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The AFT strongly supports the passage of healthcare reform legislation.
You can help make history by contacting your members of Congress to ask for their vote to enact the healthcare reform package.
To have your voice heard in this important debate, you can either:
Both the Senate bill and the improvements in the reconciliation bill provide important changes for our healthcare system. The legislation includes:
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A historic expansion in healthcare coverage for the uninsured. More than 30 million more Americans will now get coverage.
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Significant reforms for all health insurance plans. It prohibits insurance companies from denying healthcare coverage because of pre-existing conditions. It also eliminates individual caps on coverage, and prevents insurance companies from canceling insurance because of illness.
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Elimination of the "doughnut hole" under the Medicare prescription drug program, which will enable our seniors to purchase affordable drugs.
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Moderation of future increases in healthcare costs. This legislation is a significant start in getting costs under control.
The legislation is not perfect. It relies too heavily on taxing health insurance to fund its provisions. Even with the changes negotiated by our unions to mitigate the impact of this tax in the first 10 years, we still need to work to change this.
This legislation is a historic step toward making affordable healthcare coverage available to Americans today and in the future.
Please send a letter to Congress today.
Please call Congress today.
Action Alert: Defend your health benefits against taxation
Some good bills have been passed by key committees in the House of Representatives and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. However, the powerful Senate Finance Committee has passed a seriously flawed bill that could negatively impact your current health insurance benefit provided by the NJ Direct15 (which Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield administers)--but only if it passes.You can help stop it!
Obama pledged to work with Congress to solve the crisis without negatively impacting those who already have employer-provided health insurance. The Senate Finance Committee's work fails that test!
If you speak up now, we can stop this proposal that does not contribute towards making sure that Americans have quality affordable health insurance options.
Top on the list of bad provisions is a 40 percent excise tax on health insurance plans that would go into effect in 2013. Our analysis shows that this would negatively impact our members as rising premium costs hit the threshold levels soon after 2013. We still have a chance to prevent this and other bad provisions from being in the final version of the Senate bill.
The House version does not have taxation of health benefits, so if Congress goes into conference committee without taxation provisions, we have the best chance of stopping this provision from ruining the health care reform legislation that finally passes and adversely impacting the affordability of health insurance for Americans.
Talking Points
1. The final Senate health care reform bill shoud not include taxation of benefits
The current version of the Senate Finance bill would require in 2013, a 40 percent excise tax on family plans that exceed $21,000 in value and individual plans that would exceed $8,000. The threshold value would be indexed, but this is not an adequate level to keep pace with rising premium costs. Such a provision could hurt many of our members.
2. The final Senate bill must provide affordable coverage for all Americans
Although the Senate Finance bill includes subsidies, the provision would force a family earning $67,000 who do not have health insurance but could purchase coverage in the Exchange to pay an annual premium of $8,700. This cost is simply out of reach for many families.
3. Employers should be required to maintain a high-quality health plan or pay a fee that would be used to help subsiuduze the cost of their employees' healthcare insurance
Most large employers will only have to pay $400 per employee when they drop health insurance coverage. The final legislation should require all employers pay their fair share. The Senate Finance bill does not require employers to provide coverage for employees. Employers are not required to help pay for the coverage if they do offer health benefits and they are not required to meet the benefits standards that plans offered to the uninsured must meet. This would erode the employer coverage that currently provides insurance for more than 160 million Americans--including faculty, graduate employees, and EOF counselors. It would do nothing to help PTLs be able to find quality affordable health insurance.
4. The final Senate bill must include a robust national public plan
Obama proposal was to include a national public plan in the Exchange along with other private options. The option for a non-profit public insurance plan would hold insurance companies accountable by increasing competition. The competition in the health insurance marketplace would drive the costs of insurance down. The Senate HELP bill and key House committee-passed bills include a public health insurance plan option. This must be insorporated into the final Senate healthcare reform bill.
5. The final Senate bill should not shift new Medicaid costs to the states.
Medcaid needs expansion to help the poor have health coverage, but the Senate Finance Committee version would shift those increased costs to the state at a time when they can least afford it. We support the House proposal that provides greater assistance to states in this partnership for providing Medicaid.
On March 19, 2009, the Executive Council (EC) of Rutgers AAUP-AFT signed on to the principles of the Health Care for America Now (HCAN) campaign through New Jersey Citizen Action and New Jersey AFL-CIO's HCAN effort within the labor movement, New Jersey partnership for Working Families. The EC also expressed support for H.R. 676, the Medicare for All bill whose prime sponsor is Rep. John Conyers. This Medicare for All bill meets the standards put forward in the HCAN principles and is considered the "gold" standard for reform by creating a "single-payer" system in which the payment system for health care is not driven by profit-maximization, allowing doctors and patients to concentrate on the medical issues that best promote the health of each patient.
HCAN principles contain the 10 essential elements that guarantee quality, affordable health care for everyone. We will use these basic principles to evaluate health care reform bills as they are put forward in Congress. The third HCAN principle is one in which health care consumers have a choice of keeping their private health plan or switching to a new public plan. This principle would be fulfilled only if a proposed solution guarantees quality, affordable health care for all and contains strong government regulation of health insurance companies to prevent practices that deny people access to the health care services they need, e.g. preventing insurance companies from denying or delaying a claim because the service needed is for a so-called "pre-exisiting" medical condition or charging higher rates for older people.
Creation of a robust public health plan option is the battleground in this fight for health care. Rutgers AAUP-AFT has signed on to the HCAN principles as an organization, but you can also sign on as an individual and become a Healthcare Voter today!
Note: Rutgers AAUP-AFT is a member organization of New Jersey Citizen Action, a consumer watchdog coalition working on a wide range of economic and social justice issues relevant to our members, including advocacy campaigns such as New Jersey Paid Family Leave legislation (a victory in 2008) and Horizon Watch (monitoring Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield's proposal to convert from a non-profit to a for-profit insurance company.) Visit NJ Citizen Action at http://www.njcitizenaction.org/.
The resources on this page include:
HCAN (Health Care for America Now)
Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare
Dr. Jeffrey Keefe's suggested resources
Jacob Hacker articles on public health insurance option
Link to Dr. Atul Gawande's article in the New Yorker Magazine
Senate Republicans attack public health insurance option
Health Care for America Now
http://www.healthcareforamericanow.org
Health Care for America Now (HCAN) is a national grassroots campaign to win guaranteed, quality, affordable health care for all. HCAN developed a statement of common principles that can be used to evaluate health care legislation when specific bills are introduced. in Congress. HCAN principles include the option of having a choice of a public health insurance plan or keeping the health insurance consumers have.
Rep. John Conyers (lead sponsor of HR 676, Medicare for All) has signed on to the HCAN principles along with the AFL-CIO and other unions. See the list of signatories to the HCAN principles.
President Obama held a Healthcare Summit on March 4, 2009. Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress have not yet put forward a healthcare reform bill, but Obama has been pushing the reform effort forward through advocating principles similar to HCAN's principles. Ann Twomey, New Jersey President of Health Professional and Allied Employees (HPAE-AFT), was one of the invited guests at the Healthcare Summit.
Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare
http://www.laborforsinglepayer.org
The Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare is a coalition of labor unions that advocates for Rep. John Conyers' bill, HR 676 ("Medicare for All"). Conyers writes, that his single payer bill is "the only solution that would provide guaranteed, uninterrupted health insurance coverage for all Americans. It would allow everyone freedom to choose their own health care providers [as opposed to insurers] and, by eliminating the waste, bureaucracy and profiteering of the private insurance industry, it will do so at a price we can afford."
This web site shows that HR 676 has been endorsed by 39 state AFL-CIO federations, 100 Central Labor Councils, and more than 400 local unions. HR 676 has 92 co-sponsors in Congress, more than any other health care reform bill. They have polling data that show that the public supports a Medicare for All approach. National AFT endorsed H.R. 676 at the July 2008 convention.
Jeffrey Keefe, professor in the School of Labor and Employment Relations and Rutgers AAUP-AFT member and EC representative, writes that, in his opinion, "we cannot rely on advocacy organizations for polling data, since small changes in wording and framing of questions can produce very different but non-robust results."
Dr. Keefe briefly summarizes the enormous body of polling data:
"90% of Americans believe the health care system is fundamentally broken. Americans are equally divided on whether or not they want a government plan to replace the current private-public system. More than 80% of American are highly satisfied with the health care they presently receive.
Preying on people's fear of losing what they currently have and want to keep is the chief weapon welded by the enemies of reform, which is how they defeated the Clinton reform and how many analysts think they would be able to defeat the Conyers Bill."
"The Public's Health Care Agenda for the New President and Congress,"
(Kaiser). See especially the chartpack.
http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/posr011509pkg.cfm
"1994 All Over Again? Public Opinion and Health Care" by Lawrence R. Jacobs
"Majority of American satisfied with their Healthcare Plans, including costs, coverage, and quality of care they receive" Jeffrey M. Jones (Gallup, 2007)
Dr. Keefe recommends reading the work of Jacob Hacker.
Dr. Jacob Hacker,
professor of political science and resident fellow at the Institute for Social and Policy Studies (Yale):
"Health Care for America: A proposal for guaranteed, affordable health care for all Americans, building on Medicare and employment-based insurance" by Jacob S. Hacker.
http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp180.html
"The Case for Public Plan Choice in National Health Reform: Key to Cost Control and Quality Coverage" by Jacob S. Hacker:
http://institute.ourfuture.org/hacker
Dr. Atul Gawande, who writes for the New Yorker magazine, argues that other countries that adopted national health care plans did so based on "path-dependent" conditions arising out of their own unique histories rather than an imposition of a totally new system. He compares and contrasts the paths to national health care taken by Great Britain, France, and Switzerland. His argument suggests a pragmatic approach to health care reform that does not insist on complete replacement of our health-care system with an "ideal" solution, whether that is envisioned as a free-market or single-payer system.
http://newyorker.com/reporting/2009/01/26/090126fa_fact_gawande
Senate Republicans on Health Care Reform
On March 4, 2009, Senate Republicans sent a letter to President Obama attacking the concept of a public health insurance option. This opposition to health care reform is the obstacle we must overcome to reach real health care reform in 2009.
Here is the key passage from this March 4 letter:
Republican Senators Charles Grassley, Mitch McConnell, Mike Enzi, Judd Gregg, and Orrin Hatch argue that "Washington-run programs undermine market-based competition through their ability to impose price controls and shift costs to other purchasers. Forcing free market plans to compete with these government-run programs would create an unlevel playing field and inevitably doom true competition. Ultimately, we would be left with a single government-run program controlling all of the market. This would take health care decisions out of the hands of doctors and patients and place them in the hands of another Washington bureaucracy."
Read the March 4 health care reform letter from Senate Republicans.
Rutgers AAUP-AFT rejects the argument put forward by Senator Grassley et al. The true "unlevel" playing field is the one in which insurance bureaucracts are able to deny claims, deny certain types of health care coverage, or sell cheap plans that are superficially affordable because they do not provide adequate coverage. The primary goal of for-profit health insurance companies is maximizing profits for their shareholders, not guaranteeing quality, affordable health care.
Health care should be a human right. We must reorganize the way health care is paid for in order to reduce costs and make sure that everyone has coverage whenever they need it, e.g. early detection of a health problem when it can be treated most successfully.
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