As posted here: http://www.dailykos.com/...
I had a meeting with an aide for Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) of Friday morning. The process of getting the meeting wasn't hard and the meeting itself was friendly.I think more people should do it. I talked with Jennifer Tang, the Senior Field Rep for the 5 Bay Area counties. She was friendly, attentive and took notes on a note pad.
There is an intercom in front of the Senator's office and you have to be buzzed in. We met in a nice conference room.The meeting lasted about 30 minutes and I talked practically all of that time. I was bit nervous and had a bunch to say.
I asked if she handled health policy for the Senator
She explained that for Sen Boxer, all her policy aides are in Wash D.C. and that she has field reps that are responsible for meeting with people throughout the state, and that the Senator was interested in hearing from people about the issue. She had read summaries of the three bills making their way through. Since they clock in at 600-800 pages each, I told her that I hadn't read them either.
Actually I was kinda relieved since it meant that all the facts I had written down on notes wouldn't be completely boring.
My presentation was pretty simple
Problems with health insurance system
General facts
Specific anecdotes
Solution
Decent benefits
Strong Exchange
Strong Public Plan
I talked about how there are 47 million uninsured, how that was more than the population of California itself, how in CA there are 6.6 million uninsured, that's about the same number that voted for Sen Boxer in 2004. To give a tangible scale to these numbers.
Pre existing conditions will prevent people getting insurance themselves. It will cause people to delay or not get care for fear of being unable to get insurance later. I know someone who saw a psychologist outside of their plan and completely out of their pocket so that it would not show up on their medical records. Limits on coverage also have bad consequences as dialysis patients become intentionally poor, even divorcing spouses to qualify for help once their lifetime limit is reached.
A friend of mine had to delay taking advantage of a full academic scholarship to a prestigious East Coast school, because although the school would cover all her costs, the insurance would not cover prescription drugs she needs for her chronic condition and she can't afford them on her own. She is lucky in that she has a boyfriend, and they will get married and they will hope that he can get a job with group health insurance (in this economy), so she can take advantage of her full scholarship. This wouldn't be a problem in any other G8 country. She said she would like to say my friend's problems were isolated incidents, but that she indeed had heard of a variety of such stories.
Even if you have insurance, through your work, your choices are limited. I have only one health plan I can choose. When I asked for (and got ) the opportunity to use the same money paid for my premium to go out and buy health insurance for myself. What I found was that coverage that cost my employer $466/mo, cost me $1200/mo individually due to a back sprain and a stomach issue in 2008 both of which went away after a month. That might be lower after a few months, I was told.
In any case, premium costs had gone up 78% since 2001 whereas inflation had gone up 17% (she wrote that down,she wrote down other things but that specifically).
So lots of uninsured, high costs, no real competition (I forgot to mention recission)
Solutions, what's needed in the bills to make things work.
I decided to address the three bills currently working their way through (TriHouse, Finance and Help Bills), because I thought that would produce more concrete actions items then pushing for single payer which, sadly, is not on the table.
so changes needed
Health care now, The House bill doesn't strat the Exchange until 2013. I want to see the bills start as soon as possible.
Obviously guarenteed issue plans in the exchange to do away with pre existing condition problems.
But also good benefits within those plans.
Benefits like
Vision, When did our eyes stop being part of our bodies ? Have you ever heard someone say "it's a good policy but it doesn't cover your arms". She laughed at that since, like me, wore glasses. I also pointed out that yearly eye exams are vitally important to prevent blindness for diabetic patients.
Mental Health Depression and anxiety are big problems. if you want to know how badly we need mental health care, walk down Market St in S.F. ( a mile from where we were meeting).
Dental. Gum disease has been strongly linked to heart disease. (she said she didn't know that and wrote it down) It is suspected that the inflammation of the gums cause the body to produce inflammatory proteins that affects other parts of the body as well. So regular dental checkups are important for more than just your teeth,and again when did our teeth stop being part of our body.
A Strong Exchange
I cribbed directly from snaxattack's great diary for this.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
How a strong insurance exchange and portable health insurance will allow people with urgent medical needs, like a covered spouse with cancer, continue to receive uninterrupted care without having to change doctors or plans due to a layoff and new job.
And said that people who are currently employed should be able to go into the exchange from day one rather than have to wait a few years. (she wrote that down)
a strong public plan within the exchange.
Thanks for all the people that contributed to my earlier post asking for points.
I had 4 basic reasons for a public plan.
A public plan needs to be
Available Day One, National in Scope, and Transparent (thanks to Firedoglake crew for this) in order to have the following 4 benefits
- It will be cheaper. As a not for profit government plan it can offer the same care for less premiums. It doesn't need to spend on marketing and can of course use economies of scale to bring prices down. Co-ops will not achieve the same economies of scale.
- It will bring competition to the health insurance industry. In 30 states, the health insurance industry meets the DOJ definition of "highly concentrated", In Arkansas, Blue Shield/BlueCross occupy 75% of the market, (she wrote that down)
the Public Plan wouldn't be eliminating competition, it would be providing competition where there was none before.
- Safeguard, floor. There's safeguards in the exchange to prevent the abuses that health plans were promoting. But let's look at credit card reform. We passed credit card reform included preventing fixed rate cards from arbitrarily changing rates. So the credit card industry is furiously working to change cards over to variable rates and do other things before the reforms take affect. The health insurance industry will take advantage of any loopholes and implementation lag. So we need a public option to provide a counterbalance, such that if private plans become bad, there is a viable option for people. Especially since there will be an individual mandate. A mandate without a public option is a gift to the insurance industry.
- Provides data to improve care.
I mentioned the New Yorker article about McAllen, Texas and she said she had read it. So I said that that article was only written due to data from Medicare, a govt run program. The insurance companies didn't provide that kind of data and the hospitals were unaware of it. Having a public plan in place would allow more data gathering which would allow for more study about what works and what doesn't. She said this was a new argument she hadn't heard before. (Thanks to samddobermann for this).
So I summarized saying
We need
A strong exchange open to everyone
with good benefits in every plan
and a strong public option that is available day one, national and transparent.
She said that Sen Boxer had made comments on the Senate Floor that she thought Medicare, VA and SCHIP were successful government health programs and that the Senator supported a public plan. So I thanked her for her time and left to go back to work. and that's my visit Sen Boxer's aide.