Latinos debate healthcare reform

Behind The Healthcare Reform Act
The Latino Journal E-News, August 10, 2009

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made a commitment to get healthcare reform legislation through Congress by the end of September. The push by Pelosi and the White House is reminiscent of Barack Obama's grassroots campaign for the Presidency. However the political push is being met by resistance from different factions of Americans who are concerned about the language and cost of the legislation. The resistance has been so strong it has shut down "town hall" meetings and forced Pelosi to call protestors "un-American."

The 1017-page legislation, known as America's Affordable Health Choices Act is difficult to summarize because of its size and the number of strategic components within each provision that are essential to accomplish the overall goal of providing healthcare to more Americans than ever before. As a goal, the Act will provide affordable health care for all Americans and control health care cost growth. The following are the key provisions of the Act, but "the devil is in the details" and a more thorough analysis of the components within each provision will be provided in coming issues of The Latino Journal E-News:

Provisions of the Healthcare Act:
1. Coverage and Choice
The Act will protect current coverage and allow individuals to keep the insurance they have if they like it - and preserves choice of doctors, hospitals, and health plans. It achieves through several components including: A health insurance exchange; a public health insurance option; and, Guaranteed coverage and market reforms.

2. Affordability
Provides sliding scale affordability credits based on individual and family income levels that decline to phase out levels based on achieving 400 percent of federal poverty level ($43,000 for an individual or $88,000 for a family of four). It will cap annual out-of-pocket spending, create competition among healthcare insurance providers, expands Medicaid, and improves Medicare.

3. Shared Responsibility
The bill creates shared responsibility among individuals, employers and government to ensure that all Americans have affordable coverage of essential health benefits. This is accomplished through individual responsibility; employer responsibility; assistance to small employers; and, government responsibility.

4. Prevention and Wellness
This includes: Expansion of Community Health Centers; Prohibition of cost-sharing for preventative services; Creation of community based programs to deliver prevention and wellness services; A focus on community based program and new data collection to better identify and address racial, ethnic, regional and other health disparities; and, Funds to strengthen state, local, tribal and territorial public health departments and programs.

5. Workforce Investments
It will expand health care workforce through: Increased funding for the National Health Service Corp; More training of primary care doctors and an expansion of the pipeline of individuals going into health professions, including primary care, nursing and public health; Greater support for workforce diversity; and, Expansion of scholarships and loans for individuals in needed professions and shortage areas.

6. Controlling Costs
The bill will reduce the growth in health care spending in a numerous ways that include: Modernization and improvement of Medicare; Innovation and delivery reform through the public health insurance option; Improving payment accuracy and eliminating overpayments; Preventing waste, fraud and abuse; and, Administrative simplification.

The Latino Journal E-News will be providing pro and con comments from a Latino perspective regarding the components within the provisions of the Act in coming weeks. If you want to chime in, please write to us and let us know your position on this hot topic. You can email your comments to: latinojournal@gmail.com.