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Richard Kirsch, national director of Health Care for America Now, on the House bill released today:
“The House’s legislation shows that achieving quality, affordable health care for all in 2009 is absolutely possible.
This bill will make health coverage more affordable both for those who have it through their job and for those who have to find coverage on their own. It builds on what works in our current health care system and starts the process of fixing what doesn’t – including stopping health insurance companies from denying care based on pre-existing conditions.
The House bill includes key provisions like an exchange that includes both private insurance plans and a new public health insurance option and shared responsibility between individuals, employers, and government – key elements to achieving President Obama’s goals of lowering costs, covering everyone, and keeping the insurance companies honest. “
In other words, it’s a good bill, and we’ll be supporting it. It’s a good bill because it does what it’s supposed to do. Markup will start tomorrow, and we’ve now got 4 out of 5 committees working on a bill.
Check out Scarecrow and Ezra and Jon Cohn for more analysis.
(also posted at the NOW! blog)
I’m proud to work for Health Care for America Now
3 Comments
questions:
1) does this bill meet the basic criteria of the pledge we’ve been whipping our representatives for? it doesn’t look like it to me (although i’ve just taken a quick look at a summary, so i could be massively wrong and would love to be corrected if that is so).
from jane’s whipping action:
2) who’s “we” in your statement “we’ll be supporting it.”
Yes, it meets the whipping criteria, absolutely. We is the HCAN coaltion.
thanks for the reply. i don’t see how a public option available to only less than 10% of us is “nationwide” and i don’t see how 2013 is day 1.
… but i will take that discussion to the more current thread, where there are other commenters now weighing in:
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6360