Health Care for America NOW

What Comprehensive Reform Means for You

FAQs

What Is Comprehensive Reform?

What Comprehensive Reform Means for You

How will reform increase consumer choice?

Why do we need the choice of a public health insurance plan?

How will we pay for health care reform?

How we can win

More about HCAN

What is Comprehensive Health Care Reform?

Comprehensive health care reform will provide a guarantee of good, affordable health coverage to everyone and make health care more affordable for our families, our businesses, and our nation as a whole. HCAN has 10 principles for reform that have been endorsed by President Obama and more than 190 members of Congress:

A truly inclusive and accessible health care system in which no one is left out.
A choice of a private insurance plan, including keeping the insurance you have if you like it, or a public health insurance plan that guarantees affordable coverage without a private insurer middleman.
A standard for health benefits that covers what people need to keep healthy and to be treated when they are ill. Health care benefits should cover all necessary care including preventative services and treatment needed by those with serious and chronic diseases and conditions.
Health care coverage with out-of-pocket costs including premiums, co-pays, and deductibles that are based on a family’s ability to pay for health care and without limits on payments for covered services.
Equity in health care access, treatment, research and resources to people and communities of color, resulting in the elimination of racial disparities in health outcomes and real improvement in health and life expectancy for all.
Health coverage through the largest possible pools in order to achieve affordable, quality coverage for the entire population and to share risk fairly.
A watchdog role on all plans, to assure that risk is fairly spread among all health care payers and that insurers do not turn people away, raise rates, or drop coverage based on a person’s health history or wrongly delay or deny care.
A choice of doctors, health providers, and private and public health insurance plans, without gaps in coverage or access and a delivery system that meets the needs of at-risk populations.
Affordable and predictable health costs to businesses and employers. To the extent that employers contribute to the cost of health coverage, those payments should be related to employee wages rather than on a per-employee basis.
Effective cost controls that promote quality, lower administrative costs, and long term financial sustainability, including: standard claims forms, secure electronic medical records, using the public’s purchasing power to instill greater reliance on evidence-based protocols and lower drug and device prices, better management and treatment of chronic diseases, and a public role in deciding where money is invested in health care.

What Does Comprehensive Reform Mean For Me?

You and your family

It will give your family a choice. HCAN is fighting for a uniquely American solution that guarantees quality coverage you can afford and gives you real choice: keep your private insurance plan or join a new public health insurance plan so you are no longer at the mercy of the private insurance industry. No matter which you choose, you are guaranteed standard, comprehensive benefits that meet your needs, and you’ll pay for insurance based on your income. You will have a choice of doctors, health providers, and private or public health insurance plans, without gaps in coverage or access and a delivery system that meets the needs of at-risk populations.

Unionized workers

Our current health care system is unaffordable for working families, employers, and the government. Workers and their unions often have to bargain away needed pay increases to maintain their health care benefits because of skyrocketing health care costs. By making health care costs a responsibility of all employers, unionized employers will no longer have to compete with non-union firms that don’t pay for good health coverage or any coverage at all. Your union will continue to bargain over health care and determine the level of benefits and employee costs through that process.

Doctors, hospitals and other medical professionals

Health care reform will emphasize quality care, including coverage for prevention and primary care and good management of chronic conditions. A reformed system will reimburse time spent on prevention and disease management. Guaranteeing coverage for all will mean that doctors, hospitals, and other providers won’t be faced with patients who need care but don’t have coverage. The choice of a public health insurance plan will mean that patients will have at least one payer that provides a choice of providers, without being subject to the claims denials and billing hassles of private health insurers. The greater adoption of health information technology will mean better information on patients’ health history and less paperwork.

Insurance Companies

The government needs to act as a watchdog over all health insurance plans so that consumers are no longer at the mercy of private insurance companies who can act however they please. For example, the government will impose stringent new rules that include prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions and will require all health insurance to include good benefits that meet a person’s health care needs from prevention to care for serious illness.

Small Businesses

Health care reform will make health coverage affordable to small employers that are paying too much for health care or are unable to offer health coverage to their employees now. The main reason small employers do not offer health coverage to their employees is because it is simply too expensive. Health care reform will provide subsidies to small employers to help them contribute to their employees’ coverage or allow small businesses to pay into a fund that will offer their employees a choice of affordable private or public health insurance.

The Main Street Alliance— a national network of small business coalitions that is working with Health Care for America Now — commissioned a survey of 1,200 small business owners and found that small business owners want real health reform, are willing to contribute, and want a quality public health insurance option. For more information about small businesses and the Main Street Alliance, please visit http://www.mainstreetalliance.org.

People with chronic diseases

HCAN is advocating for reforms that will require all insurers to provide standard, comprehensive health care benefits that meet your needs from preventive to chronic care management services. The plan will have low out-of-pocket costs (like co-pays) so you can afford to get the medical care you need at any time. The public health insurance option will allow patients to choose their doctor and hospital. Additionally, insurance companies will be required to cover pre-existing conditions so everyone regardless of health status or history can get comprehensive benefits at fair and stable premiums.

People and communities of color

The facts are sobering. An African American woman is twice as likely to die from breast cancer as a white woman. Hispanics in America are seven times more likely to die from diabetes as non-Hispanic whites. To provide equal health care for all we need to invest in health care in all our communities. We need to be sure that we have doctors and other providers who understand the language and culture of all our communities. We need to collect good data and research on the best treatments for people of all races (too often researchers study health care among only whites.)

Immigrants

We believe that immigrants – regardless of their legal status – should be covered by the new system and be responsible for contributing to their health care coverage like everyone else. We also want to be sure that the different views that people have on immigration policy do not block moving ahead with health care reform. If we did that, only the insurance companies and other opponents of reform would benefit. In fact, many opponents of real reform will use this and other issues to try to divide supporters of change.