From Howard Dean.
"Families could use the credit for Medicaid or State Children's Health Insurance Programs, employer coverage, or if employer coverage is not available, for the same plan that members of Congress have. "
Lets see expand medicaid and SCHIP, make insurance more affordable for employers, and allow people to have access to congressional plan.
Gosh I wonder where CLark got such good and "doable" ideas?
Text Prepared for Presentation by
Governor Howard Dean
May 13, 2003
Columbia University
http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=policy_speech_health_columbia...
We’ll help families get health insurance, and help small businesses provide it to their employees. And we’ll ensure that those large companies that avoid their responsibility to provide insurance lose some of the special tax breaks and benefits that Congress has given them.
Let me tell you how we’ll do it by describing what my plan means for four groups: for children, for working families, for small businesses and for large employers. I will walk you through the details in the question and answer session to follow.
First, and most important, we’ll extend health coverage to every uninsured child and young adult up to age 25.
To do this, we’ll redefine and expand two essential Federal/State programs Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program.Right now, they only offer coverage to children from lower income families.
Under my plan, we cover all kids and young adults up to age 25. Not just low income people, but middle class people, too.
Doing this will give 11.5 million more kids and young adults access to the health care they need.
Access to immunizations. Access to preventive care. Access to better, healthier lives.
We made this happen in Vermont and we can make it happen for the rest of America, too.
Second, we’ll give a leg up to working families struggling to afford health insurance.
We’ll make adults earning up to 185 percent of the poverty level eligible for coverage by making the children’s health program the Families and Children Health Insurance Program. By doing this, an additional 11.8 million more people will have access to the care they need.A lot of working families have incomes that put them beyond the help offered by government programs. That doesn’t mean, though, that they have an affordable health care option.
We'll establish a health insurance plan that they can buy into, providing coverage identical to what members of Congress and federal employees receive.To cushion the costs, we’ll also offer a significant tax credit to those with high premium costs. By doing this, another 5.5 million adults will have access to care.
Third, we need to recognize that one key to universal health care is making health care affordable to small businesses.We have to agree that we can't turn our back on the employer-based system we have now.
But, by the same token, we shouldn't simply throw money at it, either.
Instead, we need to modernize it so employers will have an option beyond passing rising costs on to workers or bailing out of the system entirely.
And modernizing it begins by modeling it on this country's best example of efficient, affordable and user-friendly health care coverage: it's the one I mentioned a moment ago; the federal employee health system.
With my plan, we'll organize a system identical to the one federal workers and members of Congress have. And we’ll enable all employers with less than 50 workers to join it at rates lower than are currently available to these companies-- provided they insure their workforce.I'd also offer employers a deal: the federal government will pick up 70 percent of COBRA premiums, but we'll expect employers to pay the cost of extending coverage for an additional two months.
Two months may not sound like a long time, but we know that those two months are often the difference between workers finding the health coverage they need, or joining the ranks of the uninsured.
This is a sensible way to help small business afford to offer health care to their employees.
Finally, a word about corporate responsibility
There are a lot of corporations today that could provide health care to their employees but choose not to. This is unfair, because ultimately it's the public who pays every time our health care system is used by someone who doesn't have the insurance.
We pay in the form of increased hospital costs, higher physician fees and bigger insurance premiums.
That's why the final element of my plan is a clear, strong message to corporate America that providing health coverage is fundamental to being a good corporate citizen.
I look at business tax deductions as part of a compact between American taxpayers and corporate America. We give businesses certain benefits, and expect them to live up to certain responsibilities.
One of those responsibilities is this: if you operate a business that can afford to pay its executives large salaries and provide them with generous bonuses and benefits, then you ought to be prepared to pay for health insurance for your employees.
If you are not, we’re not going to give you the same generous tax benefits we’re giving to those businesses that are providing health insurance to their workers.This is not a mandate. In fact, you won’t find significant mandates in my plan. That will only lead to another decade without coverage for 41 million Americans.
The plan I’ve laid out for you today to cover all children, to make insurance affordable to working families and small businesses, and to ensure that large employers who can afford to are providing coverage is not simply a health care plan. It’s an important part of my economic plan as well.
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