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I wanted to share with you the response Senator Kerry is e-mailing constituents who write him about health care reform.
Also, if you’re so inclined, I wanted your feedback evaluating his correspondence. For example, what is the problem as Sen. Kerry sees it? What legislative solution does he support? Does that solution address the issues he raises? What is he not telling us?
Thank you for contacting me to express your opinions on the health care crisis in our country and on health care reform legislation. I appreciate hearing from you on this important matter.
Reforming our country’s health care system and ensuring that all Americans have access to affordable health insurance is a top priority. Today, the United States spends more on health care than other developed countries, yet we have a shorter life expectancy and higher infant mortality. Health care spending represents nearly 17 percent of our economy, totaling over $2 trillion a year. Still, approximately 87 million people-one in three Americans-went without health insurance for some period during 2007 and 2008. This is unacceptable. As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, I am working to enact comprehensive health care reform that improves the access and delivery of health care for millions of Americans.
According to researchers, about $700 billion is spent each year on health care that fails to improve outcomes. I believe we should eliminate this excess spending and transform how we pay for health services. Payments should be based on the quality of care delivered instead the quantity of services performed. We need to reward providers who coordinate care and improve health outcomes. New investments must be made in our health care workforce to meet the needs of a fully insured population. Through better access to providers as well as prevention and wellness programs, individuals will be able to lead healthier lifestyles, reduce the likelihood of chronic disease and reduce costs. Health reform should also include better access to home and community-based services for those needing long-term care.
The Massachusetts experience with health reform holds valuable lessons for federal reform. Our state has the lowest number of uninsured in the nation due to reform efforts that included: expanded public programs; the development of new insurance standards; subsidized insurance to those with low income, the creation of an insurance exchange for private plans; maintaining safety net hospitals and health centers; and a requirement that individuals and employers each have a responsibility to contribute to health care costs.
Too many individuals cannot afford insurance as health insurance premiums continue to rise faster than inflation and wages. We must control skyrocketing health costs that push families into bankruptcy and place our businesses at a disadvantage in the global economy. Families deserve affordable options when choosing a health plan, which is why I support a public plan option like the one included in the bill passed out of Senator Kennedy’s HELP Committee. Under that plan, all Senators and their staff would be required to use the public option as their health insurance. Every American has the right to high quality and affordable health care, regardless of age, income or health status. That is why I recently introduced the Women’s Health Insurance Fairness Act to prevent insurers from charging women higher premiums than men for health insurance policies.
As a strong supporter of improving health insurance coverage to children, I introduced Kids First, a bill that would guarantee health coverage to the currently nine million uninsured children in America. In these uncertain economic times, families should never be forced to forgo health insurance for their children. I also supported improvements to the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which became law in February 2009. This new public law will strengthen and expand health coverage to an additional four million children, nearly halving the number of uninsured children over the next five years. This new law included legislation that I wrote, the Children’s Mental Health Parity Act, which will ensure that children served by this program will also have access to critical mental health services.
A modernized health system must take full advantage of electronic prescribing and health information technology. Electronic prescribing not only saves money through improved efficiency, but more importantly, it reduces medical errors and saves lives. According to the Institute of Medicine, one-third of written prescriptions require follow-up clarification, with medication mistakes causing 7,000 deaths and 1.5 million injuries per year. The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act that was enacted into law in July 2008, included provisions from my electronic prescribing legislation. This law creates incentives for physicians to implement electronic prescribing within their offices.
While I strongly believe there are many things that need to be changed within our current health care system, it is equally important to preserve the parts of our system that work. As we move to make health insurance more affordable, those who are satisfied with their current insurance should be able to keep what they have.
As we continue to move forward with health reform I will keep your thoughts and concerns in mind. Thank you again for writing me. Please do not hesitate to contact me about this issue or any other matter of importance to you.
7 Comments
At a quick glance, it appears to be more ‘political’ than health care focused, to wit here’s my quick summary of what Kerry’s letter says;
– I think we should all get lots of way cool stuff…cause we’re Americans.
– In the past, I’ve also come up with cool stuff….
– I use more words than many of my constituents can actually read in order to explain that I think we should all have cool stuff, some of which I’ve helped get through the system….
– In the end, I don’t define my terms, don’t give timelines, don’t list costs or prices, and don’t give you specifics.
I think it’s the kind of thing that those of us who read a ton and have a solid background in lots of details can tolerate and makes Kerry look like a ‘thoughtful guy’.
It’s the kind of thing that puts my conservative cousins completely, totally, and utterly ‘over the edge’.
Editing suggestions for what THEY need to read:
Paragraph 2: it’s not working for enough of us.
Paragraph 3: About $700 billion is spent each year on health care that fails to improve outcomes, according to researchers. That’s X per day, or Y for each man, woman, and child — and it’s not making us healthier. (Then list the details.)
Paragraph 4: The Massachusetts experience with health reform holds valuable lessons for federal reform. Our state has: (a), (b), (c), (d) as a list of items.
Paragraph 5: Too many individuals cannot afford insurance as health insurance premiums continue to rise faster than inflation and wages. (Then list the problems, and give a ’story’ — because by now, lots of people are tired of reading something that sounds a lot like a ’study’ or ‘report’ and it’s boring the sh*t out of them and they still don’t know WHAT the new system will look like.)
Paragraph 6: [Kerry should stop tooting his own horn and start with:] In these uncertain economic times, families should never be forced to forgo health insurance for their children….. because now, it sounds like there IS a new law… so the wingnuts and Tea Baggers are going to shout out that there already IS a law, so what’s with fixing something that ain’t broke. Kerry mixed oranges in with the apples, which is fine if you spend every waking hour doing health care legislation — it’s a total mess if you’re an ordinary person who wants a one-page, straight answer that isn’t bogged in details and completely confusing because now here he is telling you there IS a plan… totally Democratic self-inflicted confusion that has to stop (!!!).
Paragraph 7: Kerry tells me we should all have online medical info (I happen to agree, but then that’s more work for the cyberczar….). He doesn’t tell me HOW it’s going to work, or HOW it fits into the new system, nor HOW those new jobs putting stuff online are a whole new employment sector (which they are!).
So to recap:
Too many words.
Too many topics.
Too few specifics.
Basically, the reader is having their ass kissed.
This is what makes people — including Yours Truly — just aggravated about the current stupidity from the Dems.
Could someone just get a video camera and have Howard Dean walk me through:
– What happens if I need an appointment? Who do I call? Who do I see?
– When do I get the bill? Who pays it? How much do I pay?
– If I need meds, where do I get them? How much do I pay? Can the government bring down the cost? (And if not, why the hell not?!)
– What other ‘add-ons’ come with the government program?
Where do I send my questions?
Honestly, Kerry’s thoughtful, ambiguous, polite, overly detailed letter makes me nuts.
30% of the population can read it easily.
Another 30% will read it but misunderstand portions, because of the ambiguity and lack of specifics.
30% or more will just toss it because one look at it is more than their skills can attempt with any success. So they turn into Tea Baggers… which is bad for ALL of us.
I’d suggest you copy it to Word and then do a Fleisch test on it’s ‘readability’ – search your copy of Word to get the instructions (I don’t use Word, or I’d have done it for my own curiosity.)
I’m guessing it’s written at college level.
It needed to be written for a junior high reading level.
And if you have any influence with the Dems, feel free to pass on my recommendations. Meanwhile, it’s stuff like this that feeds the paranoia and anxieties of the Tea Baggers — it’s like pouring fuel on their fire.
Which does not excuse them for one instant.
But Kerry’s office needs to clean up it’s communications strategies.
Terific analysis and critique. Thanks!
Good summary. I agree. Its a trainwreck.
I wonder how Kerry and his ilk propose to get Health Insurance premiums “affordable” and keep them “affordable” without a strong public option that any average citizen can opt for.
We don’t need a big wet kiss for the Insurance Industry. Dubya’s Drug Plan was such a gift to big Pharma. Absolutely no control over prices.
There is no discussion about reducing, curbing, controlling or containing insurance premiums beyond pie-in-the-sky technical innovations and the illimination of “redundant” medical testing (scares old people).
The only way I see that addresses the insurance company greed factor is a solid public option.
Further:
Waht good does it do to say that insurance companies will be required to sell policies (provide coverage) to persons with pre-existing conditions if they can charge exorbitant premiums?
Why would anyone bother to read such verbosity? Sorry, John.
Here’s the meat:
“Reforming our country’s health care system and ensuring that all Americans have access to affordable health insurance is a top priority.”
Well, there’s the FIRST issue I have. And I want to like Kerry.
But affordable insurance is bullshit. So would be affordable care.
What we want, 76% of us, is care for all. We pay taxes for it, and social security, and other things.
We don’t need no insurance. We don’t need no stinking mandated healthcare insurance.
We want care for all, now, without precondition elimination.
We want to ELIMINATE the insurance companies, and tax the wealthiest 1%/cororations to pay for it.
Actual funding can come from any model outside the USA. As long as it don’t come from the backs of the masses and the poor.
Life is simple.
“Payments should be based on the quality of care delivered instead the quantity of services performed.”
Then there’s that. Payments?? Huh? Universal care, maybe a $10 fee for most of us per visit, or sercvice, no fees for the poor.
I guess I’m done reading Kerry’s thoughts. He’s failed me bitterly at this point, and there’s NOTHING he can say to come back for my blessings.
And I wanted to like him, I really did . . . he’s fuckin misguided about what the people want.
They want care, they want it for next to nothing other than a small tax on the masses (1%) and a large tax on corps and the 1% wealthy. And they want it NOW, and they want the private industry out of our health care.
At least that’s what I believe I’ve read and heard. And I DON’T mean from the mainstream media, which is of course, owned by the corporations who fear a public option that will provide care and not insurance.
Harumph.
There seems to be a general assumption that the 1% of wealthy are only 10% richer than the rest of us. If that were the case, then taxing them to pay for health care would not make sense.
But when 300,000 taxpayers have wealth equal to the ‘bottom’ 150,000,000, then… that’s a 1:500 ratio.
At that level of inequality, you’re asking for more bubbles, because that concentrated wealth is fuel for bubbles.
It would be more sense if it were fueling more health care to take some of the whomp out of the bubble activity we’ve seen the past 20+ years, which through cycle after cycle has concentrated to that 1:500 ratio.