Untitled Document
What’s New
This fall, Congress tried and failed to raise from the dead a bad health insurance bill that was killed earlier this year in the Senate. S. 1955, introduced by Sen. Mike Enzi (WY), would have created a bill that purportedly intended to offer low-cost health insurance to small businesses, but would have resulted in more expensive, lower quality health care for everyone and eliminated numerous state-level consumer protections, such as laws requiring diabetes or breast cancer coverage under existing health care plans. The bill was defeated by a filibuster on a vote of 55-43. Click here to see how your senator voted (Nay is the public interest vote).
How You Can Help
Call your senators if they voted NAY on S. 1955 and thank them for standing up for affordable, high-qualily health care. If they voted YEA, express your disappointment for their vote for expensive, bare-bones health coverage.
Summary
Americans pay more for health care and get less for our money than any people in the industrialized world.
Forty-six million Americans (nearly 16% of the population) are uninsured. Most of the uninsured are working and would otherwise be considered middle-class. Millions more are underinsured with bare-bones policies that require large out-of-pocket expenses for co-payments and deductibles. And for Americans who do have coverage, rising costs are becoming a greater and greater financial burden.
For years, American workers and their families have relied on employer-based health insurance policies, but the system is broken and needs to be fixed.
Unfortunately, the Bush Administration’s solution is to create a new from of bare-bones health coverage known as Association Health Plans (AHPs). AHPs will not shrink the rolls of the uninsured or provide quality health care coverage. They will shift costs from employers to employees, and preempt strong state insurance laws, which require insurance companies to provide mammograms, screen for cancer and other life-saving services. These plans often do not cover common expenses such as vision, dental and prescription drugs.
We are working to pass legislation that will bring affordable, high quality health care to Americans and to stop legislation that would push Americans into even more expensive bare-bones health plans. More.
