Thursday, July 2nd, Senator Bennet came to a health care forum in Denver organized by the Metro Organization for People, a Denver area organization allied with the national network PICO. The groups that form the alliance include "congregations, schools, neighborhood and youth organizations". The Senator was late due to weather, but he did show up and give his opinion on various areas of the national health care debate. I thought I would pass the results along to you.
The forum was set up to be an opportunity to give testimonials and the results of a survey to Senator Bennet and his staff, along with several questions they wanted him to answer. It was not set up to be a town hall meeting, unfortunately, because I had questions I wanted to ask him specifically about the public option. They did provide a sheet of paper to put down questions to him, along with contact information for him to respond (I guess). They also had space to tell my own story, since Senator Bennet seems to like to relate those.
Senator Bennet has given a speech in the Senate on health care reform in which he calls for controls on the escalating costs of health care and he uses the example of the town of Blanca, Colorado that has to choose between much more expensive plans because their current plan is no longer being offered to them by the local HMO. He also gives an example of a small business in Golden that is being forced to choose lower and lower levels of coverage to avoid ruining their business and still provide health care for their employees. He said that the key is to reduce costs and he hints at the idea of changing incentives - to reward caring for health than curing only after they get sick.
The forum began with a "Reflection" with Father Bob Amundson and Reverend Bill Calhoun. I tried to capture Father Bob's comments, but I can only paraphrase:
Jesus' ministry was very much about health care. There are plenty of stories of him healing people who are blind, crippled, diseased or with other problems. He never refused to heal anyone for reasons like pre-existing conditions, not having the proper forms filled out, not having preapproval and regardless of ability to pay.
The message was delivered loudly and clearly - if you're claiming to follow the teachings of Jesus, you should ensure people get health care and not be more concerned with the moneylenders and the bureaucracy.
There was a research report presented by Colorado Voices for Coverage. This was commissioned in 2008 to report on what Colorado people can afford for health care. To read the report yourself, you can click here but from the executive summary, they relate that when families spend more than 5% of their household income on health care, they start having to choose between that care and other purchases, such as transportation, housing and child care. They also report that families that earn between 200% and 400% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL, currently $21,800 for a family of four) need to be considered for subsidies.
There were several testimonials that were given about various health care situations. I'm hoping the video may wind up online at some point, but at the moment the MOP website is down.
At first, questions were put to Senator Bennet's health care policy advisor and his state chairwoman, but when he was able to arrive, the questions were put to him again. He was asked if he would support an increase to the medicaid levels and expanding coverage for children who currently are not insured. He said he is in favor of that up to %150 of the FPL - the Medicare Transitions Act of 2009, S 1009 is his bill and it is to set up
a nationwide network of community-based transitional care coaches who serve to improve patient quality and cost-effectiveness of care for Medicare beneficiaries and ease the burden on providers to reduce hospital readmission rates. At its core, some of the main functions these transition coaches provide include: helping patients self-manage their condition and medications over time, providing personal follow-up care, and serving as an access point when patients change care setting.
The bill calls for the creation of new collaborative community-based structures who are equipped to provide transitions care and work with the providers in the community. These community-based groups, as well as existing health systems that already provide some form of transitional coaching for patients, could apply for transitions coaching eligibility through the Department of Health and Human Services. Some of the criteria for being selected would include: professional expertise and capability to review medical records, demonstrated ability to work with providers in the community, and formal training in transitional care. These transitions coaches would serve Medicare beneficiaries who are considered a high-risk for hospital readmissions and receive reimbursement through achievement of quality outcomes and hospital readmission reduction targets.
He also pointed out that we need to do a better job of enrolling people in the health care plans they're already eligible for, like S-CHIP, since there shouldn't be any children without insurance, yet here in Colorado there still are many that haven't been enrolled.
One other thing he said he has done is to add to the current budget some differentiators between urban and rural compensation rates for procedures (I'm not sure if he's paying more for procedures in urban areas or if it's in rural areas to try and encourage doctors to work in those underserved areas).
He was asked if he supports the idea of some level of sliding subsidy in order to help people making between 2 and 4 times the FPL meet the costs of insurance. He said he'd support some level, but he wouldn't commit to a particular level because he said he wants to make sure that whatever level is settled upon, it also has the funds to pay for it. If the country wants to pay more for this, then he'll go along with it.
He was asked if he would support a cap of %10 for the maximum expenditure of a person on their own health care costs over the course of a year. He said he would be in favor of a cap, but he wasn't sure %10 was the number that would work. He pointed out that over a million people in Colorado pay more than %10 already, and that's a %70 percent increase in that number since the start of the decade. Many pay %25 or higher of their annual household income on health care. He's just not sure that we can set the cap at %10 and still pay for it all (maybe we could cover it if it's a little higher).
The question that received the highest amount of applause for being asked was about whether he supports a public option. He has not stated an opinion prior to this forum one way or the other and at this forum he took a politically neutral non-committal tone with his answer. He said that he believes working within the current system the costs can be dramatically lowered - he related how the San Luis Valley in Colorado has apparently arranged health care so that there is increased cooperation between the various interests and they have provided many of the ideas which he took to trying with his bill mentioned above. He also said that any public option must be paid for in order to work. He didn't say where the money had to come from - taxes, premiums, reduced costs or other source, but it does sound like he's willing to consider it if there's a payment means. There were lots of cheers for the question, but I'll swear that it seemed to me I did hear a few hisses for his non-committal answer.
As he was preparing to give his answer on the public option, a young man stood and asked very loudly why Single Payer wasn't an option. There were a number of people in the audience with Single Payer slogans on their shirts, but he was the only one to stand and demand to be heard. The moderators for the forum reminded him that the forum would not be an opportunity to ask him questions directly, but that didn't stop the protestor. Eventually they got him to leave without an answer, and unfortunately (from my POV, since I feel that's the real hope we have) he didn't do anything to make Single Payer sound like something worthy of discussion. I think he did more harm than good.
Senator Bennet did say that Healthcare needs to be assured so that people can live a predictable and healthy life. He emphasized again that it has to be paid for.
Overall, I'm pleased to have had a chance to hear from him directly on this issue, but I'm not happy he decided to equivocate and not say that the Public Option must be a part of the reform. He came close, in saying that he considers it important, but true to political practice, until there's something set for him to comment on, he'll point out how many possible areas of reform there are and not commit to any one plan in particular. I get the sense he'll vote for a plan with the public option, but he won't be one to make a stand if it isn't included in whatever the Senate finally votes on.
There were a number of us from a canvassing team from last November that presented our questions and comments to him in a bulk package so that he could see that there's a block of activist voters who are paying attention on this issue. We shall see how things develop to see if we'll become activists for him.
- Slight Update - The MOP website is what they gave in their literature, but it comes up an invalid domain, so perhaps someone else can point towards whatever website exists.