One Year Later:  Taking Stock of Health Care Reform

A growing number of Americans say they’re dissatisfied with the health care overhaul enacted a year ago this week.  The new law is having a negative impact on many people, with health insurance premiums going up at a higher rate than ever before.  One of the major reasons for reform was ever-increasing costs, but the reform law is having the opposite impact and making the upward trend worse, even while many families and individuals continue to struggle with job loss or less pay.

The massive tax increases in the new law are taking their toll, too.  Higher taxes work against America’s economic recovery.  And, employers tell me they’re not hiring new workers because of the uncertainty and higher costs created by new employer mandates in the law.  Other employers are being forced to drop insurance policies for workers altogether.

I also hear frustration from seniors in Iowa about the Medicare cuts in the health care law.  The $529 billion in cuts aren’t aimed at saving Medicare.  They were used to create a brand new, separate entitlement, which will require more and more government spending, despite record-breaking federal deficits and debt.  These Medicare cuts have caused tens of thousands of seniors in Iowa to lose the Medicare plan that they had before the new law.  The reforms also jeopardize physician reimbursement for Medicare providers.  That could decrease the number of providers available to care for seniors.  A special deal in the law helps five select rural states.  Iowa’s not one of them.  This inequitable treatment weakens the coalition of rural states needed to work for fair treatment for rural health care delivery systems.

Believe it, or not, the health care reforms put on Americans don’t apply to the President, his cabinet or other top advisors in the White House, or to congressional committee and leadership staff (the people who wrote the final legislation).  Early on, I made sure the reforms would apply to members of Congress but after making a special carve-out behind closed doors, congressional leaders stopped my effort (more than once) to reverse the exemption of select and powerful congressional staff.  The Senate majority leader blocked my effort to apply the law to the White House.  That’s hogwash.  This year, I reintroduced legislation to require those leaders to live under the law.  Those who help make the law should taste their own medicine.  Anything less sends an arrogant message to grass roots America.  It says health care reform is good enough for you, but not for us.

What was passed last year is being implemented with all kinds of other special exemptions, too, from federal rulemaking that’s happening without the opportunity for the public to comment, to the waiver of requirements in the new law from applying to more than 1,000 hand-picked entities.  It’s pretty clear that Congress needs to start over and take a common-sense approach, in order to improve the quality of care delivered to patients and to get at the major problem of spiraling health care costs, so that more people can afford and access health care coverage.  As it stands one year after the current law was enacted, promises that were made by supporters are ringing hollow for more and more Americans.