Letting congress know what you think about health care reform

With congress set to vote on health care reform in the coming weeks, this would be a great time to let your representative know what you think. I know it seems that congress does not listen, but that is not necessarily true. Members of congress are very concerned to know what the people of their district think. Here are three ways you can let them know how you want them to vote on health care reform.

(1) Call them up. If you follow this link you can obtain the name, address and phone number of your representative. Call your representative and tell the person who answers how you want the representative to vote. Most members keep a tally of calls to gage how the people of their district view an issue.

(2) Write a letter. Make sure you clearly indicate that you live in their district. Your letter WILL be read and they will note your position.

(3) Testify at congress. Have you been waiting for an invitation? Well here it is. CONGRESSWOMAN SHEILA JACKSON LEE OF TEXAS and her staff are spearheading a day of testimonials on Capitol Hill to support Health Care Reform. You are invited to take part in this important hearing. If you are interested in attending or being a witness please RSVP at sphrsa@gwumc.edu.

LOGISTICS:
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee
Health Care Testimonials Day on Capitol Hill Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10am - 12pm
2141 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC

The Economic Impact of Racial Inequalities in Health

This morning at the National Press Club in Washington was the release of “The Economic Burden of Health Inequalities” a report I co-authored with Darrell Gaskin of the University of Maryland, and Patrick Richard of George Washington University. The report details the economic impact that health inequalities has on the U.S. economy. This project was a labor of love. We had been seeking financial support for it for several years. The Washington, DC-based think tank the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation generously provided that support. If you were unable to attend the report’s release or view the live webcast, you can view it by following this link.

Our analysis found that, between 2003 and 2006, 30.6% of medical care expenditures for African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics were excess costs that were the result of inequities in the health status of these groups. Between 2003 and 2006, the combined direct and indirect cost of health disparities in the United States was $1.24 trillion (in 2008 inflation-adjusted dollars). This is more than the gross domestic product of India, the world’s 12th-largest economy in 2008, and equates to $309.3 billion annually lost to the economy. By comparison, the health insurance reform proposal released yesterday by Senator Max Baucus (Democrat of Montana, the chairman of the Finance Committee) estimated the cost of its proposed reforms to be $856 billion over 10 years.Over that same period racial health inequities would cost over three trillion dollars.

The full report is available at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies website, or you can find a link at my website, http://www.laveist.com/.

My new favorite Member of Congress

This morning, while drinking my “morning Joe” and watching the MSNBC TV show by the same name, I saw my new favorite member of Congress. He is Anthony Weiner, a Democrat from Brooklyn, New York. I assure you my admiration for Congressman Weiner has nothing to do with the fact that I am also a native Brooklynite. My admiration for Mr. Weiner comes from his cogent defense of the “Medicare for All” proposal. Medicare for all would work like this. Currently the government-financed Medicare program pays for healthcare for Americans age 65 and above. “Medicare for all” would lower the eligibility age to birth. Even people without jobs would have access to health care. Your employer would be relieved of the responsibility of providing health insurance, and if you changed your job you would no longer have to change your doctors.

Medicare for all currently lacks the 218 votes needed to pass the House of Representatives. I talked with Congressman John Conyers of Michigan about the proposal back in the spring of this year. As of that time there were 86 co-sponsors (including Conyers and Weiner). It’s an even bigger long-shot in the Senate. The politics are too complicated. But, the policy is sound. Several months ago at the beginning of the healthcare reform process a fellow patron at my barbershop (knowing I am a health policy professor and believing my job title meant that I knew something about health policy) asked me how I thought healthcare reform would turn out. My answer then as now is: We will probably pass something this year that will be a slight improvement (for example disallowing health insurance companies from declining people for coverage because of preexisting health conditions), but the 2009 “reforms” will not address the major healthcare problems (rapidly raising costs, too many Americans without access, inadequate quality, and inequality in access and quality), then we will muddle along for 20 more years before we are finally left to conclude what Congressmen Conyers, Weiner and at least 84 others have already figured out. Medicare for all, while imperfect, is the best option.

As with Medicare in the 1960s, Dems should do it alone

Like most health policy professors I have been thinking about healthcare reform for years, so when the issue finally took front stage I was elated. I strongly supported President Obama’s objective of working with Republications to find a bipartisan solution, so although I favor Senators Edward Kenney and John Dingell’s “Medicare for all” approach, I understood that would never secure Republican support. So I got behind the President’s strategy of taking single payer off the table. But now, I must conclude I was wrong. There is no hope for biparti sanship. Republications have no interest in solving the healthcare problem. They merely want to see the President defeated. Republican Senator Jim DeMint made the strategy clear when he fashioned healthcare reform as President Obama’s Waterloo.

In last Tuesday’s New Hampshire town hall meeting, President Obama gave a “shout out” to Republication Senators who he felt were working in a spirit of bipartisanship to find solutions. Said the President, “now, I think that there are some of my Republican friends on Capitol Hill who are sincerely trying to figure out if they can find a health care bill that works -- Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, Olympia Snowe from Maine have been.” (Click here for the text of the President’s remarks).

Less than 24 hours after the President’s “shout out” Senator Chuck Grassley was caught on tape spreading the "Obama death panel" lie. At an appearance at a town hall meeting in Iowa Senator Grassley told the crowd they were correct to fear that the government would "pull the plug on grandma."

Where did the death panel lie originate? Republication Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia proposed that doctors be reimbursed by Medicare for time spent counseling patients and their families on end-of-life decisions, such as making a living will, or informing doctors about the patent's desire whether or not to remain on life support. This inherently reasonable Republican proposal somehow morphed into Obama's “death panels.”

Senator Grassley is not alone. Other national Republication leaders are also distorting Republican Senator Isakson’s proposal and acting as if the proposal was made by the President. Perhaps the most egregious case came from failed Vice Presidential candidate and failed Alaska Governor Sara Palin who went as far as to state that “Obama's death panel," might kill her infant son, Trig. “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”

So here are three facts that seem to be getting lost in all the noise:

(1) President Obama has not presented ANY healthcare plan. He has left it to Congress to work out a bill.
(2) There are proposals making their way through the House of Representatives, but there still is no final House bill.
(3) The Senate has not even written a Bill yet.