Support Growing for Major Changes to Health-Care System

Support Growing for Major Changes to Health-Care System:

Most notably, the group, known as the Health Reform Dialogue, calls for creating an 'individual mandate' that would require every American to have some type of health coverage. Anyone who cannot afford insurance would be eligible for subsidies or expanded government programs such as Medicaid.

'We should seek to ensure coverage for all,' the group concluded after six months of private, professionally facilitated negotiations.

The results are noteworthy because it is the first time that such a varied mix of special interests -- 'strange bedfellows,' in the words of one participant -- have coalesced around significant changes to the U.S. health system. The signers include the American Medical Association, the National Federation of Independent Business, two hospital groups, AARP and the liberal
consumer advocacy group Families USA.

'We're narrowing the range of disagreement,' said Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit private health-care foundation that was not involved in the effort. It is striking, she observed, that the Health Reform Dialogue and influential lawmakers have all but ruled out the prospect of a European-style single-payer system, opting instead to build on the existing employer-based insurance arrangements.

Equally striking, however, were the fundamental questions left unaddressed by the group of health-care heavyweights.

'A day late and a dollar short,' said one participant who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize continuing participation.

The coalition's report is silent on whether employers have a responsibility to contribute to the cost of care, and it does not address the idea of creating a government-sponsored insurance program that would be available for anyone having difficulty buying coverage."

....

"A government-controlled plan available to every American will push 160 million Americans now in private plans into a one-size-fits-all bureaucratic plan," said Nick Simpson, spokesman for Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).

I love that last bit by Rep. Blunt. If by push, he means that by being cheaper, more efficient and consumer friendly, public plans would be able to out compete the very inefficient private insurers, then yeah, they'll be "pushed."

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