Even in the wake of The Affordable Care Act of 2012, health care in America remains the most expensive in the world at about 19% of GDP, while “successful outcomes” as computed by the WHO in 2007 rank us 31st among 191 member nations. According to WHO data the United States spends 3 times per capita of the world average on health care.
While the ACA of 2012(Obamacare), will by 2014, have improved access, stability (can’t be dropped), portability and eliminated most coverage caps, it has done almost nothing to reduce the rate of increase of health care costs.
EP believes that it is the right of all Americans to have access to comprehensive health care at a fair cost; and it is the duty of government to establish by law the delivery architecture and the primary funding mechanisms for that care.
One of EP’s “core political values” is that all political institutions and legal entities in America exist to serve the needs of The People and not the reverse. The current health care system in the United States has been captured by profit-driven stakeholders while the most important stakeholder in the equation, the patient, has been left almost powerless. (The Medicare Part D drug benefit from the 2003 MMA is just an entitlement program for the pharmaceutical industry. Medicare cannot, by law, negotiate for price with Big Pharma). EP therefore supports legislation to establish a national health care system that focuses on the needs of citizens first.
We will propose legislation at the Federal level (a Federal Health Care Act) to create by law, a specific “block grant” health care funding mechanism, annually indexed as a percentage of GDP, to support state and local tax contributions to health care funding. In accordance with our core value that political power should be distributed as close to the people as possible, we propose that specific implementation and funding strategies will be left to the several states and territories as long as they meet minimum access and coverage standards as specified in our proposal for a Federal Health Care Act. The federal HCA would also specify that any employer or employee contributions to health care insurance plans would no longer be deductible to federal individual or corporate income taxes. (Is this a good place to talk about our EP fair tax reforms? Where do we stand on tort reform? Malpractice suits drive excessive testing and expensive and excessive drug scripting.)
We propose that, in order to receive Federal funding, every state or local health care plan must have barrier-free access to all citizens and legal residents at minimal personal cost (as specified in the Federal law). We further propose that local plans must also specify certain patient rights and provider responsibilities such as: portability (coverage when moving to other states, territories or employers, if applicable ), record privacy, fee transparency, choice of provider, absence of lifetime dollar caps or limits; and a clear statement of all covered and non-covered procedures, durable medical devices and pharmaceuticals.
We propose that states would be free, (upon meeting the minimum specified Federal standards of access and coverage), on one end of a spectrum of delivery structures, to provide direct “single-payer” funding to providers; or at the other extreme, require by state law that all public and private employers provide health insurance coverage meeting the minimum Federal standard. That standard would be: health and drug insurance premiums can be either fully employer paid, or split with employees. (This spectrum structure maps our proposed EP “Ramp” structure. That is, we move from a more radical “movement manifesto” (blow it up and go the “full UK”) to a less radical “party platform” where we may have to leave the other gorillas, like insurance and Big Pharma, in the game to get anyone elected to anything.) Large employers would be free to self-insure as long as they provide the same level of barrier-free coverage as specified as the minimum protection for employees in the Federal law. Any employee contribution shall be set by Federal law at maximum(X%) of his or her compensation.