Henry Simmons

House Democrats and for that matter, every Member of Congress, should be concerned about every factor of health care costs, including the amount of profit generated.

At the same time, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) is correct in pointing out that health plan profits are not the major factor driving health care costs. In fact, a recent Atlantic Monthly Magazine article concluded, that confiscating the annual profits of every U.S. health insurance company, would pay for only four days of health care for all Americans, while seizing the profits of the ten largest U.S. drug companies would pay for only seven additional days of care.

Vilifying one element of the health care system (i.e. the insurance industry) is neither fair, accurate nor useful. There are many factors contributing to rapid health care cost increases, including the massive administrative costs inherent in our poorly structured health insurance system.

I further believe, as our Coalition and others have long stressed, that health reform must be comprehensive and that the

While the Senate Finance Committee has made progress, the Committee’s proposal in its present form fails to meet the challenges posed by the health system cost crisis facing both government and the private sector.

Individuals, families and businesses large and small, as well as the public sector, would continue to face skyrocketing yearly health care cost increases. Short-term and long-term cost containment measures must be added to assure the sustainability of a new health system law. In addition, the bill falls far short of providing quality, affordable coverage for all America. Absent full coverage, successful health system reform is unachievable.

We look forward to working further with Chairman Baucus and all Congressional Democrats and Republicans to achieve responsible system-wide, systemic health care reform in 2009. But this job is far from done.

Our nation faces two extremely serious and interconnected problems, i.e., a health care crisis and an economic crisis.

Neither problem can be resolved without simultaneously addressing the other. Without comprehensive health system reform, the exponentially rising costs of health care will bankrupt the Nation, businesses of all sizes, families and individuals. We cannot afford to do nothing. The status quo simply is not an option.

He should then say:

The magnitude of these crises was daunting seven months ago and they remain so today. However, with the help of many, the campaign to enact major health system reform this year has already made history. Our nation’s health care system reform agenda has advanced further this year than any such effort since Teddy Roosevelt’s effort 100 years ago. Failure to complete the job now and to do so in a comprehensive but fiscally responsible manner would be a disservice to all Americans.

It will not be easy but health care quality can be improved and costs reduced by putting aside selfish and partisa

The National Coalition on Health Care joins the Nation in mourning the loss of Senator Edward M. Kennedy and celebrating his unmatched legacy of public service, perseverance and leadership in the legislative arena.

For over three decades it has been our honor to work with Senator Kennedy in building bipartisan support for a better future for all Americans. His commitment to a nation of high principle and bold endeavors immeasurably improved countless lives.

In this time of remembrance, we rededicate ourselves to seeing what Ted Kennedy called the cause of his life – the enactment of sustainable reform to ensure that every American has access to quality, affordable health care -- is realized. To quote one of his final public speeches, today, for us “the work begins anew.”

I believe and our Coalition agrees that an honest, open, and intense national debate about health system reform is essential. Unfortunately much of the August P.R. “offensive” has been anything but and instead has been riddled with misinformation, fear tactics, demagoguery, and in some instances, outright distortion of facts (e.g., the charges of death panels and euthanasia.)

Tactics such as these have been used many times before to fight necessary reform efforts proposed by both Republican and Democratic Presidents, most recently in the reform efforts advanced by President Clinton. In their study of that effort, and why it failed, David Broder and Haynes Johnson, in their book “The System” concluded that,

“Too much of the debate was dominated by negative sound bites, by the importuning of ‘spin doctors’ with their misleading arguments, false analogies, and statistics crafted for the convenience of the argument, not the truth of the case. As a result, the public, for excellent reasons, was confused and frightened througho