The State Based Universal Health Care Act
From the LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20120525,0,2080853.column):
Universal coverage, Medicare for all, single payer — call it what you will. It's clear that conservative forces are determined to prevent such a system from ever being introduced at the national level. So it's up to the states.
The catch is that to make universal coverage work at the state level, you'd need some way to channel Medicare, Medicaid and other federal healthcare funds into the system. At the moment, that's difficult if not impossible.
But legislation quietly being drafted by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) would change that. It would create a mechanism for states to request federal funds after establishing their own health insurance programs.
If passed into law — admittedly a long shot with Republicans controlling the House of Representatives — McDermott's State-Based Universal Healthcare Act would represent a game changer for medical coverage in the United States.
It would, for the first time, create a system under which a Medicare-for-all program could be rolled out on a state-by-state basis. In California's case, it would make coverage available to the roughly 7 million people now lacking health insurance.
McDermott's bill "is based on the congressman's belief that the Affordable Care Act will be upheld and the congressman's new bill is meant to achieve the overall goals of the Affordable Care Act while giving states the option to build an alternative single-payer system," Kiriakos said.
California came close to building such a system in 2006 and again in 2008 when the Legislature passed bills laying the groundwork for statewide universal coverage. Then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed both bills.
But this much is already clear: People in a statewide Medicare-for-all program would no longer pay annual premiums, deductibles or co-payments for private health insurance. Instead, they would pay a percentage of their income into the system, just as wages are taxed for Social Security and Medicare.
A number of studies have concluded that state-run insurance systems would be cheaper for most people on an out-of-pocket basis than existing private insurance plans.
Gerald Friedman, an economist at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, estimated in a recent paper that a national Medicare-for-all system would cost Americans about $570 billion less annually than the amount spent on private plans.
Moreover, gone would be the problem of private insurers charging higher rates or denying coverage to people with preexisting medical conditions. If you pay taxes in the state, you'd be eligible for coverage.
Also gone would be healthcare as an issue between workers and employers. Businesses would no longer be the primary conduit for health insurance, relieving companies of what has become an increasingly costly obligation.
A draft of McDermott's bill says that to receive federal funds, states would have to offer a healthcare plan with the same benefits as the most popular plan available to federal government employees.
My comment:
Rep. McDermott is taking this issue up where it was left by another democrat in the US House just last session. Whether you believe, like McDermott, that the Affordable Care Act will survive the US Supreme Court review, or like me, that the ACA will be repealed, at least in part, it is clear that the ACA does not really solve any health system problem. Therefore, real reform remains to be done and Congress has amply demonstrated that it is not up to the job. The various states need a clear path to make these reforms possible.
What I want to know is whether the Republicans, like Mitt Romney, who have so loudly touted the need for state-based health system reform, will get behind this legislation.
Dr. Joe Jarvis