With health care inflation rising and the Trump Administration doing everything it can to undo Obamacare/the Affordable Care Act, like taking away government subsidies from people who use it to get medical attention they can afford, Democrats, when they return to power, need to offer solutions that will guarantee Americans never have to fear losing their health care again.
Many Democratic and Progressive Activists support Medicare for All, which would, in theory, reduce overall health costs for the American People, improve their medical care, and guarantee access.
Another idea, grounded in political realism, offered by the Center-Left-Pragmatic Progressive Think Tank Third Way, is to guarantee all Americans a Health Care Bill of Rights that builds on the successes of Medicare, Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance, the Prescription Drug Benefit, and the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare.
In their rationale for this Health Care Bill of Rights, Third Party Health Policy Advisors Gaby Hartney and David Kendall wrote:
“We are not going to throw out the baby with the bathwater. American health care has a lot of positives: life-saving innovations, amazing doctors and nurses, and high standards for care. But it also is full of glitches, gaps, and infuriating costs and complexities, which Republican budget cuts have made worse. As a result, we’re paying more and getting less:
- Hospital prices are soaring without improving health care for patients.2
- Workers spend 12 million hours each week dealing with health insurance problems.3
- Wait times to get an appointment are growing longer; patients must wait an average of more than two months to see a specialist about painful arthritis.4
- Groundbreaking therapies can cure chronic diseases like sickle cell, but the costs are prohibitive.5
- One hundred million Americans have medical debt.6
- Medical offices still use fax machines to exchange medical records.7
- The health care billing system is simply a nightmare for everyone. To pay a doctor’s bill, employees and employers have to navigate multiple sources of funds like flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts.8
Over the last generation, the government has regularly stepped in to address issues within our health care system and put in place better protections. Because Democrats fought for Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Affordable Care Act, people have health insurance when they can’t get it through a job or in retirement. Thanks to limits on surprise health care bills—a bipartisan effort—patients don’t have to worry about high priced bills for out-of-network care with in-network providers (except for ambulance rides, of all things). Now, there is an urgent need for government to step in again and address the next generation of issues with a sweeping Health Care Bill of Rights.”
Included in the Ten Health Care Bill of Rights put forth by Third Way are:
- Cap costs for everyone.
- End medical debt
- Choose your own doctor
- Provide a simple Health Dividend Account
- End health care deserts.
- Ban junk insurance.
- Stop hospital price gouging
- Provide a single health record
- Streamline medical bills.
- Ban all surprise bills
Concluding their position paper, Hartney and Kendall wrote:
“Thankfully, the Affordable Care Act is here to stay. That signature law provides a strong foundation to build on, which presents an extraordinary opportunity for Democrats to unite behind an effort that speaks to what the public wants to see—and that is not chock full of high costs like single payer. That’s why a Health Care Bill of Rights fits the moment, guaranteeing that health care is affordable and easy for every American.”
Kaitlyn Perez, Third Way Deputy Director of Communications, along with Economic Policy Vice President Gabe Horwitz, also released a social media video explaining their Health Care Bill of Rights proposal, saying:
Kaitlyn Perez: “Affordable health care is a key ticket to a middle-class life, but since 2000, health care costs have more than tripled, and the average price of a family plan has more than quadrupled. Amid these high deductibles and unexpected costs, more than 100 million people, including one in six middle-class families, struggle with medical debt. And as of 2021, the American people owed more than 220 billion in medical bills.
American health care has a lot of positives. Amazing doctors and nurses, high standards for care, and life-saving innovations. But it also has a lot of gaps, glitches, inconsistencies, high costs, all of which were made worse by Republican budget cuts.
That’s why our next president needs to call for a health care bill of rights, guaranteeing that health care is easy and affordable for every American. Here’s Gabe Horwitz, SVP of our economic program, to tell you more.
Gabe Horwitz: “Over the last generation, government has routinely stepped in to fix issues in our health care system.
Most recently, that was with the Affordable Care Act. That law is popular, it gives us a great foundation on which to build, and it’s not shock full of high costs like Medicare for All. A health care bill of rights would build on the Affordable Care Act and create a set of guarantees for people.
Things like ending medical debt, capping costs no matter where you get your insurance, allowing patients to see any doctor they wanted, stopping hospitals from price gouging, and creating one health record for everybody.
Kaitlyn Perez: “They’re just half the tenants that we list in our memo. With these alone, millions of Americans will have the burden of debt lifted from their shoulders, be able to more readily access care, and stress less about the care that they want to receive.”
When asked by the Blog for Arizona why Mr. Horwitz claimed Medicare for All, despite two independent studies (one from Public Citzien and the other from Duane Morris, would be more costly for Americans than their proposal for a Health Care Bill of Rights, Third Way Senior Communications Director Kate deGruyter provided the below organizational response, grounded in political reality and what is likely to pass a Congress where Democrats will, in all likelihood, not have a supermajority:
“On its face, single payer would cost less overall simply because the legislation says it would. The bill dictates a 40% cut in providers’ pay from what they currently receive from private health plans. That generates about two-thirds of its overall savings. But let’s be real: Congress is unlikely to make such a large cut and sustain it under intense lobbying pressure from hospitals, physicians, and all other providers and facilities. Instead, single payer would create new cost pressures by making every health care dollar a matter of public debate. Providers would argue that funding their care above all else is critical for patients’ health. Congress and the Administration are simply not well-positioned to say no.
Single-payer is often portrayed as a better value, but that ignores the problem of higher taxes. Single payer would require new revenue equal to double the current level of federal income and corporate taxes to offset a massive shift of spending from private bank accounts to the US Treasury.
The quality of coverage under single payer would depend primarily on the amount of taxes the government could raise. The $17.5 trillion in revenue (over ten years) to pay for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s single payer bill would include an 11.5% tax on the income of workers (4% paid by employees on income above $29,000 and 7.5% paid by employers, which most economists believe would come out of the employee’s paycheck).9 Getting Congress to raise taxes to adequately fund coverage without higher deficits is anything but simple or guaranteed.”
On the two studies showing that Medicare for All would better reduce costs, deGruyter commented:
“Just want to reemphasize that Medicare for All raises costs significantly for taxpayers. But it is not the only way to cut costs in health care. Most of those savings studies, like those cited, come from reducing prices for medical care, which Third Way supports, and can be done without implementing Medicare for All.”
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Politics is the art of the possible, not the art of the probable or certain. Until the Democratic Party officially aligns and endorses M4All as our goal, we simply don’t know if it is possible for us to seriously reform a major portion of our economy and kill off all the companies taking in rentier profits from the horrible inefficiencies of the current system.
Google AI told me that over 26 million Americans under 65 have no health insurance at all. Why perpetuate and shore up the fragmented health care delivery methods that are ridiculously expensive and exclude tens of millions of people?Medicare 4 All is the way to go and it’s the only way to include everyone. If our fragmented methods of access are so great why are we the only industrial nation doing it this way?
The problem here is that this is an abuse of the idea of a ‘Bill of Rights’. This is not a constitutional amendment and there are no actually enfoceable ‘rights’ conferred. It is a PR con job, not an actualy policy. It is a way to mislead people while doing nothing to actually reform healthcare delivery. This is exactly why trust in our political system is crashing out: empty and flowery promises with no actual delivery of change.
“Many Democratic and Progressive Activists support Medicare for All, which would, in theory, reduce overall health costs for the American People, improve their medical care, and guarantee access. ”
In theory? In theory!!!!!!
Sigh. A huge, dragged out sigh.
An obnoxiously loud and obviously exagerated sigh.
Huhnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnhhhhhh.
Read the rest of the article.
I did. It’s Pete Peterson levels of obfuscation and leaves out facts.
What I take away from this is that progressive candidates are making waves and that’s rocking the yachts of healthcare CEO’s so they’re firing up their propaganda machines.
At least we now know who funds Third Way.
Health insurers.
If you want to prove me wrong how about Third Way opens up their books.
Dark money, left or right, is ALWAYS EVIL.
Let’s not forget that when Obama was trying to tackle health care Medicare for All was on the table. Senator Third Way himself was for it until his major health care donors cracked the whip and suddenly he was against and killed it.
Third Way accomplishes nothing but fracturing the Democratic vote, much to the delight of Repugs. And yet they never learn. Or stubbornly remain willfully ignorant.
FDR should have made National Health Insurance for all as part of his New Deal along with the minimum wage and social security. He balked at it and almost 100 years later, we have the system we have. https://www.npr.org/2010/03/22/125007071/the-nation-health-care-through-fdrs-lenses#:~:text=President%20Franklin%20Roosevelt%20(FDR)%20proposed%20a%20comprehensive,national%20defenses%20against%20individual%20and%20social%20insecurity**
https://pnhp.org/a-brief-history-universal-health-care-efforts-in-the-us/
In all fairness to FDR, the AMA opposed universal health care because Southern doctors didn’t want to be forced to treat patients of color. Truman ran into the same stumbling block.
Unfortunately, with the current system in place, and I know readers think I am too centrist on some issues, I do agree that expanding on what exists is the best way forward. That should include expanding Children’s Health Insurance, increasing the eligibility for Medicaid, and making Medicare eligible for people 55 or older.
Gotta disagree. There is little that is rational or efficient or humanistic about our current system of healthcare. It needs to be totally uprooted and rationalized. Medicare for all is the way to ‘expand on what exists’. It’s not a perfect solution, but it is the most progressive and humanistic approach. In fact, I would settle for just a public option, because ‘the market’ would inevitably eliminate our inefficent and terrible system through consumer choice if we made a path available.
Where are the votes for Medicare for All?
Well David, they’re on the Democratic side of the aisle. Especially if we get more and better Democrats and fewer Fettermans or corporate centrists.
Okay. That is wonderful. Do they add up to 60 in the Senate? When Obama had that in 2009, Democrats did not secure a public option in his health care proposals, and judging by recent primary results in Illinois, pragmatic progressives are doing fairly well like they have done in other Democratic wave years.
Part of the problem is when Obama had large majorities he didn’t ask for the moon and negotiate from there.
Pragmatic progressives. Are they the ones who espouse progressive beliefs yet cave to centrists? That seems to be the Democratic playbook for past decades resulting in narrow majorities/minorities. Not to mention notorious “centrists” like Manchin and Sinema who actively sabotaged Democratic initiatives.
We’ll find out if true progressivism adds up to 60 or more. Unless centrist leaders like Schumer and Jeffries to everything they can to prevent it.
If 55 and older, why not 45, or 35, or 25 as soon as you age out of being covered by your parent’s plan?
In fairness to FDR, we’re still racist as all hell.
Also, half of the people were still dying on the job or from polio when he was POTUS.
Wall Street had not yet taken over healthcare and jacked up prices.
FDR was fighting the last good war and Americans were happy to sacrifice for it, even if most of the “rationing” was just for show.
Now we’re spending a billion a day to cover up a pedofile ring but we’re told “oh, noes, we can’t afford healthcare”.
Who Funds Third Way?
It’s not that Third Way doesn’t learn, it’s their mission to prevent progress.
They’re corporate and billionaire funded but they don’t like to talk about that for some reason.
Healthcare in the USA has been taken over by Wall Street and they own everything from the insurance companies to the doctors and nurses to the buildings they’re in and the labs where they send their tests and the pharmacies where they send you to fill your script.
The Third Way gobbledeegook above is nonsense meant to distract us from the royal rogering we’re all getting.
Oh, yeah, and Wall Street is in the process of doing the same thing with your local veterinarian.
They got you locked in, now they’re coming for your pets.
‘Third Way’ is just another way to say ‘Democrats kowtowing to those profiting from dysfunction and corruption among the commanding heights of the economy’. I have no patience for Democrats accomodating the special interests who are unjustly enriched by our economy’s rigged unfairness against the vast majority of citizens.