Consumer Watchdog – Protecting Patients - ProtPats - Action 9: Keep Obama Care Real

Under heavy lobbying by the nation's most powerful health insurance companies and HMOs, Congress is about to unveil legislation that would require all Americans to buy insurance policies or face steep tax penalties. Congressional leaders should hear from you about the need to include key patient protections, a public health care option, and legal accountability measures.

Watch this short video about a mechanic who pays a $910 tax penalty because he cannot afford private health insurance in Massachusetts.

 
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Subject: Keep Obama-Care Real - Include Patient Protections and Accountability

Dear Members of Congress:

Americans cannot be required to buy health insurance policies they can't afford and that don't provide the care they need when they get sick. If you want to see the political fall-out of mandating health insurance without providing a public alternative to for-profit insurers, watch this video: http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Multimedia/2009/May/0531Brown.aspx The current Congressional plans fail to include the kind of robust legal accountability and regulatory controls necessary to protect our health from insurance companies. At a minimum, health care reform must: 1. Include a public option that provides Americans a true alternative to insurance companies. 2. Restore legal accountability and financial consequences to health insurers and HMOs that wrongfully deny or delay medical treatments, devices and prescription drugs. 3. Establish out-of-pocket maximums that guarantee that no insured patient will go bankrupt paying medical bills. 4. Bar insurance companies and HMOs from forcing the sickest Americans into the lowest benefit policies. 5. Require premium and benefit regulation to guarantee that policies are reasonably priced and include adequate benefits.

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For More Information:

Read Consumer Watchdog's letter to Congressional leaders listing 10 patient abuses perpetrated by HMOs and health insurers that are currently not addressed by the House and Senate reform proposals.

Read Consumer Watchdog's letter calling on Senator Baucus and members of the U.S. Finance Committee to publicly answer ten questions about how requiring all Americans to show proof of insurance or face tax penalties will provide affordable health care.

Read Consumer Watchdog's letter to President Obama and Sens. Kennedy and Baucus warning them not to agree to the health insurers' plan to gut state health care laws.

Read Consumer Watchdog's letter to U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) urging that he continue to protect patients consistent with the principles he has articulated during his 40 year career.

Read Consumer Watchdog's analysis of health insurer and drug company contributions to members of Congress.

Read about a recent national poll that found that 65% of voters support giving every American of any age the option of joining Medicare; 60% are willing to pay more in payroll deductions for this option.

Read about a national poll that found, by contrast, that only 16% of U.S. voters support, and 53% oppose, the insurance industries' plan of requiring every American to provide proof of private health insurance or face tax penalties or other fines.