I firmly believe single-payer is the ultimate, best solution to America's broken health care system. I also realize it is, at best, a long shot to be passed in the near future in a Congress heavily funded by the health insurance industry. Given that depressing reality, I was resigned to the fact that we would stay with our current employer-based insurance. Then, whilst doing research, I recently realized there has been another plan out there for over a year that is not employer-based but which has a real chance of becoming passed by the Congress...
It is called the Healthy Americans Act, more popularly known as the Wyden-Bennett bill.
What's exciting about this bill is that, even though it leaves private insurers intact, it ends employer-based insurance. That's right- no longer will your health care depend on who you have a job with, you carry it wherever you go. Furthermore, the private health insurers under the plan are heavily regulated, meaning you can't be excluded for pre-existing conditions. As the American Prospect described it in an articlepenned in February this year:
Insurers would have to meet a minimum standard for comprehensiveness (equivalent to the standard Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan currently offered to members of Congress), and they could not discriminate based on pre-existing conditions, occupation, genetic information, gender or age. Nor could they deny insurance to those who ask for it. In return, every American would have to buy health insurance, and there would be hefty subsidies for those further down the income ladder.
Just as enticing about this bill as its goal of moving away from the employer-based system is it seems politically feasible: it has bipartisan support in the Senate.
In other words, we can have a system where no one could ever be denied coverage, those with lower income would have their premiums subsidized, and the practice of claims being denied would be (for the most part) a thing of the past.
As I read some critiques of this bill, I realize it is not perfect. I would prefer a system where my tax dollars pay for my health care, where I and my family had no premiums, or deductibles or co-pays, with a hospital bill a thing of the past. I'd like to see Aetna and UHC become entities. But I also realize those things won't happen, at least not anytime soon.
So the choice to me becomes clear: I'd rather push for a plan that at least gets rid of the employer-based system and guarantees I will always have healthcare, then to push for a better option (single payer) that doesn't have a realistic chance of passing.
How do you feel?