http://blog.healthcareforameri.....hy-choice/

The NOW! Blog

Give Montanans a Healthy Choice

by: molly moody

Wed Apr 08, 2009 at 20:34:36 PM MDT

Rural Americans, such as those that make up 65% of Montana’s population, are being hit hardest by America’s health care crisis.We are far more likely to pay higher out-of-pocket medical costs and incur greater expenses for emergency room care, and we are 70% more likely to be underinsured, according to a research paper published in Health Affairs entitled “Out of Pocket Health Spending and the Rural Underserved.” As Lil Anderson, Jim Paquette, and Nicholas Wolter - all Montanan health care providers - explained in the Billings Gazette last week, one in five Montanas is uninsured, rising health care costs are squeezing even families that have health insurance, and Montana’s small businesses and by extension, our families, are suffering:

We all have a stake in fixing the health care system, and the fix is one vital step toward reviving the U.S. economy. As the economy falters, businesses - especially small businesses - are struggling under the weight of rising health costs. Many businesses are forced to choose between providing health coverage or eliminating jobs. And families are forced to spend more of their incomes on health care. We need to get the economy back on track and develop a health care system that protects human dignity while delivering high-quality, affordable care to everyone.

Montanans are suffering in a large part because there is no meaningful competition in our state’s health care market. According to the American Medical Association [pdf], one insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana, controls 75% of the market. With competition like that, no wonder prices are soaring even faster here than in other regions of the country!Thankfully, a solution is at hand, one proposed by our very own Senator Max Baucus. In November, Senator Baucus laid out his vision for health care reform in a white paper entitled “Call To Action: Health Reform 2009.” In it, Baucus proposed a public health insurance option, a federally sponsored health insurance plan like Medicare that everyone could buy into that would be subsidized based on what a family could afford. The public health insurance option would be available all over the country, including all areas of Montana.

The public health insurance option neatly solves many of the problems rural Americans have with our current health care system. First, it guarantees affordability for families because rates would be set on a sliding scale determined by income. Second, it would drive down costs by giving Montanans a real choice between the health care plan they have now or the new option. This competition, usually only available to big businesses in big cities, would mean better and more efficient care as well as lower costs for small business, farmers, sole proprietors, and others, as current private insurance plans are forced to lower costs and improve quality to compete.

This idea is the same one President Obama campaigned on when he promised Americans a choice between keeping the insurance they have if they like it, or choosing the new public health insurance option. And voters overwhelmingly approve of the idea, with 73% of voters, including 71% of rural voters, clamoring for a choice between private and public health insurance plans. Polling shows strong support for the idea as well as a rejection of the typical attacks:

• Rural voters overwhelmingly believe that this competition is necessary, and that if private insurance is really more efficient than public insurance, private plans will have no problem staying in the game.
• Rural voters strongly believe a public health insurance option would be able to control costs by leveraging its purchasing power to strike deals with providers and reducing administrative waste.
• What’s more, rural voters dismiss the typical attacks against a public health insurance plan, that the option would cause “rationing,”  
  long waits, or lower quality care.
• 77% of rural voters, a higher percentage than the general population, support a choice of public or private health insurance options even if it means a larger role for the federal government.

The public health insurance option would help solve some of our other health care problems, as well.Currently, the main tool policy makers use to combat the chronic shortage of doctors and medical facilities in rural areas like Montana is through public health insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which are able to boost the rates they pay doctors in rural areas to attract more talent to states like Montana. A public health insurance option would be able to do the same thing on a larger scale, because the new public health insurance plan would serve the general population. By giving Montanans a choice, the plan proposed by Senator Baucus would not only increase competition, but help solve our doctor shortage as well.

Montanans deserve a choice in their health care, a choice that has been denied to them for far too long. We deserve to be able to choose a health care plan that doesn’t force us into bankruptcy, that forces all insurers in our state to compete, and that helps lure doctors and hospitals to our neck of the woods. I salute Senator Baucus for proposing a public health insurance option that would give us that choice, and I implore him to fight for that choice as hard as he possibly can on behalf of the health of his constituents in Montana.