Posted on 06/19/2002 9:19:19 AM PDT by Jean S
WASHINGTON, June 18 (UPI) -- Sen. Edward Kennedy said Tuesday he intends to rekindle the national debate over healthcare by introducing new legislation to expand the ranks of the insured and help trim healthcare costs, adding he will also introduce legislation calling for universal insurance coverage by the end of the year.
Speaking at the National Press Club, Kennedy, D-Mass., said fighting terrorism and ensuring homeland security are important, but "we cannot afford to neglect the health care crisis that affects many millions of our fellow citizens."
Thirty-nine million Americans now have no health insurance and 30 million more will lack coverage for an extended period of time over the course of the year, Kennedy said. The number of uninsured could rise to 52 million by the end of the decade if nothing is done, he added.
"In my view," Kennedy said, "we must act on three major fronts -- to reduce the shameful plight of the uninsured, to bring health costs down, and to enact a long overdue prescription drug benefit in Medicare."
To reduce the number of uninsured, Kennedy said he introduced the Health Care for Working Families Act to the Senate on Tuesday. It would require every company with more than 100 employees to provide health insurance coverage to its employees and dependents. "This measure alone would assure coverage for more than a third of today's uninsured workers," he said.
The legislation would help pave the way for universal health care coverage, he added.
Using 100 employees as the cutoff is "not going to do much good or much harm," Tom Miller, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, told United Press International.
Almost all employers that large are already offering health insurance coverage, he said, but the legislation could be used by Congress to get a foothold to mandate health insurance coverage.
The next stage would be to require specifics about the type of health insurance offered, Miller said. This is "a very bad idea," Miller said. "I don't think it's going very far in the immediate future."
To reduce healthcare costs, Kennedy also introduced the Efficiency in Health Care Act. The bill would require health providers and insurers to utilize internet-based methods of bill processing, which could reduce administrative costs and "save enough to finance universal healthcare several times over," Kennedy said.
A major pitfall of the bill is it would be difficult to protect the confidentiality and privacy of healthcare records as soon as they have been placed on the Internet, Miller said.
Kennedy raised the issue for a prescription drug benefit under Medicare for seniors and criticized plans put forth by President Bush and congressional Republicans as offering "meager and inadequate benefits."
Legislation introduced by House and Senate Democrats, the Graham-Miller-Kennedy bill, by contrast, would provide "senior citizens the prescription drug coverage they deserve," Kennedy said. It would guarantee every senior citizen "affordable, comprehensive, reliable prescription drug coverage under Medicare."
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has promised the Senate will consider the legislation before the August recess, Kennedy said.
Miller said the Graham bill was more expensive than the Republican plans and doubted it would pass. He added Congress is "moving towards a bad drug benefit in the future because a better one does not exist."
"Later this year," Kennedy continued, "I will introduce a new program to provide quality coverage for every American, wherever they work, wherever they live."
Kennedy said the details of the legislation have not yet been worked out but it would involve mandatory private coverage for workers, insurance through public and private programs and assistance for low-wage small businesses.
That he'd still have a platform for his drivel is the real disgrace.
And how much internal strife will it cause amongst DemonRats who want to avoid at all costs it being called Hillary-Care II?
I hope he does. Then we will Hillary on record when she runs for president.
Why shouldn't he. After all he has a president in office now he!! bent on being more of a socialist big spender than commie-Ted.
Please! Neglect me! I cannot afford any more "Federal help."
"Thirty-nine million Americans now have no health insurance and 30 million more will lack coverage for an extended period of time over the course of the year, Kennedy said. The number of uninsured could rise to 52 million by the end of the decade if nothing is done, he added."
Thirty-nime million is considerably up from the pre-Kennedy Kasselbaum figure, and is a result of that next step in domination of the Health Care industry by the Federal Government. Kennedy's goal is the complete collapse of the private health insurance industry, so that the Democrat party can achieve permanent dominant status through it's control of the "Universal Health Care System." This is a result of 35+ years of Federal Legislation, undermining the most successful health care system in the world, and bringing about an inefficient and grossly wasteful and high cost "single payer" system. If this is instituted, there precipitous rise in taxation, and the decline in the quality of health care in this country will be irreversible, and devastating. The enormous problems England and Canada have with their broken socialist health care boondoggles, are but a glimpse of the titanic failure an American Socialized Medicine system would become. Don't let it happen, or you will suffer in ways you haven't even imagined yet.
heh heh. And gets bouquets here on FR for brilliant strategy, for stealing yet another issue from the libs.
I have no doubt socialized medicine is coming. Third party pay exploitation resulting in high prices the free market will not bring down, senior citizens' voting power with prescription drugs costs depleting their fixed incomes -- it's coming.
So Bush could get credit for stealing the issue from the Dems, and little blame, since it was inevitably going to be enacted anyway.
Interesting take we have on Conservatism these days.
Not long. AMA News recently had an article on the "Jackson Hole Group" who had been the 'brain' trust behind Hillary Care and who had dropped from sight in disgrace after it crashed and burned. They are back and are again publicly pushing for national health care. I took that be a good sign Hillary wanted to run and was trying to bring back her signature issue.
Universal healthcare is a scam proposal to take more pay from healthy workers and use it to bolster the failing medicare and medicaid programs.
There are solutions to healthcare insurance but solutions are not sought after. What is sought and pursued is the next plank of socialism, a control system over every aspect of one's life.
It's all about control, not health.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson
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