PNHP Logo

| SITE MAP | ABOUT PNHP | CONTACT US | LINKS

NAVIGATION PNHP RESOURCES
Posted on July 23, 2008

Expand successful Medicare program to all

PRINT PAGE
EN ESPAÑOL

Edith Kenna
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
July 21, 2008

July 30 is the 43rd anniversary of the passage of Medicare. Medicare began because no one except the government was willing to cover the oldest and sickest of us. Medicare now covers 34 million Americans. Consumer ratings of Medicare remain higher than that of private insurance companies. Medicare itself remains a model of effectiveness and efficiency, publicly funded and privately delivered, operating with administrative cost between 3 percent and 5 percent. If you don’t believe that Medicare is a success, try asking those covered by Medicare, friends, parents or grandparents if they want to give it up and go back to private insurance.

One wonders, then, why some politicians are opposed to building upon Medicare’s success. Rex Nutting of Dow Jones MarketWatch suggested in January that none of the major presidential candidates has endorsed such a simple solution as expanding Medicare. Instead, they generate elaborate Rube Goldberg plans that bring a few more people under insurance coverage but do not fundamentally change our deeply flawed health care system. Medicare has become the proverbial elephant in the room – very few politicians want to notice its successes or its popularity with consumers.

As a result, most health care proposals simply add more layers of complexity to our health care system and do not address the need for basic change. There is one bill, however, that stands out: HR 676, The United States National Health Insurance Act. The goal of HR 676 is to provide true universal coverage by improving and building upon the original Medicare program introduced 43 years ago. HR 676 provides a system of health care that is accessible, affordable, portable, equitable and provides a high standard of quality. This bill has never been granted a public hearing under either a Republican or a Democratic administration, which is not surprising because true social change never takes place from the top. If history proves anything, it is that Washington only enacts major social change when the people get involved and demand it. When it comes to health care, despite what Washington thinks, such a movement is well under way.

Last month the U.S. Conference of Mayors endorsed HR 676.

Religious organizations are also beginning to realize the importance of advocating for health reform as a moral issue. For instance, the Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders, the Presbyterian National Assembly and the Unitarian Universalists National Assembly also endorse HR 676.

The American College of Physicians, the nation’s largest specialty group of 124,000 internists now supports a national insurance plan like Medicare. In April 2008, the Annals of Medicine reported that 59 percent of all U.S. doctors now support national health insurance as a way to ensure that everyone has access to care.

HR 676 has 91 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives. HR 676 has been endorsed by 438 union organizations in 48 states including 110 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 34 state AFL-CIOs.

Thousands and thousands of citizens across the country have signed petitions in favor of HR 676 and have sent e-mail, cards and letters to their representatives urging its passage. Congress could at least have a hearing on the merits of the bill so the concept can be opened to public debate. Such a hearing could look at how Medicare can be improved to cover us all. It could look carefully at how private health insurers cherry pick the healthy and deny coverage to the sick. It could try to explain why we cling to a patchwork quilt of employer-based insurance that is hard to get and easy to lose.

Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan is a grass-roots citizens’ movement that fully supports HR 676. President Bush and Sen. Barack Obama tell us change is hard. We tell them being sick without access to affordable health care is even worse. It is truly mind-boggling to observe Washington politicians swerve and dodge the elephant in the room of HR 676. The United States National Health Insurance Act deserves a hearing on its merits because Americans deserve a chance to have access to the health care they need.


Edith Kenna is licensed clinical social worker in Fort Wayne and a member of Northeast Indiana Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan. She wrote this for The Journal Gazette.