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Ah, leadership |
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It feels so good.
Today, Senator Max Baucus stepped firmly forward and proposed a vision for health care reform that can only be called “sweeping:”
Mr. Baucus would create a nationwide marketplace, a “health insurance exchange,” where people could compare and buy insurance policies. The options would include private insurance policies and a new public plan similar to Medicare. Insurers could no longer deny coverage to people who had been sick. Congress would also limit insurers’ ability to charge higher premiums because of a person’s age or prior illness.
People would have a duty to obtain coverage when affordable options were available to all through employers or through the insurance exchange. This obligation “would be enforced, possibly through the tax system,” the plan says.
Everyone over here at Health Care for America Now is applauding.
Specifically, the fact that Senator Baucus is proposing a vision that takes on insurance companies, makes health care affordable, and includes a public plan that provides for competition to lower costs for everyone makes this proposal hugely significant and extremely welcome.
And most importantly, we’re delighted that Senator Baucus is committed to health care reform in 2009. As I’ve argued earlier, health care can’t wait. And as Barack Obama put it, “We can’t afford not to do it.”
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee (Sen. Baucus) is moving forward and showing leadership. The chairman of the HELP committee (Sen. Kennedy) is, too. So is our President-elect. After eight years making no progress towards the goal of quality, affordable health care for all, it’s wonderful to finally have the momentum and leadership we need at all levels to get something truly meaningful written into law.
(also posted at the NOW! blog)
I don’t share your joy. This props up a parasitic commercial industry (health insurers) which contributes to healthcare inefficiency, unnecessary administrative costs and overhead and squeezes primary care providers who are already fleeing the field due to unsafe and overwhelming patient case loads while not assuring that people have access to affordable essential health CARE.
Moreover, there isn’t a single substantive mention of the legitimate role of professional nursing. Since registered nurses provide 95% of all reimbursed healthcare services, provide the highest ROI in cost efficiency, patient satisfaction and lower morbidity and mortality rates, it is grossly negligent to put forth any national proposal which does not fully integrate their contributions and provide them with a concomitant degree of influence and control.
That the discussions are occurring is welcome. That they are occurring again with segregating nurses, treating them as generic uneducated widgets and excluding them from the policy table is operating against the nation’s interests, and it is inexcusable.
There’s a lot of work yet to be done. Baucus’s paper is just a vision, not even close to a bill, so there’s a lot of room to move.
Jason:
I appreciate the yeoman’s work you are doing.
But there’s not a lot of room to move when nurses aren’t invited into the room and nursing isn’t a topic under discussion.
Forget the back of the bus analogy. Nurses aren’t even on the bus, and they’ve been waiting at a stop without service.
I guess what I’m saying is what Baucus put out isn’t even a plan really, not yet. It’s just a vision. Kennedy still has to weigh in. The entire House has to weigh in. Obama has to weigh in. So there are lots of points of entry for stakeholders like nurses to get in at the table. I’d suggest you inform your professional organizations that they should start looking for Members of Congress to talk to.
Your suggestion infers that you are not a reader of my writing.
But I’ll leave you with a hint: not a single vision, plan, proposal, outline, list, policy, program, etc. includes professional nursing as a key foundational piece.
In fact, I dare you to prove me wrong and find a single primary source being seriously considered by any member of congress or at DHHS/CMS which specifically includes any role at all for professional nursing or itemized estimated or real nursing costs.
It is deemed so insignificant that it’s treated as just a buried unspecified component of a generic clinic or hotel board charge for inpatient facilities.
That you aren’t aware of this and yet you profess high interest in health policy is illustrative of the problem. People don’t know that they don’t know.
The American Nurses Association, the national professional organization charged with representing the interests of nursing and nurses, does have a PAC, and it does contact members of Congress. But it is so powerless that its voice goes unheard and unheeded.
Nursing is weak and is in danger of dying. But there is not a single governmental champion. Nor is there any blogger presence save mine, and I know who my readers are - the government agencies I criticize, the military healthcare system and an eclectic international nursing readership.
US nurses, the health blogosphere and the health policy wonks avoid me in droves.
Nursing just isn’t cool. Until you need the professional services, and they aren’t there or they are insufficient to meet your needs. Then suddenly nursing is a hot button item.
Nurses are treated as the nation’s healthcare prostitutes.