Opinion: Health Care Reform Will Mean Security

(Nov. 6) -- For too long, skyrocketing health care costs have strained our families' budgets, hampered our small businesses, and eaten up a greater and greater share of our economy each year. It's time to put a stop to it. The Affordable Health Care for America Act being considered by the House of Representatives will do just that.

Reform will mean security and stability for the middle class. Insurance companies will never again be able to deny you coverage because of "pre-existing conditions" that can range from asthma to pregnancy. They will never again be able to decide that you've gotten too sick for the coverage you've paid for.

OPPOSING VIEW: House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, says Republicans have a better plan.

Americans will be able to have affordable insurance through a new Insurance Exchange -- a competitive marketplace -- if they change jobs, lose a job or strike out on their own as an entrepreneur. In fact, an analysis from MIT recently showed that the Insurance Exchange will significantly reduce premiums -- by $1,260 per year for a family with an income of about $90,000, up to $9,050 in savings for a family with an income of $38,590.

For seniors, reform protects access to their Medicare doctors, creates incentives for physicians to cooperate on higher-quality care, and closes the prescription drug "donut hole" that leaves drugs unaffordable for millions.

For small businesses, reform can help control rising premiums that put them at a competitive disadvantage against foreign companies and big businesses. They will also be able to access the Exchange to buy coverage at lower rates only available today to the biggest companies.

Reform also will mean coverage for the 47 million Americans who live sicker and shorter lives because they don't have insurance. And that can save money for the rest of us,both by supporting preventive care and by reducing the yearly $1,100 "hidden tax" in family premiums that subsidizes care for the uninsured.

Finally, reform is good for our budget. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the Democratic bill will reduce our deficit by $104 billion over 10 years and won't increase deficits in the years after that.

Given these benefits, why don't plans for health insurance reform show overwhelming support in the polls? Quite simply, reform is complicated. Health care accounts for a sixth of our economy and touches the lives of every American family. Any bill that sets out to control skyrocketing costs, ensure quality care and bring coverage to tens of millions of the uninsured is going to be hard to explain succinctly, and easy to distort.

That plays into the hands of Congressional Republicans, one of whom announced that "if we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo; it will break him." At the beginning of the health care debate, Republicans made the tactical decision that they win if Congress does nothing; and so their contribution to one of the defining domestic policy debates of our time has been a series of fact-free claims about everything from "death panels," to rationing of care, to coverage for illegal immigrants. After months of debate, and only days before the House was set to vote on reform, Republicans finally brought out a proposal of their own. But after inspection by the CBO, it turns out that the Republican plan does nothing to expand coverage, weakens coverage for millions who already have it, and fails to achieve the most called-for reform of all: an end of insurance companies rejecting Americans with pre-existing conditions.

It's clear which party takes Americans' struggles with health care seriously. Democrats took them seriously enough to subject their plans to an enormous amount of public scrutiny: more than 3,000 events in local districts, 100 hearings since 2007, and 160 hours debating and amending the bill in committees.

And the fact is that the more Americans learn about the details of reform, the more they like it.

Poll after poll shows that Americans continue to support comprehensive changes to our health care system. And some of the most important parts of the Democratic plan win strong support when they're explained to voters. According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, 63 percent said that reform "absolutely must" ensure coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. Fifty-six percent supported an individual mandate to expand coverage to all Americans in a Washington Post/ABC News poll. And polls regularly show strong majority support -- anywhere from 57 percent to 73 percent -- for a reform bill with a public option to give insurance companies competition on price and quality. Three-fourths of doctors do, as well.

Democrats are fighting for reform because we know it's the right thing to do for our health, our families and our economy. And we are also confident because the polls bear us out again and again: When Americans learn the facts about what our bill does for them, they support it.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., is the House majority leader.