Sen. Wellstone Touts State-Based Universal Health Plan

Just one day after Reps. Jim McCrery (R-La.) and Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) introduced a plan to provide universal health coverage through a system of tax credits, Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) yesterday proposed his own "decentralized" state-based universal health insurance initiative. During the "Next Agenda" conference hosted by Campaign for America's Future in Washington, D.C., Wellstone said that all Americans should have "comprehensive, progressive" health coverage that would "make a difference in people's lives." He proposed a plan that would require states to provide residents with health insurance "as good as the members of Congress" receive, with improved substance abuse treatment and mental health benefits. Under the plan, states would develop their own programs, and the federal government would provide matching funds to help cover the cost (Josh Kotzman, Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 3/1). Wellstone first rolled out the proposal -- called the "Health Security for All Americans Act" -- last July. Under the plan, the federal government would cover 70% to 75% of the cost, with states funding the remaining 25% to 30%. The proposal would also require families earning less than $25,000 a year to contribute no more than 0.5% of their incomes to health care costs; families earning between $25,000 and $50,000 would contribute up to 5%, and families earning $50,000 or more would contribute no more than 7% (American Health Line, 7/20). According to Wellstone, the plan would cost about $800 billion over 10 years.

No 'Motor Power' for Reform?
Wellstone also emphasized that universal health coverage backers would have to "build coalitions" at the grass-roots level to "put the issue on the agenda" and provide the "motor power" for reform. According to SEIU President Andrew Stern, who also spoke at the conference, most lawmakers have offered only modest health reforms since former President Clinton's universal health care initiative failed in 1994. He called national health insurance a "good policy," but added that without a "national political will" for large-scale health reforms, such plans would prove "impossible politics." In addition, he said that supporters of universal health care "must build momentum for national action at a state level." Cathy Hurwit, chief of staff for Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), added that universal health coverage enjoys "broad [but] not deep" support from voters, pointing out that Americans are often subject to "scare tactics" from opposing interest groups, such as the Health Insurance Association of America. To help "dispel the myths and raise expectations" about national health care, Hurwit said that Schakowsky and several other lawmakers plan to introduce in March a "vision statement" on health care that would champion comprehensive, affordable health insurance for all Americans (Kotzman, Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 3/1).

Dayton Targets Rx Costs
Returning to "the issue that he rode to victory in 2000," Wellstone's colleague Sen. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.) on Feb. 28 said that he will donate his $141,000 salary to "help pay for" seniors to take bus trips to Canada to buy cheaper prescription drugs, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. "However, the solution to prescription drug affordability is not to bus every Minnesotan to Canada. Rather, it is to provide prescription drug coverage to every needy senior citizen across America," Dayton said in his first Senate speech. The Star Tribune reports that Dayton and Wellstone support a "universal" prescription drug benefit available to all seniors eligible for Medicare (Hotakainen/Diaz, Minneapolis Star Tribune, 3/1).