Pacem Joins the Health Care for America Now Campaign

Pacem in Terris has joined Health Care for America Now (HCAN), a coalition of 135 national and state-based groups that represent labor, community organizations, doctors, nurses, women, small businesses, faith-based organizations, people of color, netroots activists, and think tanks. Health Care for America Now (HCAN) campaign was launched nationally earlier this summer and in Delaware on July 8 with the goal of securing a guarantee of quality, affordable health care for all in 2009. The Delaware coalition efforts are being coordinated by Darlene Battle of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

HCAN believes that all of us benefit from healthy communities, where we all have access to affordable, quality healthcare from a provider of our choice, at the time we need it, at a cost we can afford. The current health care system in America is not affordable for families, businesses or government, so we need an American solution to secure our families’ health and a healthy economy. All of us, individuals, employers and government have a shared responsibility to realize comprehensive reforms in our health care system.

Our government’s responsibility is to play a central role in regulating, financing, and providing health coverage by establishing:

• A truly inclusive and accessible health care system in which no one is left out.

• A choice of a private insurance plan, including keeping the insurance you have if you like it, or a public insurance plan without a private insurer middleman that guarantees affordable coverage.

• A standard for health benefits that covers what people need to keep healthy and to be treated when they are ill. Health care benefits should cover all necessary care, including preventative services and treatment needed by those with serious and chronic diseases and conditions.

• Health care coverage with out-of-pocket costs including premiums, co-pays and deductibles that are based on a family’s ability to pay for health care and without limits on payments for covered services.

• Equity in health care access, treatment, research and resources to people and communities of color, resulting in the elimination of racial disparities in health outcomes and real improvement in health and life expectancy for all.

• Health coverage through the largest possible pools in order to achieve affordable, quality coverage for the entire population and to share risk fairly.

• A watchdog role on all plans, to assure that risk is fairly spread among all health care payers and that insurers do not turn people away, raise rates or drop coverage based on a person’s health history or wrongly delay or deny care.

• A choice of doctors, health providers and public and private plans, without gaps in coverage or access and a delivery system that meets the needs of at-risk populations.

• Affordable and predictable health costs to businesses and employers. To the extent that employers contribute to the cost of health coverage, those payments should be related to employee wages rather than on a per-employee basis.

• Effective cost controls that promote quality, lower administrative costs and long-term financial sustainability, including: standard claims forms, secure electronic medical records, using the public’s purchasing power to instill greater reliance on evidence-based protocols and lower drug and device prices, better management and treatment of chronic diseases and a public role in deciding where money is invested in health care.

To succeed the HCAN Coalition across the nation and here in Delaware will require all of us, from activists to institutions to work together. It will require teamwork from us as citizens and one way to participate in this is to sign the HCAN petition called, “Which Side Are You On?” If you would like to sign the petition and/or circulate it for us where you work, worship, or live, please call the Pacem in Terris number at 302-656-2721 or go to the Health Care for America Now website www.healthcareforamericanow.org and sign it on line. The next local meeting of the Delaware HCAN Coalition will be on Tuesday, September 2, at 2 p.m. in the First Floor Lounge at 1304 N. Rodney Street, Wilmington, DE 19806. You are cordially invited to attend.