Americans want universal healthcare, says Congress-appointed committee
Even Republicans are starting to get the message. America’s healthcare system is in crisis and getting worse. It seems the abominable Medicare drug bill of 2003 also created a commission to look into what Americans want for healthcare. This commission’s conclusion: universal health coverage.
The federal government should guarantee that all Americans have basic health insurance coverage, says a committee set up by Congress to find out what people want when it comes to health care.
“Assuring health care is a shared social responsibility,” says the interim report of the Citizens’ Health Care Working Group, a 14-member committee that went to 50 communities and heard from 23,000 people.
While the committee doesn’t say how this coverage should be funded, what they do say is interesting, even amazing, given the committee’s origins:
George Grob, the executive director of the Citizens’ Health Care Working Group, said the group was not asked to say specifically how to get to universal coverage. However, the group did recommend that financing strategies be based on principles of fairness and shared responsibility. The strategies should draw on revenue streams such as enrollee contributions, income taxes, so-called “sin taxes” and payroll taxes, the report said.
“We’re already paying for health care for everybody who gets it, including people who don’t have health insurance coverage who are taken care of when they go to the hospital,” Grob said.
The group’s stated values and principals were as important as the recommendations, Grob said. Those principals said all Americans should have a set of health coverage benefits guaranteed by law. Those benefits should be “portable and independent of health status, working status, age (and) income,” the report said.
Add comment June 10th, 2006