Health Care: What’s Next?

It’s crunch time for health care reform:  Nancy Pelosi has told her Members to expect a vote as early as this week.  Congressional leaders are still trying to come up with a procedural trick so that House Members won’t have to vote on the Senate’s bill.  Yet the public won’t be fooled:  they know that any vote that puts this health care legislation on the President’s desk is a vote for a government take-over of health care and against patient-centered reforms. 
The Independent Women’s Voice strongly believes that we do need health care reform in the United States. But we want health care reform that puts more power in the hands of patients, not government bureaucrats. We want reform that will preserve the best of American medicine—our stellar quality of care and record of medical breakthroughs—while addressing some of the system’s problems, such as increasing health insurance portability and bringing down health insurance prices.
There are a number of reforms that Congress could consider to improve upon the system we have today. They could start by changing the tax code to end the bias in favor of employer-provided health insurance, which would make individual insurance more affordable and free people from the worry that access to insurance depends on employment status. Congress should eliminate regulations that raise the cost of insurance and price people out of the insurance market, and allow people to purchase insurance from any state in the country. Policymakers could also consider creating a refundable tax credits for the purchase of private insurance.
We want to see positive changes made to the health care system. Yet the first step has to be defeating the current legislation so that we can return to a real debate about improving the health care system for all Americans.  IWV will continue to fight against legislation that jeopardizes the quality of health care, creates trillions of dollars of new government spending, raises taxes, and gives bureaucrats control over our health care decisions. Real, sustainable health care reform can only be achieved by giving Americans control over their health care dollars – which will empower individuals to make their own choices about care.