Affordable, Quality Health Care for All

As Congress debates the last steps needed to pass historic comprehensive health care reform, state legislators continue to press forward their efforts to enact state reforms as well as lay the groundwork for implementing reforms in a federal bill.  Here is a summary of some of the most recent developments taking place across the country.

This Dispatch will: highlight a few of the state insurance reform campaigns underway and the health insurance problems they highlight; detail how to message these campaigns to support federal reform; provide a roundup of policy options and model bills for other states interested in moving similar insurance reforms; and end with a set of resources on the campaign, including national policy organizations, key reports, and bills moving across the country.

As Congress delays moving forward on the passage of comprehensive health care reform, progressive state leaders from across the country have been demanding passage of reform as critical for families across the nation.  But that doesn't mean they are waiting; state leaders are moving forward, laying the groundwork for how national changes should be implemented, and creating the momentum for other meaningful health care reforms in their states.

As the U.S. Congress enters its final push to enact health care reform legislation, state legislators working with Progressive States Network have been raising their voices to make sure key state concerns are addressed in final negotiations.

With final negotiations moving forward on Capitol Hill on a final health care reform bill, over two dozen state legislators met with the White House and Capitol Hill leaders to share views of how to build a strong state-federal partnership to provide quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

This Dispatch will examine how federal reform will likely impact states, analyzing specific provisions and whether they are beneficial or detrimental to states' ability to partner with the federal government in pursuit of quality, affordable health care for all.

While the current debate in DC has focused on the choice of public health insurance plan, this Dispatch will outline how state legislators and health care advocates have already been advancing the priority of a public plan - helping to build grassroots support for creating the choice of a public health insurance plan as part of comprehensive health care reform.  Notable state campaigns to extend public plans to more families include Healthy Wisconsin, a guaranteed health care program for all state residents, providing state employee-level benefits and ensuring consumers' choice of providers, which passed the State Senate in 2007, and the Connecticut Healthcare Partnership, allowing small businesses and municipalities to buy coverage through the state employee health plan, which passed the legislature in 2008 but was vetoed by the Governor. This year, these initiatives have been reinvigorated by legislators and joined by other proposals that hinge on creating a public plan, like SustiNet, a comprehensive reform measure which creates a true public health insurance option in Connecticut, the nation's insurance capitol. 

State legislatures and city councils across the country are raising the bar for how ambitious national health care reform should be, with many coming out in favor of single-payer health coverage reform. 

Prior to last Monday's White House health care forum in Des Moines, Iowa, one of fiveregional forums being held across the country, the Iowa Senate passed two significant health care reform measures - one symbolic and one substantive.

State Sen. Ray Cleary, a South Carolina Republican, has proposed S.286 to create a free dental screening program for schoolchildren in at least 3 of the state's poorest counties - where children are most likely to go without regular dental care. Sen. Cleary, a dentist himself, wants to combat the adverse effects that poor dental health has on a child's education, including the inability to focus while in school because of pain and missed school days. According to the Pew Center on the States, tooth decay is the most common childhood disease, affecting 60% of all children and causing kids across the country to miss 51 million hours of school time each year.