Serious Flaws Seen in New Health Care Proposal
California Nurses Association Says ‘Half-Baked' Industry-Sponsored Plan Leaves Far Too Many Uninsured Without Access to Care
The California Nurses Association today November 22 a new health care industry-sponsored plan to expand health coverage has serious flaws that would do little to resolve the continuing crisis faced by tens of millions of uninsured Americans.
Released today by the Health Insurance Association of America, the American Hospital Association, and Families USA, the proposal combines expansion of Medicaid, state programs like the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and employer tax credits.
"It is essential that we reopen the dialogue about this national disgrace – the 44 million people uninsured and another 100 million underinsured in our nation," said Kay McVay, RN, president of the California Nurses Association.
"But this half-baked plan won't get us to universal health coverage. It veers far off course by linking a sound program, Medicaid, to flawed plans like CHIP and the highly risky use of tax credits." CNA is the largest organization of registered nurses in California with 32,000 members.
CHIP uses federal grants to provide additional coverage to uninsured children. But in California where it is called Healthy Families the program "has been so ineffective that the state had to return over $500 million to the federal government," noted CNA legislative advocate Sara Nichols. Many other states have had similar problems.
"Expanding eligibility would simply force U.S. taxpayers to further subsidize a wasteful, inefficient private health care system that has proved itself to be unable to provide care for the uninsured," said McVay.
Offering tax credits to businesses that pay all or part of health premiums for employees could actually "add to the rolls of the uninsured," said Nichols. She warned that many employers who now offer full benefits may decide to drop those programs in favor of credits for partial health coverage payments or just to eliminate health plans entirely. Additionally, Nichols cited a Kaiser Family Foundation study showing it costs three to four times as much to cover a newly insured person through tax credits than through expansion of existing programs.
The two main industry groups behind the plan, McVay charged, "recognize the growing public demand for meaningful health care reform. This initiative, however, is primarily intended to forestall the movement for universal coverage."