I got this email yesterday about an effort to pass a comprehensive health care reform bill including the choice of a public insurance plan within the year: Last week, we began circulating an open letter from state legislators to the Obama Administration and Congress articulating important principles for reform, including a public plan. The letter will be delivered by a delegation of legislators to meetings with the White House and Congressional leaders in June.
In just over a week, the letter has gathered over 200 signatures from 36 different states, including one from your home state of New Jersey.
That one Legislator signed on to the effort from New Jersey is the Chairman of the Assembly Health and Senior Services Committee Herb Conaway. Here's what the group says about their efforts:States are on the front lines of health care. As state budgets constrict, states and the federal government must collaborate to ensure that existing health care programs are robust and that new measures to improve health care in America achieve the fundamental goal of quality and affordable health care for all.
States are known as the laboratories for reform, and state lawmakers possess keen lessons-learned that can inform the development of a federal health care policy. These lessons go beyond the policies of health care reform, such as how to expand access to coverage, reduce health disparities, improve health insurance markets, develop quality improvement initiatives, and reduce prescription drug costs. State legislators have developed the political strategies needed to move progressive health care strategies in states - building coalitions among colleagues, collaborating with key stakeholders like small businesses and consumer advocates, and developing media strategies to inform the public and media about bold legislation and expand public support for reform.
State legislators are a key power constituency in the broader health care reform effort by helping to frame the public agenda in their state. Through legislative proposals, media campaigns, public hearings, and other strategies for influencing public discourse, state legislators can help maintain the public drumbeat for bold and progressive federal health care reform. I know there are many would who would prefer to see a single payer option, but if that goal isn't reached we will have to consider other possibilities to solve the problem. If you think this is a good idea and would like to contact your State Legislators to have them sign on to this effort, you can click here or on the badge above. They plan to bring a delegation of legislative health care leaders to Washington to share the insights and lessons learned, and map a strategy for coordinating state and federal health care reform efforts. I'll put the full text of the letter below the fold. |
| Dear President Barack Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Members of the 111th US Congress:
As leaders in state legislatures across the country, we urgently call on President Obama and the U.S. Congress to take up and pass comprehensive health care reform in 2009.
The serious problems with health care in America - ever-rising costs, limited access, inconsistent quality, and waste and inefficiency - converge in the states. The effects of these problems stress state budgets, exhaust family resources, result in lost worker productivity, stifle entrepreneurial spirit, and literally cause tens of thousands of deaths each year.
Our disjointed health care system has formed a choke-hold on our economy, limiting job growth and economic development. We cannot fix the economy without fixing health care.
Over the past decade, state legislatures have debated and implemented a myriad of reforms to bring affordability, quality and fairness to health care in America ? designing solutions that reflect each state? unique economic, social, and geographic features. States play a vital role in the health care for hundreds of millions of Americans, by administering and helping to fund public programs like Medicaid and SCHIP, enacting innovations to expand access to public and private coverage, and serving as watchdogs of health insurance companies and other players.
Yet, states cannot achieve guaranteed affordable health care for all without the investment, leadership and partnership of the federal government. Successful reform requires robust federal-state collaboration.
Key priorities for reform are reflected in recent state initiatives and public opinion polls which show that Americans want more choices and options for quality health care. Americans recognize that the private sector alone has proven incapable of creating a high-quality, fair, and accountable health care system that works for all families. Therefore, a key priority for reform is the choice of a public health insurance plan that is available to businesses, individuals, and families. Another key priority is strengthening and expanding the Medicaid program with the help of enhanced federal support so that it can serve all low-income Americans. Related priorities include: guaranteeing affordability for individuals and businesses; preserving consumer choice of doctors; eliminating racial, ethnic, gender, and rural health disparities; ensuring shared responsibility among employers, individuals and government in financing health care; and, cost containment strategies that eliminate waste and inefficiency and improve quality, especially for people with chronic illnesses.
Failure to pass national comprehensive health reform now will further jeopardize state and local budgets, undermining public services like education, public safety, and transportation infrastructure.The recently passed economic recovery package includes a number of positive health care measures, but these do not remove states from the critical list. Achieving a high-performing, affordable and quality health care system for all US residents is central to a sustainable economic recovery and to the health and financial security of all families, businesses, and governments.
We, the undersigned, call on President Obama and the Congress to enact bold and comprehensive health care reform this year ?based on these principles and a strong federal-state collaboration ?and pledge our support as state legislators and allies in pursuit of guaranteed, high quality, affordable health care for all.
This letter was developed in consultation with national health care reform advocates, including the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, Community Catalyst, Families USA, Herndon Alliance, National Women's Law Center, Northeast Action, SEIU, and Universal Health Care Action Network. |
