Health on the Hill is back!!!! And health care reform is still moving. Over the holiday break, we saw the legendary passage of the Senate health care bill and were confronted with the conflicting feelings of progress ( remember America has been trying to pass health care reform legislation for decades) and defeat (there were a lot of key compromises made on an already watered-down bill in order to get it passed). Nonetheless, Congress is charging forward to get the final bill completed and signed into law and we, as young Americans, should be ready to embrace the change it will create, while also continuing to push for the work that is yet to be done on reforming our health care system and ending the control insurance companies have over our health and our wallets. This reform bill will just be the beginning.

Today’s Updates – 1/15/10:

* The below post was written by CP Advocacy Intern, Christian Pittman

The Senate and House Democrats have eschewed formal conferencing to resolve the discrepancies between their respective health care bills and have taken to meeting with President Obama and aides at the White House. A desire to have a success story for the Dems before the State of the Union address (conveniently moved to not interfere with the season premiere of Lost) has set in motion Republican-free talks to make the needed compromises. We just have to hope that they don’t compromise all the beneficial parts out of the bill. As of now the public option is effectively dead. There’s no way to attract the votes needed in Congress with a government-run plan in either bill. As unfortunate as this is we can only hope that the reforms that do pass set us up as a nation to accept the public option in the future.

In order for the left to accept this, those in the House of Representatives are standing firm on their national exchange position where the whole country will have uniform laws and enforcement of coverage for as many people as possible, and where it will be easier for consumers to compare plans for purchase. While President Obama is leaning toward the national exchange, which the House adopted in its bill (as opposed to independently-run state exchanges adopted in the Senate bill), he seems to favor the Senate’s take on taxes (taxing high-cost insurance plans instead of taxing high-income individuals – both of which will generate revenue to pay for reform). This gridlock has seen lots of input from labor union leaders who have strong stakes in high-cost plans and therefore don’t want more taxes for their mostly middle-class members. So in order to convince the unions and House Democrats that those who gave up higher wages for better health care won’t be hit where it hurts, concessions were added this week in order to come to a compromise on the issue. Now just a few more sticking points, such as the expansion of Medicaid and the national vs. state exchange, are all that stand between the unified bill being completed and sent to the Congressional Budget Office for scoring.(a goal that Congress aims to accomplish by this weekend).

Meanwhile, while the Republicans in Congress have been mostly anti-reform, many of us on the other side were hearing how much the insurance companies (maybe some of the most influential players in this game) agreed with us and supported reform. They’re set to earn more money by gaining 30 million more customers (only a portion of the uninsured in the U.S.) so why wouldn’t they be happy to accept it? Apparently they’d rather gouge prices on their own terms than be regulated as competitive, fair institutions. AHIP (America’s Health Insurance Plans), a conglomeration of the most familiar names in health care, has been privately funding ads by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce against reform. A sum of $10-20 million was reportedly given to produce television ads attacking Congress’s reform bills.  So this just confirms our long-time suspicions that insurance companies are taking advantage of us in any way they can. This reform bill aims to curb some of the abusive tactics that insurance companies have used all these years, but we have to keep up the fight after the bill passes because there will still be a lot more work to be done.

As Campus Progress reported last fall, the youth are one of the largest groups of the uninsured and the Catastrophic Plan laid out in the Senate bill (which we are working hard to have improved before the bill is finalized)  is directed towards young people and severely lacking in comprehensive coverage options. As someone who has been lucky to not have any emergency treatments in my life (knock on wood) I can’t imagine having to go to the ER and fork over the bill in cash. Under the Catastrophic Plan for young individuals, that is precisely what I would have to do, unless of course I’d met my deductible of almost $6,000. I hardly make thousands of dollars in income. Not only that, but for those of us who have our regular check-ups or need prescription drug coverage, those services wouldn’t be covered under the Catastrophic plans. They are targeted at us with cheap prices and a conniving perception that we will now be insured, but the Catastrophic Plan is insurance in name only and we are fighting to improve this plan in order to give young Americans access to affordable, basic coverage (You can join the fight by taking action here!)

There is a lot yet to be resolved with this health care bill and not a lot of time to do it. So it will be up to us and our representatives to remember the real goals of health care reform and choose battles wisely –which means keeping the interests of the people in mind as opposed to the interests of the industry. However, this debate has gone on for a long time and as we watched the bill become more and more watered-down it has been clear that the industry tends to win out. As the next generation in power, and one that is dedicated to progress, we have to work to change that trend. 2010 offers up a great opportunity to start that work, by getting out to vote in the mid-term elections. The example of the power of one Congressional vote was clearly shown in the Lieberman debacle, and is about to rear its ugly head again as Massachusetts works to fill the late Senator Kennedy’s seat. Kennedy was a sure vote for health care reform and now the race to fill his seat seems it may result in Scott Brown, the running Republican, taking the seat, which means a sure vote against health care reform. The bill will need 60 votes to pass, so losing that vote could be the death of the bill. Just an example of how crucial our input is when it comes to electing those who represent our interests.