Health Care for America Now
QUALITY, AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE WE ALL CAN COUNT ON |
Plan StatusOngoing advocacy.Number of People CoveredAll Americans.
Estimated CostNot addressed.
Payment Scheme HCAN supports a system that combines private and public coverage. |
 |
Plan in Brief
- This self-described “national grassroots campaigns includes among its membership social, political, business, and health care professional organizations.
- HCAN supports bringing affordable, quality health care to all Americans.
- The goal is the responsibility of individuals, employers, and government.
|
Impact on Federal Government
- HCAN calls on the government to ensure quality affordable coverage to all.
- One government role would be as a “watchdog,” regulating insurance industry pricing and practices.
- HCAN supports maintaining public coverage.
Impact on States
Impact on Insurers
- HCAN supports maintaining private insurance plans.
- HCAN calls for regulation of the insurance industry.
- Benefits should include preventive as well as chronic care.
Impact on Providers
Impact on Employers
- HCAN believes coverage costs should be affordable for employers.
- Benefits should be based on employee wages rather than being a standard per-employee amount.
Impact on Individuals
- Believes health care costs should be based on a family’s ability to pay.
Proponents/Opponents
|
Proponents point to the broad membership and commitment of HCAN as well as its funding and believe that the group has the power to influence government.
|
HCAN does not advocate a single-payer system, although it acknowledges that a single-payer system is one way of achieving the goal it does advocate: quality, affordable health care for all. HCAN reasons that the goal is best achieved by leaving the means of access open and causing less reason to fear a sweeping change. However, those who believe that single-payer is the solution, and that insurance company involvement is contradictory to the goals of health care reform, are opposed to this aspect of HCAN’s position.
|
For Further Information
Read about Health Care for America Now!
See the ad that launched HCAN
Coalition to Lobby for U.S. Health Care Reform
The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association Responds to HCAN
|
Key Targets for InvestmentHealth information systems such as electronic health records.
Disease prevention and anagement.
Notable Feature
- HCAN believes benefits should be obtained through the largest patient pools possible to increase affordability, risk sharing, and purchasing power.
- Supports a public role in determining how health care funding is used.
- HCAN’s public profile was increased with the support of Elizabeth Edwards, wife of the 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate, John Edwards.
Experts' Comments“Coming off more than a quarter century of conservative domination of American politics, I am reminded that Karl Rove's hero, William McKinley, was followed by Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era. Our job is to build a movement for health care reform that ignites the hopes and aspirations of the American people, the American values of opportunity and fairness. Winning real health care reform will requires a clear vision, a persistent, strategic energy and a belief in the miracle of change.”
-- Richard Kirsch
National Campaign Manager, HCAN, in “Winning Quality, Affordable Health Care for All”
“… in search of a supposedly politically viable plan, the advocates of this approach have surrendered in advance on the only overhaul that will actually cure the disease, a single-payer, expanded and improved Medicare for all reform.
Their good intentions will leave the same failed system in place, and will not even blunt the political opposition from those on the right and corporate interests who will continue to challenge anything that looks like even modest reform.”
-- Rose Ann DeMoro
“Why is Health Care for America Now giving up on real reform?” at the Center for Labor Renewal.
|
|
|
|
Plan Briefs 
