Addressing Families USA’s annual conference in Washington last week, a pair of Democratic Midwestern senators endorsed universal health care for all Americans and said they think the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a good step toward achieving that goal.
Wisconsin’s freshman Sen. Tammy Baldwin opened Health Action 2013 with a rejection of the idea that premium medical treatment is a “privilege” for a lucky few, a sentiment echoed minutes later by Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. Both senators thanked members of the nonprofit advocacy group Families USA, whose grassroots and watchdog efforts they said was crucial to passing PPACA.
“I have to say these gatherings have gotten a lot more fun since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law a little over two years ago,” Baldwin said, to considerable applause. “You know that victory was 70 years in the making, and it belongs to so many people who were part of this long fight.”
Baldwin, who was first elected to Congress in 1999, said “the guiding moral principle behind universal health care is that no one should fall through the cracks,” but that it is up to those in charge of managing, handling and enforcing PPACA as to “whether this new law lives up to this principle” or if it falls short.
Stabenow, who has served in the Senate since 2001, agreed. “I share Sen. Baldwin’s feeling that [PPACA] is a first step,” Stabenow said. “In my vision, some day we see Medicare for all, so this is a step forward. But in life, in change, in democracy, we take it step-by-step, and this is the biggest step that we have taken. And you can tell that by the intensity of the fight on the other side. You can always tell you are making a difference by the size of the pushback.”
Stabenow told a story of a young family who invited her to a Detroit medical hospital to visit the infant daughter who they said might not be alive were it not for health care reform — a pre-existing condition could have prevented insurance from covering a crucial operation. The subject is close to the heart, and memory, of Baldwin as well.
“I was raised by my grandparents,” Baldwin said. “They were heroes to me. When I was nine years old, I was diagnosed with a serious childhood illness, similar to spinal meningitis. I spent three months in the hospital. My grandparents had health insurance — a family plan — but many policies, including theirs, was written in a way that excluded grandchildren. They weren’t allowed to list me as a dependent; their insurance wouldn’t cover my care.
“I got better and my grandparents looked for an insurance policy that would cover me in the future, but they discovered that, because of my illness, they couldn’t find such a policy. Not from any insurer, not at any price. My story is significant because it’s not unique. When the ACA was signed into law, 19 million American children wore that same brand: pre-existing condition, uninsurable.”
No household, Baldwin said, should have to live in fear that a sudden illness or emergency could wipe out the finances of a family with a child lacking health insurance. That’s why no pre-existing conditions will bar coverage in the future, she said, and why she “was proud to champion the provision that allows young people to stay on their parents’ health insurance until they’re 26 years old.”
“We know there’s a lot more to come and we know that we’ve got a lot of work to do: setting up the exchanges, making sure they work, making sure people understand the tax credits and subsidies that will make health care more affordable,” Stabenow said. “We need to do more for small businesses. So much misinformation has gone out to small businesses. We need to continue to work on accurate information on what they need to do provide insurance for themselves and their own employees as well.”
In her closing remarks, Baldwin said there’s been an ideological attack on entitlement culture in recent months, with the implication that those who use government programs are greedy or lazy. However, she said, “we should feel entitled to health care. In the United States of America, health care should be a right guaranteed to all, not a privilege for the few.”
Read Thursday’s inBrief for more from Families USA’s Health Action 2013 conference.
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12 Comments
Posted by: VickF | February 11, 2013 7:59 AM
Has anyone checked to see how universal health care is working in other countries such as Canada? With universal healthcare, the quality of care goes down. I know of people in other countries who do have universal healthcare that take out a private healthcare policy because of the lack of quality care. I don't want to be on universal healthcare and develop cancer and die before I can get in to see a doctor....
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Posted by: VickF | February 11, 2013 7:59 AM
Has anyone checked to see how universal health care is working in other countries such as Canada? With universal healthcare, the quality of care goes down. I know of people in other countries who do have universal healthcare that take out a private healthcare policy because of the lack of quality care. I don't want to be on universal healthcare and develop cancer and die before I can get in to see a doctor....
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Posted by: pat145 | February 8, 2013 9:21 AM
There has always been universal healthcare in this country. The issue is universal health insurance. Having insurance companies cover someone with a pre-existing condition is like having the auto insurance company provide a policy after the car crash! What is wrong with everyone?? Who is going to pay for all of this? Most likely, the hardworking Americans who now pay. If taxes are raised much higher than they are currently, we won't have to worry about the poor people who make minimum wage. We'll all be taking home so little that we'll all be on the government dole! And that's what the liberals are shooting for. . .
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Posted by: msmox | February 7, 2013 9:56 AM
Baldwin and Stabenow don't acknowledge the high cost of health care is due to government interference in the health care/insurance market. As always, the rationale is "doing good" but in fact these laws cause more harm and raise costs more than they do "good". The government takeover of health care should outrage any person who values individual rights under the rule of law. Numbers don't lie but Obama and the dupes who passed Obamacare do. Projected premium costs are skyrocketing and the very people Obamacare was designed to help will be priced out of the market. The answer is not more control by bureaucrats whose main interest is in keeping their job, but freeing the market to competition for your money. Without government mandates, insurers can write any sort of policy if there is a demand for it.
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Posted by: inmyopinion | February 7, 2013 9:50 AM
I agree with "insuru" - why are we the only industrialized nation that doesn't see the need for universal healthcare. Whether it be children or senior citizens, there should be assessable healthcare. I have been told by employers that coverage for children is less expensive than coverage for just the spouse since children don't have the conditions that older people have. What about juvenile diabetes, obesity, asthma, etc. Seems to me All individuals can suffer from any one of these conditions & your income should not be a factor in treating any medical condition.
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Posted by: inmyopinion | February 7, 2013 9:49 AM
I agree with "insuru" - why are we the only industrialized nation that doesn't see the need for universal healthcare. Whether it be children or senior citizens, there should be assessable healthcare. I have been told by employers that coverage for children is less expensive than coverage for just the spouse since children don't have the conditions that older people have. What about juvenile diabetes, obesity, asthma, etc. Seems to me All individuals can suffer from any one of these conditions & your income should not be a factor in treating any medical condition.
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Posted by: Pat C. | February 6, 2013 8:09 PM
So I expect they also favor raising the tax rate over 60%...Based on everything reported the Fed is back peddeling because they are so drastically under funded...I guess they see $4000.00 deductibles and $8000.00 out of pockets as affordable....Just more people who need to be fired next election season!
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Posted by: Herb G | February 6, 2013 5:22 PM
Bill H is exactly right. They have understanding of the the cost associated with it. I wonder if those 2 "ladies have read that miserable piece of legislation. I would really love for one of them to stand in a room full of blue collar folks and explain Obamacare to them. They'd get strung up.
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Posted by: insuru | February 6, 2013 4:27 PM
Not all liberals are spending other people's money. There are countries outside the US that mandate health insurance. The cost is uniform per person and coverage is through private carriers. If minimum wage were not so low, there wouldn't be so many poor people. Even if were $10 per hour it would hardly be enough to live on. Could you support your family on $400 per week? That's why we need government aid in the mix. Not being able to buy insurance because of preexisting conditions has nothing to do with poverty.
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Posted by: Wisconsin Benefits Pro | February 6, 2013 4:20 PM
Seems Bill and GMiller are part of the push-back, and have not had to go without employer-provided(?) health insurance or they would understand. Cost is a different problem, driven largely by "fee for service" billing and, unfortunately, often by end of life medical heroics.
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Posted by: GMiller | February 6, 2013 4:11 PM
Is this supposed to be news? Debbie Stabenow? How funny!
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Posted by: Bill H | February 6, 2013 4:03 PM
I get the feeling that liberals have no idea what so ever of the concept of cost. When you spend your entire life spending someone elses money the idea of cost just doesn't compute. How about if the governament just issues every person a check for a million dollars? Just like that all poverty is over, the economy booms and the uninsured can now afford to buy health insurance. See how easy it is to fix things when you remove cost from the equation.
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