As the debate over national health care reform rages on in Congress, U.S. Representative Tim Bishop of Southampton is voicing support for a strong public health insurance option aimed at reducing the power insurance companies have over health care costs.
The option proposed in America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, the legislation spearheaded by President Barack Obama, calls for the creation of a public insurance plan that would compete with private health insurance companies in the hopes of controlling rising premiums, Mr. Bishop said. The plan would be managed by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department and would pay rates comparable to Medicare, he said.
“The public option would not be supported by taxpayer money. It would have to be supported by premiums, just the way private plans are supported, and it would compete on a level playing field with the private plans,” said Mr. Bishop, a Democrat. “So this is not socialized medicine. This is not the nationalization of health care. This is simply having another option available provided by the federal government for families and individuals to choose from.”
As of Tuesday, the details of the bill were still being ironed out by lawmakers in the House and Senate, and versions of it were under consideration in the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Finance Committee.
Mr. Bishop said the House will not vote on the bill before its summer recess on July 31. Last week, Democratic Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate majority leader, announced that the Senate would also not vote on the legislation before its recess on August 7.
The current version of the House bill seeks to spread health care coverage to the uninsured by expanding Medicaid and Medicare at a cost of an estimated $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years, Mr. Bishop said. The House’s bill would also impose a mandate for Americans to have health insurance, and require small businesses with payroll exceeding $250,000 to offer health insurance to their employees or pay a fine, the Congressman said.
To help pay for the expansion of Medicaid and Medicare, the bill would impose a tax on individuals earning more than $280,000 a year and on couples making more than $350,000 a year. The tax, ranging from 1 to 5.4 percent depending on annual income, would raise nearly $600 billion over 10 years, Mr. Bishop said. The fine on businesses and individuals who don’t obtain coverage would also contribute about $200 billion to expanded government insurance programs, according to a report by the House Ways and Means Committee.
In the 1st Congressional District, which Mr. Bishop represents and which encompasses most of Suffolk County, there are about 83,000 uninsured people, 67,000 of whom would gain access to health care under the House bill, according to a report by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Nationwide, about 40 million of the estimated 47 million uninsured people in America would be able to receive health coverage with the reforms.
“One thing that we should all be able to agree on is that the status quo is simply unacceptable,” Mr. Bishop said. “If 14,000 Americans a day lose their health insurance, there is not a reasonable person alive that can think that is affordable. I certainly can’t.”
Republicans have objected to the health care plan citing fears that it will cost too much and that the public option will leverage unfair competition against private insurance companies. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele recently criticized the House Democrats’ public health care plan for taking what he said is a step towards socialized medicine.
“The Democrats’ priorities for health care reform are now clear: a government-run system financed on the backs of Americans and small businesses with higher taxes,” Mr. Steele said in a prepared statement. “The Democrats’ government-run plan won’t reduce health care costs, it won’t allow Americans to keep their insurance or doctors and it won’t promote competition. But it will result in a government takeover where bureaucrats determine what health care treatments Americans receive, if they can receive them at all.”
Mr. Bishop countered by complaining that the Republican Party has not presented any alternatives of their own. “They do not have a single suggestion for how we reform a system that everybody quickly agrees is very badly broken,” he said.
The Congressman also argued that a public option would “keep the private plans honest” and help “bend the curve” as health care costs increase. He said the public option would expand patients’ choice of doctors, not limit it.
“Premiums increase every year. They have increased dramatically over the last five to 10 years,” Mr. Bishop said. “Perhaps, with the public plan that the private plans would have to be competing with, they would not be so quick to raise premiums.”
reform" legislation is incomprehensible. Socialist medicine that extends benefits
to non-citizens and forces all taxpayers to fund abortion on demand is not what I think the majority of this district or this nation wants. But Mr. Bishop will
make a show of it. I doubt if he has read, or will bother to read, the bill. Why should he? He is an easy vote for Nancy Pelkosi. She probably doesn't even have ...more to ask him.
The insurance companies do not want to cover those who get seriously ill, they'll lose money. Is that giving us a choice of health care?
If you become seriously ill and the insurance companies won't cover you, that is not giving you a choice of health care. We need National Health Insurance.
Nothing is free. We can all be covered if we all share the expense.
I spent 32 years in healthcare and the current system is broken and unsustainable. How can we tolerate the fact that we spend about $6000 per capita more on healthcare yet rank so low on health measures like mortality rates, infant death rates and other measures.
There is a lot of intentional misleading propaganda coming from the right wing about these bills (of which now there are 4 with another pending, these have to be reconciled in a jount committee ...more of house and senate). Some things never change, they said the same thing 45 years ago when Medicare was enacted.
except the president for obvious reasons. But his children and his wife should have the same health ...more care that they are proposing. Do not hold your
breath . . . injury may result . . . and it will not be covered under any of the proposed plans. By the way there is no plan.
If we review the recent past failures of savings and loans, banks and investment companies, mortgage failures; and the prevalence of greed- generating, massive ...more and devastating Ponzi schemes, it is clear we haven't quite mastered the "capitalism-thingy" yet! It's time to shake some rotten apples loose out of the Tree of Life; this time in the health trades, such as the health insurance industry and big Pharma(drug companies). Don't be fooled: we are being had, ladies and gentlemen.
The very fastest way I see this coming to an abrupt halt is by passing the all-inclusive, national health care reform plan. In a free republic, with capitalism as our economic drive, NOTHING beats a better product. An Optional, Portable, comprehensive insurance plan, of reasonable cost (it's not any "free-er" than your current benefit packages,) will allow Americans access to a plan choice that moves with their employment, is there without lapse, and is there if you develop a catastrophic or chronic illness, without prejudice.
Now, before you let the fear mongerers scare you away because of the "expense" of this initiative,
PLEASE read the report on this simple basic link: http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml
See?
You will realize TODAY, WAY BEFORE a national health option, we are spending Trillions of dollars Annually on health care--it's bigger than the Pentagon budget! Therefore, if the proposed national plan costs only two trillion over TEN years, and saves us trillions, it's a bargain and a solid investment, not wasted money!
This is a new frontier for America. I urge all citizens of strength and reason to openly support and explore a stronger, more fiscally responsible way. We can do this "Well," literally and figuratively.
Few are really impressed by the stridency of the Huffington SocLibs or, for that matter, the single-minded iRightist mbecility of the Free Republic.
You have shown yourself to be an arthiculate man -- I'm more interested in what you might say than the Huffers and Puffers (Limbaugh).
and see all the illegal women with thier babies and their government issured
health cards Real or should I say legal Americans should be getting this. But
until Bishop and his cronies do something about all of these illegals nothing will be fixed
The right refuses to listen to the facts on this issue and instead simply brush off indisputable data as "liberal claptrap". And then, of course, there are those who cannot help but blame the "illegals".
A friend of mine, an American citizen, recently lost her job and when her Cobra coverage ran out, she lost her insurance as well. She could not afford the $1,200.oo monthly premium for her family and, as she had been working for most ...more of the previous year, she did not qualify for Healthy NY. She now pays her pediatrician cash for each visit and lives in constant fear of a serious illness or accident. She may have to start using the emergency room for care and she is not alone.
The real fight is between American citizens and private insurers who's job it is to deny claims and increase profits. This is a battle between health care and health insurance and this time it looks like the health care proponents just might win.
People nee to start looking at the real, and big picture. So many things need to change, top of the list, people being cared for. We've had this country for over 200 years, and we are standing on the shoulders of those who came before us.
The way we are is how we honor them?
Not caring for every single soul, and giving one the best chance to achieve all that their life would allow them to?
Stop standing on the backs of others ...more to live in luxury, that would be my response, and advice considering Empire's latest actions.
How much does the CEO take home of each successive company higher up the chain? Do some digging, and slash that total you get by just 20%, and you would still have quite a sizable sum to work with.
We live in a country where a police chief asks for $250/hr., and there are people he is supposed to serve and protect, that make less than that a week at ONE job, something is seriously wrong.
Sorry to punch another headline, but I feel the principle of the matter is relative.
Standing on the bruised backs of the majority does not a strong country make.
Nor a happy country.
Thomas Jefferson once warned about corporations becoming the next aristocracy. If you take a good look around, through HIS eyes, and point of view, from his world's perspective historically, was his fear unfounded?