HCANY’s efforts are mainly centered on winning affordable comprehensive health care for New York, but as we move closer to federal reform, HCFANY’s latest one pager highlights specific issues that impact New York families.
Any federal health reform measure should:
Guarantee Affordability: for reform to work for working New Yorkers, federal subsidies must approach 500% of the federal poverty line in the context of an individual mandate system.
Do No Harm: Any federal insurance law should be a floor, not a ceiling on stronger and more specific on state rules.
Include Immigrants: HCFANY urges policymakers to include all immigrants in federal health reform. As a first step towards this goal, federal policymakers should restore federal funds for legal immigrants. Health reform should also provide funding to strengthen safety net institutions which serve all New Yorkers who are ineligible for public coverage.
In today’s hour long Health Care Town Hall, President Obama addressed questions posed from the audience and via the Internet. The President spoke in favor of creating a strong public plan option, while allowing Americans to keep their current coverage, if they are happy with it.
Watch the President answer the question on affordability:
The US Department Health and Human Services (HHS) released state-by-state data on residents’ health. The report, “The Health Care Status Quo: Why New York Needs Health Reform,” says since 2000, premiums have risen 97% for the average family, and 16% of middle-income New York families spend more than 10% of their income on health care. The report is part of HHS’s campaign for health care reform. Read more about the campaign here.
On June 25, 2009 Health Care For America Now! (HCAN!) hosted a massive day of action in Washington DC. About 10,000 people decended on the Capital to show Congress that this is the year for health reform–we can not wait any longer. In addition to the rally there were 11 town hall meetings throughout the day as well as individual legislaive visits with members of Congress.
Read more & Watch a slideshow of the day’s events here.
Dr. Dean, with his characteristic bluntness, said “If the Democratic Party doesn’t deliver universal health care this year, they don’t deserve to be in office.” His remarks focused on rallying support for a public plan, “all we’re asking is to give the American people a choice” between a public plan and whatever health care they have. He urged the audience to sign an on-line petition in support of the public plan option at Stand with Dr.Dean. More than 300,000 people have signed the petition which will be presented to DC policymakers at the HCAN! Rally on Thursday, June 25. Information about buses from NY is available here.
An independent analysis of the public plan was released today by the Commonwealth Fund. The report reviews three different scenarios and finds that the public option could provide cumulative health system savings within 20 years between $3 and $2 trillion. The third scenario, without a public option, would yield smaller savings totaling $1.2 trillion. Read the report here.
The Kaiser Family Foundation’s June tracking poll finds that 61% of Americans believe health reform is more important than ever given the economic crisis. The poll finds sizeable support for several reform options, including employer mandates (69%) and a public pption (65%-67%).
A new report released today by the Small Business Majority The Economic Impact of Healthcare Reform on Small Business finds that small businesses will be far better off under a thoughtfully reformed health care system based on shared responsibility among individuals, businesses, government and the health care industry.
The reports analysis, conducted by MIT economist John Gruber, concluded that shared responsibility along with appropriate assistance to small businesses will save small businesses hundreds of billions of dollars in costs and protect small business wages and jobs.
At the hearing, Deputy Superintendent Oechsner released an explosive report that documented the need to amend state law to restore the government’s ability to pre-approve (“prior approval”) insurance premium hikes. Next the industry was up.
As the picture above shows, industry executives initially refused to reveal their presentation to the audience. After catcalls, and eventually intervention by the Committee Chairman, industry representatives eventually turned their presentation boards so that the audience could see them too.
