Healthy Americans Act
The Healthy Americans Act is a comprehensive health care proposal. The proposal maintains consumer choice and assures every American health care with benefits at least as good as those offered to Members of Congress and Senators.
The Healthy Americans Act assures universal, private health insurance to for all Americans by:
- Requiring every American to purchase a private health care plan.
- Ensuring that every American has a high-quality, private health care plan that is comparable to what Members of Congress now enjoy.
- Creating a standard health care tax deduction to help Americans cover the cost of their health care plan.
- Establishing a sliding scale of health care premium assistance for low-income Americans.
The Healthy Americans Act eliminates the link between employment and health care by:
- Ending the employer health care tax deduction.
- Requiring employers who currently provide employee health benefits to convert their health care premiums into higher wages that employees will use to purchase their own private health insurance for the first two years.
- Requiring employers to make payments to the federal government, on a sliding scale depending on the number of employees, to fund premium subsidies. Employers who do not currently provide health benefits will be required to begin making phased-in payments immediately; after two years, all employers will be making these payments.
The Healthy Americans Act protects consumers by:
- Establishing a Health Help Agency in each state to coordinate payments from employers, individuals and government; coordinate enrollment of individuals in private health care plans; and provide consumers with unbiased information about competing health care plans.
- Prohibiting discrimination against beneficiaries based on health status or genetics.
- Allowing plans to use financial incentives to reward beneficiaries who enroll in wellness programs or otherwise pursue a healthy lifestyle.
- Allowing beneficiaries to purchase additional coverage above and beyond the federal standard if they choose.
- Maintaining employer-based retiree health plan for individuals who are already retired and Medicare, and preserving health plans negotiated as part of a collective bargaining agreement for as long as seven years.
The Healthy Americans Act reallocates federal resources by:
- Phasing out the Disproportionate Share Hospital payments program, which provides compensation to hospitals treating the uninsured. Universal coverage will obviate the need for this program.
- Phasing out the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in favor of coverage under the Healthy Americans Act.
- Ending non-supplemental Medicaid and covering basic health care for low income Americans under the Healthy Americans Act.
According to a comprehensive review and score by the Lewin Group, the cost of the Healthy Americans Act to the federal government is entirely offset, and will increase coverage and decrease costs by:
- Providing health care coverage to 99% of Americans
Cutting national spending on health care, both public and private, and creating a long term savings of $1.48 trillion over ten years.
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