Get the Facts on Health-Care Reform

By International Vice President Ken Hall, Teamsters Package Division Director

Few things have saddened me more than the outright lies being told to scare American citizens about something this country so desperately needs: health-care reform.

For the first time in almost 50 years, Congress is close to enacting major health-care reform to fix a broken system. The high cost of health care is burdening American workers, crippling U.S. companies, hurting the economy and adding to the deficit.

Many want you to believe this issue is about red states vs. blue states. It's not. You probably have friends or family members who have no health insurance or are underinsured. Health-care reform, the kind being sought by friends of working families like Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Robert Byrd, is about providing for Americans who need health coverage.

Some of our country's more timid politicians, though, don't see the issue as one where our country should try to lift approximately 47 million citizens from an uninsured nightmare, one accident or illness away from crippling hospital bills. These politicians simply see reforming a broken system as a victory for a Democrat.

Recently, Republican Sen. Jim DeMint said, "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

I don't need to tell you how shameful that statement is. When politicians put more value on political gain than the lives and health of their constituents, it's clear that more than the health-care system is broken. Also broken is our trust in politicians that are elected to look out for constituents.

Much attention has been paid to those disrupting town hall meetings, but they are a minority. Most people recognize a need for real reform. There are still plenty of people working toward making positive change, including Sen. Rockefeller, whose record on this issue is clear. He stands with working families. Anyone familiar with his record on the State Children's Health Insurance Program knows how tirelessly he has worked to get health insurance to those who need it.

When you hear the complaints of those shouters at town hall meetings, they are usually based on lies being told by front groups that are profiting from the current, broken system. Americans who are interested in learning the truth about this debate have plenty of places to find intelligent voices on this issue.

Right now, Congress is working on legislation that would let you keep the insurance you have and provide affordable coverage if you don't. It would let you continue to be insured if you change jobs, lose your job or start a small business. It would forbid insurance companies from denying coverage if you have a pre-existing condition.

If everyone had health insurance, it would lower the cost to those who currently have it because, right now, we are all paying for the uninsured. For example, health insurance for a family costs an employee and/or employer an average of $12,000 per year. If we enact health-care reform, it is estimated that the cost will drop by 25 percent, because everyone will be insured and those who currently have it will no longer have to subsidize those that go without. This means that employees and their employers who help pay for insurance would have an average of $3,000 per year to pump back into the economy. It will have the same effect as some of the stimulus money.

This is good for working Americans, for our economy and for our country. If the defenders of the status quo succeed this year, the drive to reform health care will falter. We may never have a shot at health-care reform again in our lifetimes.
 

Hall is an International Vice President of the Teamsters Union.