Dear Auggie:
Thank you for contacting me regarding health care. I appreciate you taking the time to share your concerns with me.
I agree with you that our health care system is broken, and I also agree that we cannot wait any longer to fix it. As you know, Congress is in the final stages of preparing comprehensive health care reform legislation, and I have been actively involved in this process. Although the details of this legislation have not been finalized, you should know that I strongly support the inclusion of a public plan option and I oppose any arbitrary "trigger" provision that might be attached to this plan.
Since this debate began, I have received hundreds of emails and letters on all sides of this issue. There is widespread agreement that something must be done. But as is usually the case when making public policy, the devil is in the details. Changing our health care system will be very difficult, and much compromise will be necessary. No one will get everything they want and after it is done there will be more reform to do.
One proposal is to move to a single-payer system, which has been introduced in the House by Representative John Conyers (D-MI) as H.R. 676. On June 10, the Education and Labor Committee, one of the three committees leading the efforts to craft health care reform legislation in the House, held a hearing to consider this bill and hear from experts supporting and opposing this bill. There are interesting arguments to be made on both sides, but, the reality is that there is not enough support across our country or in Congress to pass such a plan. The American people want access to quality health care but are most concerned with being able to afford it and if they already have coverage most don't want to lose their current plan.
We need to make sure that people who are happy with the coverage they have can keep it. We need to make sure that the American people will be able to keep their doctors, and have a say in their health care decisions. But we must expand the options, so that Americans who don't like their plan, or don't have health care coverage, have an affordable choice. And we can't afford to wait for an arbitrary "trigger" to be pulled to put this reform into operation. If that is part of the bill, reform will likely never happen.
A public plan that provides true competition will be an important part of this reform. According to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a widely respected non-profit health policy research foundation, nearly two thirds of Americans agree with me that we need to make sure that all Americans have access to affordable health care by providing an alternative to the private insurance options that are on the market. We must ensure that every American has health care coverage, regardless of pre-existing conditions, and that we have adequate protections in place for the doctor-patient relationship. And we must also make sure that people can keep their coverage if they change jobs, get divorced, or their employer changes their options.
Reform won't be easy, but it is urgent that we act now to make sure that all Americans can access quality, affordable health care. For the families in our district, and families across the country who can't afford to go to the doctor, or can't afford the medicine they've been prescribed, it's more urgent than ever that we reform our broken health care system as quickly as possible.
Again, thank you for sharing your concerns with me. Please continue to contact me on all issues of importance to you and to our district.
Sincerely,
MIKE THOMPSON
Member of Congress
http://www.mikethompson.house.gov
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