Email from Organizing for America on what is at stake.
Any day now, health insurance reform will come up for a vote in the Senate. We’re hearing a lot about what’s at stake with this vote for President Obama, the Democrats who are fighting alongside him, and the Republicans who have lined up in opposition.
But let’s talk about what’s really at stake for America. The Senate health reform bill will:
- Extend coverage to 31 million Americans, the largest expansion of coverage since the creation of Medicare.
- Ensure that you can choose your own doctor.
- Finally stop insurance companies from denying coverage due to a pre-existing condition.
- Make sure you will never be charged exorbitant premiums on the basis of your age, health, or gender.
- Guarantee you will never lose your coverage just because you get sick or injured.
- Protect you from outrageous out-of-pocket expenditures by establishing lifetime and annual limits.
- Allow young people to stay on their parents’ coverage until they’re 26 years old.
- Create health insurance exchanges, or "one-stop shops" for individuals purchasing insurance, where insurance companies are forced to compete for new customers.
- Lower premiums for families, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office especially for struggling folks who will receive subsidies.
- Help small businesses provide health care coverage to their employees with tax credits and by allowing them to purchase coverage through the exchanges.
- Improve and strengthen Medicare by eliminating waste and fraud (without cutting basic benefits), beginning to close the Medicare Part D donut hole, and extending the life of the Medicare trust fund.
- Create jobs by reining in costs — fostering competition, reducing waste and inefficiency, and starting to reward doctors and hospitals for quality, not quantity, of care.
- Cut the deficit by over $130 billion in the next 10 years.
It’s a long list. But that’s only because this bill represents the most significant health reform our nation has seen since the creation of Medicare.
And it’s important that every American knows what’s really at stake this holiday season.So please pass this email along to friends, family, and neighbors today — or click below to share this list on Facebook and Twitter, or print out a copy to share with others:
http://my.barackobama.com/SenateReformBill
We wouldn’t be this close to enacting these powerful reforms without all your hard work. Now, we’re in the final stretch — let’s keep it up.
Thank you,
David Plouffe
