Health Care Reform Train Ready to Roll

A group of key stakeholders that has been meeting for months is apparently ready today to release its broad-based tenets for fixing what ails the nation’s health care system. The Healthcare Reform Dialogue, a self-given title, is expected to call for:

  • More individual responsibility
  • Tax credits to help individuals afford health coverage
  • Expanding Medicaid eligibility
  • Improving the Medicare payment system with a focus on prevention and care coordination
  • Increasing funding to train more primary care physicians (with loan repayment programs part of the deal)

Unanswered are the thorny questions of creating a public health care plan that would compete with private insurance companies or potential mandates on employers to provide health insurance. I think this simply foreshadows what a tough fight lies ahead.

Participants in the group represent insurers, physicians, hospitals, business, family organizations and unions. Many of the same people are talking with staffers for Sen. Edward Kennedy, chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee. It’s that panel that will tackle the more difficult topics.

Key questions: Do we really want a government-run health system? How will the employer-based system, put in place at the end of World War II but not viable in many ways today, be adapted? And where is the money going to come from?

The Chamber’s next BizVoice magazine (debuting in early May) will have several interesting health care stories, including a roundtable with Indiana perspectives on reform and how everyone is going to have to "give a little" to make it a reality. 

0 thoughts on “Health Care Reform Train Ready to Roll

  1. It is very important to our society to be independent of the Government.(a form of slavery/bondage) If we let government decide for us (medical or otherwise) we lose our free agency…if we allow government to bail us out we allow ourselves to be placed under a controlling power. This is not what this country is all about. If we fail or if we succeed, at least we decide…We should never let our rights be taken from us. Just because others want freedom from their responsibility dosen’t make it right. As responsible Americans who care and are willing to accept responsibility we should not allow others to undermine our moral obligations. We need to encourage and inspire the human mind to rise above. We don’t need goverment deciding what is right and wrong, moral and immoral. If anything, for our best interest we need good men and women who have a dream and desire to help build on the values this country was founded on, a dream mem died for a reality we live. We cannot and should not let our goverment(…for the people…by the people…) controll our choices.
    We need to vote NO to goverment run healthcare.

Leave a Reply