OurFuture.org Blogs: Roger Hickey

Long before anyone had been nominated or elected, the voters of 2008 had gotten one message across loud and clear: Fix our dysfunctional health care system! For obvious reasons (and big reasons that aren't so obvious), the leaders of 2009 must heed that call.

Editor’s Note: “The 2008 election campaign is almost sure to be a health care election — even before we’ve done much organizing at all,” said America’s Future co-director Roger Hickey at a conference sponsored by New Jersey Citizen Action on November 13. “So imagine what will happen once we get going.”

In this keynote speech at the “Conference on Health Care for All: Real Solutions for New Jersey and the Nation” in New Brunswick, N.J., Hickey outlines what he sees as possible. read more »

One hundred and fifty-six House Members declared themselves enemies of children and families with this vote. read more »

The big news from Sen. Hillary Clinton’s Monday health care speech in Iowa is that she is going to make a campaign for health care for all — not just small changes but fundamental reform — a central element of her campaign for the White House.

Before the speech Jonathan Cohn was not the only health care reporter asking the question, “Will she flinch? . . . Would she settle on something less than universal coverage, figuring the political support for it was too weak?” She didn’t. She responded to the American majority clamoring for bold leadership to achieve health care for everyone.

Clinton would achieve universal coverage by offering an array of private insurance plans that meet the standards for benefits and premium costs set by the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program — the quality plan covering members of Congress and other federal workers. And she would also offer a public health care plan similar to Medicare.

All of these plans would be portable through life changes, such as when you leave or lose a job. Employers would be required to provide their employees health insurance or pay into a fund to defray the cost of covering those employees. (Small businesses with fewer than 25 employees would be exempt, while getting tax breaks to encourage them to offer coverage.) All Americans would be able to buy into any one of the available private insurance or public plans — with a graduated system of tax credits designed to make sure that no one pays more than an (unspecified) reasonable percentage of their income on health premiums.

It is no coincidence that the basic elements are similar to those already proposed by her main presidential primary competitors. The “ideas primary” between the candidates has been shaped in part by our unique effort — chronicled in this blog all year — to engage the candidates around Yale Professor Jacob Hacker’s progressive health care plan, “Health Care for America.” read more »

Americans want big changes in our heath care system. And now Michael Moore's great new film, "SiCKO," is helping to turn a desire for change into a crusade for change.

Now breaking box office records in its second week in theaters, "SiCKO" conveys powerfully emotional stories of Americans trapped in a system controlled by insurance and drug companies that deny care and destroy lives in order to maintain their profits. We walk into the movie house as individuals with our particular gripes about the health care system. And we walk out wanting to be part of a national movement for health care for all. For example, read this great account of how spontaneous organizing literally occurred in the theater lobby—at a Dallas, Texas suburban cineplex.

So, what kind of movement should we be building? read more »

The following post is a part of this week's TPMCafe B read more »

The following post is a part of this week's TPMCafe Book Club group discussion of the new book "Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis -- and the People Who Pay the Price" by Jonathan Cohn.

Individuals, like those profiled in "Sick," experience the health care crisis in many ways. But is there a explanatory diagnosis for why the health care system is not serving them?

Perhaps some people think the problem is not enough careful tinkering with the system we have. But increasingly, the diagnosis that makes the most sense will focus on the structural failures of the private health insurance industry.

If insurance companies make their profits by denying care, refusing to cover people who are expensive, spending more money on advertising than they do on wellness, and just passing along increased health costs, then the public may decide that tinkering with the private health insurance system (and subsidizing and regulating them to do what their business plan doesn't allow them to do) is not the way to go.

So I'm betting that the public, making the diagnosis that the private insurance industry is a key part of the problem, is unlikely to be impressed by tinkering.

And many experts and commentators (who do think in their heart of hearts that single payer is the way to go) may be surprised that the public won't see "regional buying pools" and individual mandates as giving them the kinds of guaranteed coverage the system doesn't currently offer.

This promises to be an exciting discussion. Many of us who think single-payer is the right direction have thought long and hard about step-by-step ways to get there.

Jacob Hacker's plan, recently published by EPI, is structured to allow lots of choice -- including ways to let Harry and Louise keep the private health plans they now have if they like them.

But the big question is the one Jonathan asks here: will tinkering, even at an ambitious scale, get us a health care system that covers everyone, affordably, and with the kinds of structural arrangements that can begin the reorganization of the health care system to control the spiraling health care costs our economy is now facing?