The Stark Healthcare Plan (AmeriCare) - Anyone Know Much About It?

[BlooInBloo]

Just read up on it at Kos. Sounds good. In a nutshell, it extends coverage to everybody, while allowing those who wish it, to keep their current coverage. It utilizes existing Medicare infrastructure to help lower initial startup costs. There's a bunch more to it:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/7/739706/-Strong-Public-Option:-100-CoverageCost-Control

"For those who feel the need (I know, "it is the politically feasible thing to do") to keep the private for-profit insurance companies in business, and allow people to keep what they have if they prefer, but also offer the strongest version of public option, there has been a better bill available all along:

Representative Pete Stark's (chairman of the House Way and Means Health Subcommittee) H.R. 193, The Americare Health Insurance Act.

This proposal, unlike that of Obama/Baucus/Kennedy actually controls total costs while getting to truly 100% universal coverage, according to independent analysis by the Commonwealth Fund and Lewin Group. It is public option on steroids and single payer lite: The gist is that is expanded and improved Medicare for all, but you can keep the health insurance you have if you prefer. Unlike the public option proposals that the beltway insiders have decided to put forward, it really would be competitive with private insurance, and a chance to evolve into true single payer with the benefits therein.

Therefore, needless to say, it has been pretty much ignored by the serious people inside the beltway."



Costs versus Plan comparison:






Number of newly insured (48.9 million total possible):




Anybody know much about this? Is it truly a pretty good plan? Or is it one of those "too good to be true" kind of plans?

EDIT: And yes, I know it's not single payer. If all you wanna do is bitch and moan about that, go ahead. I'll likely not answer.

[sandnsea]

1. Well first, there is no Obama/Baucus/Kennedy plan

so the diarist is a propagandist or an idiot, or both.

Stark has been introducing this for years. I don't see anything different from what Kennedy just proposed. Kennedy's plan is based on payment on a Medicare plus 10% basis. There are a few things in it that are stupid, but it's not that bad of a starting place.

I think the country is full of misinformation and hatred and is really more interested in having ideological superiority than anything else.

[libertypirate]

2. Diarist is either a idiot or trying to keep some of the options off the table.

Why leave out the Conyer's plan?

H.R. 676, “The United States National Health Care Act,”
Or “Expanded & Improved Medicare For All”
Introduced by Rep. John Conyers, Jr.

Brief Summary of Legislation

The United States National Health Care Act (USNHC) establishes a unique American universal health insurance program with single payer financing. The bill would create a publicly financed, privately delivered health care system that improves and expands the already existing Medicare program to all U.S. residents, and all residents living in U.S. territories. The goal of the legislation is to ensure that all Americans will have access, guaranteed by law, to the highest quality and most cost effective health care services regardless of their employment, income or health care status. In short, health care becomes a human right. With 47 million uninsured Americans, and another 50 million who are underinsured, the time has come to change our inefficient and costly fragmented non-system of health care.

Who is Eligible

Every person living or visiting in the United States and the U.S. Territories would receive a United States National Health Insurance Card and ID number once they enroll at the appropriate location. Social Security numbers may not be used when assigning ID cards.

http://conyers.house.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Issues.Home&Issue_id=063b74a4-19b9-b4b1-126b-f67f60e05f8c

[msongs]

3. LOL is that another one of Conyers' "sternly worded letters"? CBC could

get behind that as well as getting others from the progressive caucus and start promoting it in their home districts, get a buzz going.

Stark and/or Conyers bills deserve a higher profile.

Msongs

[sandnsea]

4. Call me an idiot if you like

We Will Not Get Single Payer. That's likely why the diarist didn't mention Conyers' and other plans.

Fight like hell for single payer, I'd love the debate to be between single payer and a hybrid. But don't get mad at the hybrid people for trying to shift attention away from the right wing crap altogether.

[BlooInBloo]

7. I gave up trying to get Single Payer Or Bust people to think...

about the possibility that getting 80% of what you want in reality might be as good, or (GASP) even better than getting 100% of what you want in dreamland.

[Cleita]

16. I'm not saying that we might have to settle for it, but since nothing is written in

blood right now, aim for the highest.

[sandnsea]

19. pnhp.org

Local single payer people think we should all organize around that doctor group, give all our donations to them, so that they can take a full lead on single payer, advertising, the works.

[Cleita]

21. Before you disparage that group. They started studying the problem in

1986. They are doctors from Harvard, not some insurance publicists. I have followed them since 1998. They have changed their ideas during the years as studies came up correcting some of their ideas. They are not lobbyists for insurance companies or other entities. One of their original statements was that they really didn't like the government having a say in medical matters, but study after study finally made them come to the conclusion that government was the best vehicle for delivering the means to pay for comprehensive universal health care for everyone. They certainly don't want the government delivering health care and want health care to be in the private sector between doctors and their patients. The conclusion they came to is socialized payment but private health care. Also, the big problem they have is a middle man, the insurance companies and other health care corporate institutions coming between the patient and his doctor.

[sandnsea]

23. I was offering a suggestion

I'm capable of multitasking. It's unfortunate more people don't have that simple capability.

[Cleita]

25. Oh here comes the I'm so much better at this than you are. You just

want a fight. I'm not giving it to you. I have to save it for my Senators and Reps. Buh bye.

[sandnsea]

27. You read garbage into the post that wasn't there

Don't get mad at me. I am glad to hear you are going to fight your Senators and Reps. That's all I've been suggesting for a couple of weeks. We're going to need to fight for a solid public option, open enrollment - and as of last week, no trigger.

Now that Robert Reich says we need to fight for a public option - well now it's all different and of course all of DU never said anything different and never attacked me for suggesting we fight for the public option AND single payer.

Reality. I just want people to live in reality.

[Cleita]

15. They don't mention it because they know it's the plan that would work and

they don't want people getting those ideas. Anything that allows the insurance companies to offer basic health care is doomed to be expensive and inefficient. Every country in the world that has a successful health program does not allow insurance to offer basic care. They can offer additional care but not the core.

[Mojorabbit]

6. I may be wrong but I thought I read

that Kennedy's plan was employer based?

[sandnsea]

8. I have a shocking idea!!!!

Read Kennedy's plan! http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/06/05/download-the-kennedy-healthcare-bill-here/

I did do an outline, but honestly nothing is going to satisfy the cynics. Stark's plan allows people to keep their employer based insurance, how do you just fling that information right the fuck out of your head???

http://obama-mamas.com/blog/

[Mojorabbit]

13. Why don't you calm down

I did note I may have it wrong. I have read so many versions of plans, rumors of what is in plans, that it is starting to be a jumble. I did think it called for employers to furnish insurance to employees. If I am wrong a simple polite correction would have been nice instead of the attitude.

[sandnsea]

14. You can polite correction yourself into insanity

around here. It isn't heard.

The Americare has an employer shared responsibility too. Not to mention, the anlaysis is two years old.
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/Fund-Reports/2007/Mar/An-Analysis-of-Leading-Congressional-Health-Care-Bills--2005-2007--Part-I--Insurance-Coverage.aspx

Yes there are a lot of rumors about existing plans and non-existing plans, it is very frustrating and a bit of a jumble. The sad part is that there are two plans that are going to be considered in the Senate. Kennedy. Baucus. The fight there will be in what they merge, and amendments. That's the way our government works. I don't understand what good people think they will do by demonizing these people - except to split the left again. I mean, if the single payer left wants to create a strong party, I think they should and have for years. I have said this day would come with the right and I wish the left would really take advantage of it, push them off the cliff and become the strong second party. But they could at least be as nice to Democrats as Olympia Snowe is.

[Cleita]

17. I keep hearing all these politicians and pundits saying that people want to

keep their insurance, yet when I informally poll friends, acquaintances and patients where I work, none of them like their insurance and would prefer something more secure. Every one of them is afraid to use their insurance because they fear that they might not be renewed once they have a medical condition.

[sandnsea]

18. My sister loves her insurance

She went through two rounds of cancer treatment and you would never convince her of anything else. Her company employs 20,000 people and I would bet most of them feel the same. In fact, my insurance is pretty good. I've got no co-pays, $500 deductible, it's subsidized, pays for drugs although it's still cheaper to get $4 generics. But I did get a $120 ear antibiotic for $40, so that was nice. I know 20% on a serious illness would be impossible to pay. But here's the thing, most countries around the world have a 30% portion the individual has to pay. Canada has a drug deductible and pays a percentage. There isn't any plan in any country that pays 100% of everything. I think some single payer people are really disingenuous when they pretend we can do that here.

[Cleita]

20. The Canadian system actually does better than your sister's insurance.

However, what's going to happen when her employer decides that insurance is too expensive and won't pay for it anymore. That's the security thing. You never know when the other shoe is going to drop.

[sandnsea]

22. But that wasn't your question

For one. For another, can you guarantee she'd have gotten the MRI or PET that was needed to diagnose her cancer? It was very rare, in her shoulder, they never even suspected cancer. Third, and I recognize this is Wiki, but I've read it elsewhere.

"Canada's universal single-payer health care system covers about 70% of expenditures, and the Canada Health Act requires that all insured persons be fully insured, without co-payments or user fees, for all medically necessary hospital and physician care. About 91% of hospital expenditures and 99% of total physician services are financed by the public sector <18>. Ophthalmology and dental services account for a lot of the private expenditures in Canada."

Who pays the other 70%? Who pays the drugs? They don't cover eyes and dentist either, but there isn't a day that goes by around here that somebody isn't attacking politicians because they aren't adding it.

All I'm saying is that no plan is going to be perfect and it's too important for people to toss around talking points and not even know what they're talking about.

[Cleita]

24. I had a question? That's news to me.

Canada's benefits vary by province, so I don't know which province you are citing. I haven't really looked at those benefits, but personally I have USA Medicare and have gotten all those things and MRIs through it. My husband got six years of dialysis including drugs without paying out any extra. True I have to pony up the 20% for which I do have insurance to cover. However, I would like everyone to get what I get but 100% not 80%. I never have to worry about my health care being dropped or denied for preexisting conditions, unless the Republicans get their way and dump it altogether. Extending Medicare to everyone is one of the easiest things we could do because the bureaucracy and experience to run it is already in place.

[sandnsea]

26. And so a public plan

With open enrollment, no pre-existing, assistance for families up to $115,000, covers doctors, hospitals, physical therapy, mental health, addictions, prescriptions, everything, has no annual limit or lifetime limit, pays at Medicare rates plus 10%; and expands Medicaid (which is better than Medicare) to 150% of poverty - that wouldn't be an acceptable public plan to you?

[Cleita]

28. Sure it's fine, but there can be no insurance companies involved or

the system will fail because the expense will be too high. Just use your google finger and look up anything you can about the Massachusetts plan, which is what they are promoting, and you will see what I'm talking about. Conyers plan HR676 is the one we should go for. On edit, btw, in my state Medicaid is hardly accepted by any doctors except the most desperate one. Medicare is accepted by most. Poor people on Medicaid have to go to community clinics that will take it, but those clinics are like what most people fear government health care is like. Long waits in line and having to see whichever doctor is there.

[sandnsea]

29. The OP plan allows private insurance

That's why I don't understand why the author of that thread trashes a non-existent Obama/Kennedy/Baucus plan (there's only a draft of a draft of a Kennedy plan so far) - when what he posts is a 2 year old analysis of a plan that is essentially the same, except not as good from what I can tell.

And all anybody has to do is throw in a gratuitous bashing of Obama and Baucus and the people who are supposedly smarter than everybody in the county, fall all over themselves salivating over it. It's assinine. And that makes *me* argumentative for pointing it out. :crazy:

I've never lived anywhere where all the local doctors didn't accept Medicaid so I don't know about that. When Oregon created the Oregon Health Plan they included some component to make sure doctors couldn't opt out. It can be managed. My mom had Medicaid in Arkansas for years and never had any problems. The worst problem she had is that Bill Clinton limited prescription drug coverage to 3 meds a month and she had to take about 8. That's another reason I'm not wild about Bill Clinton, but I digress. Still, between Medicare and Medicaid she got world class health care at Barnes Hospital in Missouri, so I know it can cover well if there's a national base of coverage in place.

[Mojorabbit]

5. Looks like a plan I could live with. nt

[BlooInBloo]

9. That's what I was thinking, but I was wondering "where's the catch?".

[sandnsea]

10. Why? I'm baffled

This brief diary has a very brief description and no details. Please explain how this is different than Kennedy's plan? Other than the fact that Kennedy's plan has more details and has the haters out in force, the details of this plan are essentially the same as Kennedy's, except Kennedy's are really more generous. I didn't see anything about 20% co-insurance for instance, it covers kids under 26, it covers everything the Stark plan does. What do you see that's supposedly so much better?

http://www.obama-mamas.com/blog/?p=258

[BlooInBloo]

11. Easy, tiger. I was only looking for more information about this. Didn't hate on anything.

[sandnsea]

12. No, I was asking for input

If I don't want an answer to something - believe me - I don't ask. What am I missing that grabs the attention in the Stark plan?