Support the Wyden-Bennett Health Care Reform Bill

Health Care Reform

Dear Senator

There is growing consensus that comprehensive reform of the U.S. health care system is essential, with the goals of such a reform effort being both to achieve universal coverage and to moderate health care cost growth while improving the quality of care. The Wyden-Bennett "Healthy Americans Act"(S.334) is the only bill that actually reduces the cost of healthcare and the only one that has bipartisan support.
Under the Wyden-Bennett system, health dollars would be controlled by the individual (a long-time conservative goal) and used within a restructured, heavily regulated, totally universal, insurance marketplace (a longtime liberal goal). Each state would create Health Help Agencies, which would provide easy access to insurance products, along with information, guidance, and advice on how to choose.
Insurers would have to meet a minimum standard for comprehensiveness (equivalent to the standard Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan currently offered to members of Congress), and they could not discriminate based on pre-existing conditions, occupation, genetic information, gender or age. Nor could they deny insurance to those who ask for it. In return, every American would have to buy health insurance, and there would be hefty subsidies for those further down the income ladder.
The Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation have estimated that its budgetary effects would be deficit-neutral in 2014.
Although the Wyden-Bennett Bill proposes a more radical overhaul of the healthcare system than other bills now before Congress, it also is the plan most likely to achieve the President's three principles of cost reduction, guaranteed choice, and ensuring quality of care. The Bill needs tweaking to minimize the risk of adverse selection of healthier individuals, and to assure that benefits and subsidies to low and middle-income families do not erode over time. Nevertheless, the Wyden-Bennet Bill offers the best hope for an effective framework for comprehensive healthcare reform.
I ask that you insist that the Wyden-Bennett Bill be considered in committee and that you vote in favor of the bill when it reaches the Senate floor.

[Your name]