quantity of care.
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They provide portability of coverage by prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions; stopping insurers from ending health coverage when someone gets sick; banning discriminatory premiums based on health status and gender; reducing premium discrimination based on age; and enabling working families to secure health coverage in a new marketplace (the “exchange”) when a breadwinner loses a job or starts a new business.
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They reduce the federal budget deficit. For example, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the Senate bill will reduce the deficit over the next 10 years by $132 billion and the following 10 years by hundreds of billions of dollars.
In their entirety, we believe the bills that the Senate and House have passed would achieve meaningful reform. They move close to securing quality, affordable health coverage and care for all Americans.
We welcome ideas that strengthen these historic improvements for America’s families and businesses, and we welcome alternative ways for truly achieving meaningful reform.
But doing less than that is not acceptable.
America’s families expect their elected leaders to work together to solve our nation’s problems, and they need health reform now.
Congress and the President should move expeditiously to complete the almost century-old goal of meaningful reform without delay.
We respectfully request a meeting with you to discuss how we can proceed together towards our mutual goal of enacting meaningful reform.
Sincerely,
Molly Daniels, Interim President
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
Shereen Arent, Executive Vice President
American Diabetes Association
Nancy A. Brown, Chief Executive Officer
American Heart Association
Rebecca M. Patton, MSN, RN, CNOR, President
American Nurses Association
Jim Guest, President and CEO
Consumers Union
Ron Pollack, Executive Director
Families USA
Tom Van Coverden, President and CEO
National Association of Community Health Centers
Rev. Heyward Wiggins, III, Co-Chair
PICO National Network
Andrew L. Stern, President
Dennis Rivera, Chair, SEIU Healthcare
SEIU
