To Expand Access To Affordable Coverage & Care, Let’s Build On What Is Working – Not Start Over

WASHINGTON – Every American deserves access to affordable, high-quality health coverage and care, and the best way to achieve this goal is to strengthen our current system – not to start over by creating an unaffordable, one-size-fits-all government health insurance system. Whether you call it Medicare for All, the public option, Medicare buy-in, single-payer, or Medicare-X, a one-size-fits-all approach to health care will lead to the same negative consequences for Americans. 

A recent study by Lanhee J. Chen, Ph.D., Tom Church and Daniel L. Heil warns that the costs of a new government-controlled health insurance system like the public option could be even more than originally projected, especially in the event of a future economic recession. Their analysis reveals that this would demand unaffordable tax increases from working families, massive increases to our national debt, or a combination of both.
 
Meanwhile, the sixth edition of Voter Vitals – a nationwide tracking poll conducted by Locust Street Group for the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future – shows that the vast majority of voters prefer for lawmakers to build on the current health care system rather than starting over with a new government-controlled health insurance system like the public option. The survey also finds most voters are unwilling to pay any more in taxes to create the public option and are concerned about its impact on access to quality care.  
 
Today, our health care system is working to expand access to care, and “[u]ninsured rates for young adults almost halved from 2011 to 2018, while the share of those covered by Medicaid increased over the same period due in large part to the Affordable Care Act expansion of the program, according to a new report from the Urban Institute …The report says those changes were most concentrated from 2013 to 2016, when most ACA coverage provisions including Medicaid expansion were implemented,” and “[i]n states that did choose to expand Medicaid coverage, uninsurance rates fell more dramatically for the 19-25 age group than rates in states that did not expand,” POLITICO reports.
 
As the Associated Press reports, President Biden has just signed “the biggest expansion of federal help for health insurance since the Obama-era Affordable Care Act more than 10 years ago.” With separate steps already underway to reopen federal health care marketplaces, eliminate ineffective red tape that can prevent Americans from accessing coverage options and urge the Supreme Court to uphold the Affordable Care Act, we must continue working together to build on what’s working in health care to provide every American with access to the affordable, high-quality health coverage and care they deserve.
 
Any new, government-controlled health care system would ultimately take away patients’ choice and control over their coverage and force Americans off their current plan and into a single, one-size-fits-all health insurance system controlled by politicians. Now, more than ever, we should build on and improve what’s working where private coverage, Medicare, and Medicaid work together to expand access to health coverage and care.  

• To learn more about the unaffordable costs and consequences of one-size-fits-all, government-controlled health insurance systems, CLICK HERE.

• To learn more about the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, CLICK HERE.