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WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-08) today announced the introduction of “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009” in the House of Representatives aimed at providing affordable quality health care for all Americans while controlling increases in medical coverage costs.
“Our nation’s ailing health care system is on the road to recovery,” said Pascrell, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and its Health Subcommittee, a key panel charged with crafting the legislation. “This is a major first step that my colleagues and I have made, and we are committed to providing real changes for all Americans to make sure they can access the health care they need at reasonable costs.”
Under the proposed legislation, those who are satisfied with their health care coverage will be able to keep it. For others, the bill provides reforms that will allow greater choice, access and affordability.
Among those reforms included in the bill is Pascrell’s proposal for the Health Workforce Investment Act, which would create a new federal infrastructure to centralize the nation’s health workforce policy to help make certain there are enough professionals to improve the administration and delivery of services.
According the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, New Jersey faces a shortage of nearly 20,000 nurses -- a shortage that is expected to grow as high as 43,000 with twenty percent of the state’s nurses expected to retire within the next three years. New Jersey is also expected to face a shortage of 2,800 physicians by the year 2020. While the supply of nurses and physicians is expected to drop dramatically, demand for medical service will increase as the population of those 65 and older will grow thirty percent by the year 2020. From a national perspective, the country is looking at a shortage of 55,000 physicians, 1 million nurses and approximately 2.5 million allied health professionals by 2020.
The bill would also greatly expand Pascrell’s earlier proposal for a national registry of hip and knee replacement devices. A national registry for a wide-range of medical devices – including those that are permanently implantable, life-supporting, or life-sustaining – would be used to ensure patient safety and device effectiveness.
Other major reforms provided in the proposed legislation include:
- A Health Insurance Exchange that will allow consumers and employers to comparison shop among private and public insurers. Through the exchange, low and middle-income individuals and families will be awarded affordability credits to reduce their insurance costs.
- A Public Health Insurance option to bring competition and affordability to areas of the country that may be dominated by only one or two private companies offering coverage. The public health insurance, including any start-up funding, would be funded entirely by premiums.
- Prohibition of discriminatory practices that would allow insurance companies to refuse to sell or renew policies due to an individual’s health status. Insurance companies will no longer be able to impose annual or lifetime limits on benefits, and will be limited in their ability to charge higher rates due to health status, gender, and other factors. Premiums would be able to vary base only on age, geography and family size.
- A federally-funded expansion of Medicaid with increases in reimbursements to health care providers to ensure coverage for children in low-income families, individuals with disabilities and people with mental illness.
- Improvements to Medicare, including the elimination of gaps in prescription drug benefits.
- Assistance for small employers, including exemptions from the employer responsibility requirement for certain small businesses and a new small business tax credit for those firms who want to provide health coverage to their workers, but cannot afford it today. In addition to the targeted assistance, the Exchange and market reforms provide a long‐sought opportunity for small businesses to benefit from a more organized, efficient marketplace in which to purchase coverage.
In keeping with President Barack Obama’s priority of reforming health care without adding to the national deficit, half of the cost of the proposed legislation would be paid for by savings within the health care system. The proposed reforms are projected to save the nation billions in wasteful health care spending under the current system. Americans will pay as much as $248 billion in lost productivity this year alone. Providing health care for the uninsured currently costs insured American families $100 billion every year.
The legislation also includes a small surtax on the nation’s top 1.2 percent of earners by requiring them to contribute toward the cost of providing access to affordable health care for all Americans. Pascrell, as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, protected an even greater number of working New Jersey families by successfully arguing for a raise in the income thresholds to annual incomes of $280,000 for individuals and $350,000 for families.
The need for health care reform in New Jersey has been exacerbated by the recession according to data released earlier this year by the Center for American Progress. Every day, 650 people in the Garden State lose their health insurance, contributing to an 11 percent increase in the number of uninsured people in New Jersey since 2007, the center reported.
***Congressman Pascrell is available for interviews to discuss the details of this comprehensive, groundbreaking legislation.
Letters of Support for the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009
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