OFA Fighting Opposition
Obama’s ‘Organizing for America’ aims to push back against health reform opposition in Iowa
By Jason Hancock 8/10/09 12:05 PM
As lawmakers return to their districts to face angry crowds organized, in part, by conservative groups looking to derail health reform legislation, the network of supporters who helped elect President Barack Obama are working to counter the opposition and make sure advocates turn out to town hall meetings.
Organizing for America, the successor to President Obama’s 2008 campaign machine, is asking its supporters to visit the district offices of their local members of Congress to urge support for health care reform. They are also holding meetings, looking for supporters willing to attend health care forums to counter the well-publicized efforts of conservatives who aim to disrupt the events.
Bob Zientara of The Ames Tribune reports that around 25 people, including Story County Democratic Party Chair Jan Bauer and former 4th District Congressional candidate Becky Greenwald, attended a meeting on Sunday with Organizing for America staff at the Ames Library.
In an e-mail to individuals on the group’s massive voter list, Mitch Stewart, director of Organizing for America, warns that “insurance companies and partisan attack groups are stirring up fear with false rumors” about Obama’s plan.
“As you’ve probably seen in the news, special interest attack groups are stirring up partisan mobs with lies about health reform, and it’s getting ugly,” he writes. “Across the country, members of Congress who support reform are being shouted down, physically assaulted, hung in effigy, and receiving death threats. We can’t let extremists hijack this debate, or confuse Congress about where the people stand.”
Protesters in recent weeks have disrupted forums held by legislators in their congressional districts. Critics of the protests describe them as “astroturf, ” or fake grassroots, motivated by the insurance industry and its lobbyists. Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin was the latest lawmaker to face an angry crowd when he discussed health care reform in Des Moines Saturday.
Sen Keiser, Rep Cody Op-Ed
GUEST COMMENTARY / HEALTH CARE REFORM
Don’t buy scare tactics; reformed health care will cost less
Now that Congress is in August recess, those who want to maintain the health care status quo have gone into overdrive to derail reform efforts before a single proposal can be voted on by the full House and Senate. The tactics are old and tired — scare and confuse the public with distortions and half-truths so nothing gets done.
You’re bound to hear the line that the Obama administration is moving too fast on health reform. The truth is the issue has gone unresolved since the 1900s, when Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Party included it as part of its platform. It’s easy to say “just slow down” when you have health coverage and your body hasn’t betrayed you. But if you’re one of the estimated 46 million uninsured Americans just one illness away from financial ruin, reform can’t come soon enough.
And having insurance doesn’t protect you anymore, either. Statistics show that roughly 62 percent of personal bankruptcies are caused by medical problems, and 78 percent of the people who filed for bankruptcy had health insurance. We challenge the critics to look those people in the eye and tell them health reform can wait.
Critics also denounce projected reform costs that could top $1 trillion over the next decade. Sure, we’re talking about a lot of money, but naysayers fail to mention that our current system costs $2.2 trillion a year to stay afloat. If we don’t act now, health care spending is projected to grow to $3.1 trillion in 2012 and $4.3 trillion by 2016. That means doing nothing will cost us more than four times as much as the cost of reform.
There’s no magic bullet to controlling costs, but better health information technology, preventive care and disease management show promise. Those are issues we have worked hard to address here in Washington, and we believe any federal plan should allow states to continue to build on existing state reform efforts.
The 2009 Legislature passed Senate Bill 5346, which requires insurance companies to adopt uniform standards and forms. And our state’s first-in-the-nation Health Technology Assessment program, created in 2006, established an independent, clinical committee to determine which medical treatments are safe and effective and provide good value to patients. In two years, the program has conducted empirical reviews of 10 treatments, including arthroscopic knee surgery and virtual colonoscopy. As a result of the program, the state has saved $21 million in unnecessary and potentially harmful care. Annualized savings exceed $27 million.
Several state agencies also participate in the Statewide Prescription Drug program that uses unbiased evidence reports and an independent, clinical committee to determine the most effective drugs. So far, the state’s top 28 drug classes have been reviewed, saving an estimated $55 million in 2008 alone.
Those are just some of the reforms we’ve been working on, but no state can afford to tackle this problem alone. We need the federal government to lead the way in replacing our outdated and inefficient health care delivery system with one that honors our values and puts the physical and economic well-being of all Americans ahead of profit.
It’s estimated that 14,000 Americans lose their health care every day. That’s roughly the population of Centralia. This year, with the leadership of the Obama administration, we can reverse that trend and build a health care system that protects our choice of doctors and insurance programs, assures all Americans affordable health care, and reduces costs to make health care affordable for us all.
Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Kent, chairs the state Senate Health & Long-Term Care Committee. Rep. Eileen Cody, D-West Seattle, chairs the state House Health Care and Wellness Committee.
Tea-Baggers FAIL
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/4/761608/-Tea-Baggers-FAIL-to-disru
pt-Health-Care-meeting,-lessons-shared
Hatch, Bolkcom Guest Column
Guest column: Grassley should start listening to Iowans
As we head into August, a few Washington lawmakers are standing in the way of health-care reform that America desperately needs. While patients are denied crucial treatment and families go bankrupt from medical bills, Sen. Charles Grassley and a cadre of his Senate colleagues have provoked a stir by steadfastly refusing to support the most essential piece of President Barack Obama’s proposal: a public health-insurance option. We think it’s time for Grassley to start listening to Iowans and work with the president for real health-care reform.
A public health-insurance option would introduce much needed competition into the health-insurance market, extending quality care to as many as 300,000 Iowans, while providing incentives to insurance companies to offer their current customers a better deal. Unfortunately, in a July 30 Des Moines Register editorial, Grassley said he opposes giving Americans the choice of a public option “because it is a pathway to a completely government-run system.”
But, as Grassley knows, a public health-insurance option would not be set up like Medicare. In an August 4 editorial, the Register makes that clear: Medicare is almost fully subsidized, while the public option is funded by premiums and subsidized only for the lowest-income persons. A public health-insurance plan would give Americans more choices, not fewer.
In Iowa, just two companies, Wellmark (71 percent) and United Health Group (9 percent) control 80 percent of the market for health insurance. This near-monopoly has allowed them to set unreasonable terms that have left close to 300,000 Iowans uninsured, and thousands more strapped with high costs. With a public health-insurance plan, as many as 81 percent of those people would gain access to affordable care. And for those who like their current health-insurance coverage, Obama has consistently said you can keep it.
The cost of doing nothing is unsustainable.
Here in Iowa, we’ve seen firsthand the devastating effects the monopolistic health-insurance industry has had on our state. From 2000 to 2007, Iowans saw their premiums skyrocket by 73 percent, almost four times faster than their earnings. According to a recent report by the New America Foundation, called “The Cost of Doing Nothing,” health-insurance premiums will climb out of control from roughly $4,500 today to more than $7,600 (76 percent increase) by 2016.
The average deductible in Iowa will also reach nearly $3,300 by 2016 - almost doubling the amount Iowa residents will have to spend before their insurance begins to pay for their medical care. Families will have to spend more than $21,500, or 39 percent of median household income to buy insurance.
And it’s not just the numbers that scream out for reform. Every week, we hear more horror stories from constituents who have been denied coverage for urgently needed care and from small businesses that can’t keep up with the costs of insuring their employees.
We have struggled in Iowa for the past few years for solutions. We are proud of the bipartisan efforts we have made to provide access to health-insurance coverage for all Iowa children. We now need a strong federal partner to address care for all adults and under-insured Iowans.
Many of us in the Iowa Legislature recognize what a difference a public health-insurance option would make to constituents without insurance and those seeking more affordable and better coverage. That’s why more than 50 of our Iowa colleagues have signed on in support of the national reform efforts being led by Obama. Almost 1,000 state legislators from all 50 states, have joined this movement.
The drumbeat for reform is loud and getting louder. Two out of three Americans (New York Times/CBS Poll, July 2009) support a government-sponsored, public health-insurance plan to compete with private health-insurance plans. A majority of Iowans also are clamoring for change.
The president told us during his campaign that health-care reform would not be easy, and that he could not do it alone. The will of Iowans and the rest of America is marching steadily toward reform. We hope Grassley will listen to Iowans and be on the right side of health-care-reform history.
Star Tribune - Representative Huntley on Health Reform
Duluth DFLer in health reform spotlight
KEVIN DUCHSCHERE, Star Tribune
As debate rages over President Obama’s plans to reform health care, a low-key Duluth medical professor who presides over health care debates at the Minnesota State Capitol has assumed an uncommonly high profile in some rarefied national circles.
State Rep. Tom Huntley, one of the Legislature’s most influential voices on health care, was among a coalition of legislators from around the country who this week convinced the influential National Conference of State Legislatures to back the public health insurance option that is key to Obama’s health care reform strategy.
The group’s approval of that policy Thursday was a quick counterpoint to strong concerns raised last weekend at the National Governors Association meeting about the potential cost to states of Obama’s plans.
“I want to give the president as much clout as we can” by backing the embattled public option, Huntley said from the legislators’ weeklong meeting in Philadelphia.
Then, just last month, Huntley was the lone Minnesotan among legislators from 22 states who were summoned to the White House to discuss health care with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and health reform czar Nancy-Ann DeParle.
He has been asked to form a White House working group on health care reform in Minnesota to collaborate with similar groups in other Midwestern states in funneling ideas to the Obama administration.
Those meetings have left Huntley optimistic that change will happen on the federal level.
“It seems to me that the [U.S.] House is going to pass something and the [U.S.] Senate is going to pass something, and the president is going to weigh in on the conference committee,” he said.
Before that happens, the 16-year DFL House veteran himself hopes to influence the debate and achieve his long-held goal of improving health care while containing costs.
It is an effort that has proven slow and difficult in Minnesota, consuming Huntley’s attention as chair of a Health Care Finance Committee and co-chair last year of a state health care reform task force.
But his ideas are resonating in a solution-hungry Washington dominated by Democrats in the White House and Congress. The best way to cut costs, Huntley says, is to reward doctors for keeping people healthy rather than just for treating them when they’re already sick. Replace fee-for-service, he says, with payment for outcomes and performance.
“My biggest interest is payment reform, because you can’t really change the health care system unless you change the way you pay for it,” he said.
‘Not an ideologue’
The St. Paul native with a Ph.D. in biochemistry has taught at the University of Minnesota Duluth medical school since 1973.
He served on the Duluth City Council and as commissioner of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority before defeating a Republican incumbent for the House in 1992. Huntley wins most reelection battles by landslides.
“He’s taught doctors for 30 years, so he comes at health care with a unique perspective and an understanding of how doctors make their decisions in different parts of the country,” said Mary Rosenthal, director of special projects at Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare Minnesota, which represents 14,000 health care workers in the state.
Huntley is an advocate of “medical homes” — a system of coordinating care for patients, especially those with costly chronic conditions, under the direction of a single primary care doctor. Such a system would eliminate duplicative services and cut back on expensive specialists.
That represents Huntley’s largely pragmatic approach to the health care debate, said state Rep. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, who is vice chair of Huntley’s Health Care Finance Committee. Huntley and state Sen. Linda Berglin, chair of the Senate’s Health Budget Committee, have long been key players in the state’s health care debates, Abeler said.
Huntley is “thoughtful and open to suggestions — he just wants it to work. He’s not an ideologue,” Abeler said.
Although Huntley supported a public option at the state legislators meeting this week, his personal preference leans toward health care co-ops — nonprofits owned by consumers to provide care to families and small businesses.
After the economy, health care is the next top concern at the conference this week, Huntley said.
“Almost everyone [here] understands that if we don’t transform the health care system, our economy is not going to be competitive with other countries,” he said.
“Everyone agrees that we have to do this and we have to do it quickly.”
Kevin Duchschere • 651-292-0164
