Nurses Join President Obama’s Call for Reform, House Unveils Bill and Senate HELP Committee Passes Plan

This afternoon President Obama was joined by Becky Patton, President of the American Nurses Association, Chairman George Miller (D-CA), Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) and others as he delivered remarks about health care reform in the Rose Garden. The President praised nurses for their work and urged the House and Senate to keep making progress and pass their versions of health care reform before the August recess.

Yesterday the three committees working on a health care in the house (Energy & Commerce, Education & Labor, and Ways & Means) released a full draft of their legislation, H.R. 3200 the “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act”. Here’s a round up on the bill from the New York Times. The bill supports President Obama’s three principles for reform, includes a public option, and would cover 97 percent of Americans. The House pays for the bill by identifying $500 billion savings over 10 years and through a surcharge on the wealthiest Americans.

Then today, the Senate HELP Committee passed it’s version of reform (first released a couple of weeks ago) on party lines, 13 to 10. Like the House bill, HELP’s version of the legislation requires Americans to obtain health insurance and would help people who couldn’t afford it on their own. It also requires employers of a certain size to provide insurance to their employees, or pay a fee to the government. It stops insurance companies from denying coverage based on a pre-existing condition, establishes a health insurance exchange (where people can compare and contrast plans and pick the one that’s right for them) and includes a public option.

Here’s an excerpt from the President’s remarks from earlier today:

On nurses:

"…When both my daughters were born, the obstetrician was one of our best friends, but we saw her for about 10 minutes in each delivery. The rest of the time what we saw were nurses who did an incredible amount of work in not only taking care of Michelle but also caring for a nervous husband and then later for a couple of fat little babies.

“So I know how important nurses are, and the nation does too. Nurses aren't in health care to get rich. Last I checked, they're in it to care for all of us, from the time they bring a new life into this world to the moment they ease the pain of those who pass from it. If it weren't for nurses, many Americans in underserved and rural areas would have no access to health care at all.

And that's why it's safe to say that few understand why we have to pass reform as intimately as our nation's nurses. They see firsthand the heartbreaking costs of our health care crisis. They hear the same stories that I've heard across this country -- of treatment deferred or coverage denied by insurance companies; of insurance premiums and prescriptions that are so expensive they consume a family's entire budget; of Americans forced to use the emergency room for something as simple as a sore throat just because they can't afford to see a doctor."

On the House and Senate Bills:

"…Yesterday, the House introduced its health reform proposal. Today, thanks to the unyielding passion and inspiration of our friend Ted Kennedy, and to the bold leadership of Senator Chris Dodd, the Senate HELP Committee reached a major milestone by passing a similarly strong proposal for health reform. It's a plan that was debated for more than 50 hours and that, by the way, includes 160 Republican amendments -- a hopeful sign of bipartisan support for the final product, if people are serious about bipartisanship.

Both proposals will take what's best about our system today and make it the basis for our system tomorrow -- reducing costs, raising quality, and ensuring fair treatment of consumers by the insurance industry. Both include a health insurance exchange, a marketplace that will allow families and small businesses to compare prices, services, and the quality, so they can choose the plan that best suits their needs. And among the choices available would be a public health insurance option that would make health care more affordable by increasing competition, providing more choices, and keeping insurance companies honest. Both proposals will offer stability and security to Americans who have coverage today, and affordable options to those who don't."

On the momentum behind reform:

"…I just want to be clear: We are going to get this done. Becky and I were talking in the Oval Office. Becky just pointed out, we need to buck up people a little bit here. (Laughter.) And that's what nurses do all the time -- they buck up patients, sometimes they buck up some young resident who doesn't quite know what they're doing. (Laughter.) You look at Becky, you can tell she knows what she's doing. And what she's saying is it's time for us to buck up -- Congress, this administration, the entire federal government -- to be clear that we've got to get this done.

"Our nurses are on board. The American people are on board. It's now up to us. We can do what we've done for so long and defer tough decisions for another day -- or we can step up and meet our responsibilities. In other words, we can lead. We can look beyond the next news cycle and the next election to the next generation, and come together to build a system that works not just for these nurses, but for the patients they care for; for doctors and hospitals; for families and businesses -- and for our very future as a nation."

Comments (1) «

Becky Patton, President of the American Nurses Association, does not speak for all nurses. She certainly does not speak for me. When President Obama said, "Our nurses are on board." he was not talking about me, my wife, or thousands of other nurses who do not want to see this health care reform initiative turn into Government-run health care. With all due respect, the Federal Government can barely run itself. Health care is complicated, certainly above the pay grade of most of the professional politicians in Congress today.
I have had extensive experience consulting with an NHS Provider Trust in the UK, and I have seen first hand what Government-run health care is like. Becky probably has not had that experience, or she might not be on board either.
Regulation of health care insurance, malpractice/tort reform, outcomes-based reimbursement for clinicians, electronic health records, and incentives to encourage evidence-based medicine initiatives can all go a long way to improving health care and controlling costs. But a Government-payor system will flush all that down the hopper. To the extent that the proposed reforms take us down the road toward nationalized health care, they will simultaneously bring us that much closer to that hopper.

1

csledbetter on July 21, 2009 at 02:27 AM

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