Fixing Our Health Care System Means Getting to 60 Senate Votes

March 18, AFL-CIO

Given that 47 million Americans are without health insurance and as many as 40 percent who have coverage are underinsured, the 2008 election is likely to be a mandate on health care for all, a panel of health care and political experts told a Take Back America symposium today. The annual conference, in Washington, D.C., which runs through Wednesday, brings together activists and organizers to discuss strategies for moving progressive strategies that address the economy, foreign policy, health care and more.

Jacob Hacker, an economist and political science professor at Yale University and author of the Health Care for America proposal, said health care advocates need to develop a "template" that doesn't compromise core health care principles but one that also can win the political support needed to be enacted.

The Health Care for America plan parallels many of the same principles labor is calling for, including comprehensive coverage. Health Care for America builds on the best portions of the U.S. health care, including employer-based coverage and Medicare, while controlling costs and calling for shared responsibility among employers, the government and individuals. Hacker's plan was developed for the Economic Policy Institute's (EPI's) Agenda for a Shared Prosperity. (Click here (http://www.sharedprosperity.org/hcfa/lewin.pdf) for the latest detailed cost and coverage analysis of the Health Care for America proposal.)

Even as the health care forum took place, the Kaiser Family Foundation released a new report that shows the longer health care reform is delayed, the more costly it becomes for employers to provide health coverage. It found the cost of employer-paid heath insurance has jumped by nearly 62 percent since 1999. Today's costs are sure to be even higher because the latest available statistics were from 2005.

Ezra Klein, who covers politics and health care issues for the American Prospect, told the group that no matter which health care plan advocates support, they must have a viable political strategy for passage, especially in the U.S. Senate, where a minority of members can more easily block bills than in the House. What’s at stake, Klein says, is getting the 60 votes needed in the Senate for a filibuster-proof bill.