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Moving Toward Healthcare for All
One of MPIRG’s (Minnesota Public Interest Research Group) three year campaigns is Healthcare for All, aimed at helping improve the healthcare systems of both the United States generally and Minnesota specifically.
This is a critical issue, as the number of uninsured Americans continues to rise to 50 million and America’s health care spending reaches the trillions. The United States also has some of the worst health outcomes of industrialized democracies.
The healthcare system of the United States is in dire need of reform and improvement.
With the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in March 2010, Congress began to address many of the problems present in the US healthcare system.
The legislation included several important regulatory measures, including allowing young adults to remain on their parents’ insurance until the age of 26 and stopping the practice of insurance companies denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions.
The PPACA also aimed to significantly decrease the number of uninsured Americans through expansion of Medicaid and the creation of health insurance exchanges in every state. Minnesota was allowed early entry into this program.
Health insurance exchanges are marketplaces where small businesses and individuals can purchase insurance coverage with the assistance of experts, called navigators. Currently, insurance companies are unwilling to insure individuals or small business employees due to the increased risk of needing to pay out large sums of money for an individual without the balancing effect of insuring healthier individuals in the company. Insurance exchanges alleviate this problem by grouping individuals for insurers.
As part of implementing the PPACA, Minnesota must pass legislation creating an exchange by January 2013.
It is important for the exchange in Minnesota to be successful so as to increase insurance coverage and further the movement for insurance reform. Several features are particularly important for an exchange to be successful. These include public governmental involvement, to maintain public accountability, conflict of interest policies, to prevent insurance company employees from serving on the exchange board or as navigators, and regulations across the whole system to ensure individuals with a variety of health levels receive coverage through the exchange.
As a young adult who will soon need to acquire my own insurance coverage, I strongly support the creation of a strong, user-oriented insurance exchange that improves the health of all Minnesotans.
Margo Worman, a Macalester College student, orriginally wrote this piece for The Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG), a grassroots, non-partisan, nonprofit, student-directed organization that empowers and trains students and engages the community to take collective action in the public interest throughout the state of Minnesota. It appeared on MPIRG's blog November 17th.
Posted in Health Care | Related Topics: Health Insurance Health Care Reform Health Insurance Exchange Medicare/Medicaid
1 Comment
Bernice Vetsch says:
December 18, 2011 at 11:36 am
This will make you MAH (mad as he-l), as it did me.
The White House told the insurance industry the other day that it was removing the requirement for a single, nationwide benefit package from the new health care act.
This blatant pandering to a powerful industry (for what in return, I wonder?) means that insurers can sell policies at lower cost to attract customers who need or want a bargain price, and then deny coverage of claims that don’t meet some tiny-print requirement in their policies.
The European plans on which Governor Romney based the MassPlan and Mr.Obama based the national plan costs 40-50% per person less than ours because the government——————
(1) reviews medical costs each year and decides whether or not providers can increase their prices;
(2) tells the insurance companies exactly what they can charge to cover those costs;
(3) determines the country-wide benefit set each insurer must cover; and
(4) leaves only quality of customer service as the deciding factor patients need to worry about.