Kay Hagan: States should have a hand in a reformed health care system
Sen. Kay Hagan, on a conference call with reporters about her financial literacy bill, took a couple of questions on the health care reform debate as well. Health care costs are rising at rates that are unsustainable over the long run, Hagan said. On the other hand, she’s “extremely concerned” about the prospective costs of health care reform legislation that should, she went on, assure that every American has access to affordable care “through life’s ups and downs.”
I asked her what she thinks about the “public option” proposed by President Obama, a federal insurance plan that would compete with private coverage in the marketplace and, as Obama argued in his press conference yesterday, be a check on what private insurers can charge.
Hagan said she’s among those — ”a number of us” — who are looking instead at the idea of public plans in every state, with administration at the state level. “I think that in something this large,” she said, “the states should have a hand in it.”
State-level plans might be called “public” or be publicly-administered “coops”, she said, but the idea is that they would be available to anyone who can’t find good coverage in the private market.
Hagan is a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP), which is trying to produce a bill spelling out how health-care reform should work. The Senate Finance Committee, she noted, is working on how to pay for it. A week ago, Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake.com reported that Hagan and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat, were refusing to sign on to a bill that includes a public option. Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats, was refusing to support a bill without a public option. With committee chair Sen. Ted Kennedy on the mend back in Massachusetts, the upshot is that this 12-10 Democratic majority committee hasn’t been able to reach agreement on anything so far.
12 Comments
Fifty state plans wouldn’t have the negotiating power, essential to help keep costs lower, that one national plan would have.
And I think Hagan knows that.
— Lex 24 June 2009
Nothing much could be gained in a 50 state solution that could not be gained in a federal solution. And it will cost much more.
Those who are concerned about cost control should think about why the current structure doesn’t work. We have had a system that has eliminated care when needed rather than provided it. This is very costly. If you want to reduce cost, start providing badly needed up front care. No need for private to compete against public for this type of care. Insurers can still exist to cover costly new treatments, niceties (own room), …
— Kathryn 24 June 2009
Please share link with Bob Geary.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/26/747082/-The-Hagan-DisconnectA-Personal-Story
Thanks,
- Jon Parker 919.880.9450 (m)
— Jon Parker 29 June 2009
The link to the daily kos article is a fine example of the socialists agenda. Obama’s healthcare plan is blatent socialism, and Kay Hagan must still have a smidgen on a conscious if she opposes it. She must recognize that destroying healthcare for everyone so a few can have second-rate care is insane. Free-market capitalism is the only solution to affordable healthcare, not socialism. Obama sells his plan as something that it is not, or will not be after long, and that is a choice. There will be no choice if his plan gets passed. It will be all government welfare care or nothing.
— Eric 29 June 2009
[...] public option or a weak public option is open to interpretation. But Hagan said she was looking for a state-based approach. And the HELP bill is state-based, albeit with a federal insurance product somewhat akin to [...]
— HELP for health care, with Hagan’s OK - Triangulator - Indy Week Blogs 2 July 2009
Free-market capitalism led to health insurance monopolies. Monopolies led to price gouging and cutting off the most vulnerable from access to affordable health insurance (rescission). Price gouging and rescission led to thousands of unnecessary deaths because of unaffordable medical care.
That’s why the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, and the American Medical Students Association support healthcare reform as a check on the strength of the health insurance monopolies and allowing doctors to decide what is medically appropriate for their patients and not health insurers that are only concerned about profits.
— Jay 12 August 2009
Kay Hagan really needs to go. I have no idea what the deal is with these “blue dog” democrats…..they have a nerve. These are the same cronies that voted for Jesse Helms all those years!
— Helen Azriel 19 August 2009
I couldn’t agree more. Kay Hagan is the biggest con of the last election cycle! She played a good song, but we now see she wasn’t with us at all. If only Durham would’ve saw her for what she was and not given her the endorsements that got her pushed in.
— Patrick Smithers 19 August 2009
Not to mention she will come to an event and leave, but leave her cronies to answer questions. I never hear back from her, though she was always in our face when she wanted an endorsement.
— Patrick Smithers 19 August 2009
everyone says they dont want a public option but what is medicare? hello!
— Heather Burroughs 19 August 2009
A significant majority of the people who voted for Hagan did so because we want REAL health care reform legislation. Most polls show the majority of Americans want a public option (despite the lie campaign to cruelly scare the elderly). And Dems overwhelmingly favor a strong public option. Hagan’s in D.C. a few months and already she’s at the trough, getting $$$$ from the health care industry making up over 1/2 of her “contributions”/bribes this yr. The industry has been bribing “our” representatives with over $1 MILLION each and every day.
For shame, Hagan! It didn’t take you long to turn into a DC madame, did it?
— sandy 20 August 2009
She will never answer a question, not even
during her debates, go back and look. I hope
she goes next election.
— joel w bowen 21 September 2009