This is supposed to be an inspiring story about how a grassroots coalition, headed by an impressive number of progressive organizations, is taking on the insurance industry to fight for a plan that guarantees health care to all U.S. citizens.
I would like to be inspired by Health Care for America Now. Post author Alexander Zaitchik describes HCAN as
an umbrella organization launched in July to win a "guarantee of quality, affordable health care for all" by the end of 2009. ACORN is one of 16 groups on the HCAN steering committee, which is a veritable Who's Who of progressive grassroots, netroots, and labor groups, including USAction, MoveOn, SEIU and the AFL-CIO. Four months after launching with a press conference in the National Press Building, HCAN now consists of more than 500 organizations and boasts the backing of the president-elect, his incoming chief of staff and 151 Democratic members of Congress, among them leading progressives and "pro-business" Blue Dogs alike.
Unfortunately, Zaitchik's article provides no specific information about what this plan would actually do.
So I visited healthcareforamericanow.org to find out what they're up to. The main page is devoted to getting us to sign up for HCAN and to electronically contact Congress to support their program. It's the kind of website that makes me irritable. Looks like they want us all to march along with them like good little soldiers without understanding exactly what we're supporting. But clicking the "about us" link brought up this explanation:
We're offering a bold new solution that gives you real choice and a guarantee of quality coverage you can afford: keep your current private insurance plan, pick a new private insurance plan, or join a public health insurance plan.
We're also calling for regulation on health insurance companies. We need to set and enforce rules that quash health insurance companies' greed once and for all. There is a huge divide between our plan and the insurance companies' plan for healthcare reform. We want to make sure you have the quality coverage you need at the price you can afford. They want to leave you alone to fend for yourself in the unregulated, bureaucratic health insurance market.
Our plan is affordable for people and business. Their plan is profitable for them. With no regulation, health insurance companies can and will charge whatever they want, set high deductibles, and continue to drop coverage when you get sick. Now is the time to pick a side. Which side are you on?
If you follow that last link, you will get the impression that there are two and only two positions available, either to support HCAN or the leave the system as it is. Of course, there is at least one more option, that of a single-payer health care system. Common Dreams posted this Los Angeles Times article that points out that in the growing consensus over healthcare reform, single-payer is exactly what's being left out of the discussion.
The good folks at HCAN could argue that their program would be a significant improvement over the existing mess. They might argue that enacting single-payer health care is politically impossible at this point. They might argue that the option of allowing citizens to sign up for a government-sponsored insurance program could eventually lead to single-payer insurance. It's even possible that they would be right about all of those things. But they're not saying any of those things. Instead, HCAN's goal seems to be to ignore or even squelch the discussion. In doing that, they've failed to win my support.
As a healthy alternative, I encourage folks to check out Physicians for a National Health Program.
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