AMERICAN MEDICAL NEWS: STAKEHOLDERS START OFFERING THEIR OWN PROPOSALS FOR HEALTH REFORM

The Health Reform Dialogue, a coalition of physicians, hospitals, nurses, employers, consumers, business owners, insurers and others, formed about six months ago to search for common ground on health reform. The group, which includes the American Medical Association, on March 27 released a five-page report. It states that although some issues continue to “elude consensus,” the group has agreed to several principles:

1.  All Americans should purchase or otherwise obtain health insurance;

2.  There should be a reform of the Medicare payment system to promote better prevention and care coordination; and

3.  The government should mandate a minimum Medicaid eligibility for adults of 100% of the federal poverty level, among other provisions. 

Insurers offered to stop using a person’s health status to base individual premiums or to deny health insurance coverage. In return, the companies are calling on Congress to require everyone to have health insurance and abandon Obama’s national public health plan idea.  The nurse associations, however, support a government-run single-payer health system. 

Obama said he understands that some Americans want a single-payer system.  He also agrees that America’s public-private health system might not be the best, but he rejected the call to scrap it. “Rather, what I think we should do is to build on the system we have and fill some of these gaps.”

Question to the Blogosphere:  How should the United States reconcile the need to keep insurance companies solvent and the need for all Americans to have a basic level of health care?  Do you think it is a human right to have access to health care?  Should health insurance be mandatory for all Americans?