BIPARTISAN
SUPPORT GROWS FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM BILL
Feingold welcomes Collins’ support for effort to cover the
uninsured
May 22, 2008
Washington, D.C.
– Today, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) welcomed the support
of Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) for the State-Based Health Care Reform
Act, a state-based approach to ensure all Americans receive health care
coverage. Additional support for the bill, which Feingold authored with
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, coincides with
a Badger Poll conducted by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center
that finds a majority of Wisconsinites think states would do a better
job reforming the health care system rather than the federal government.
The Feingold-Graham bill, which Collins is now cosponsoring, would launch
pilot programs in several states to achieve health care coverage in
the best way the states see fit. States could use single payer systems,
expansion of current programs, market-based reforms, or adopt completely
new ideas in their efforts to cover the uninsured. The bill, also cosponsored
by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), was originally introduced in 2006 to
break the political stalemate in Congress preventing health care reform.
"I am so pleased
Senator Collins has joined this bipartisan effort to ensure all Americans
have access to good health care,” Feingold said. “It is
long past time for Congress to break the logjam preventing action on
health care reform. As I continue to hear from Wisconsinites concerned
about the state of our health care system, I will keep pushing legislation
to give states the flexibility they need to develop plans to bring health
care coverage to all their residents."
Senator Collins
said, “This initiative which will help to ‘jump start’
our health care reform efforts by encouraging states to adopt innovative
programs to make health coverage more available and affordable and to
reduce the numbers of uninsured. The states have long been laboratories
for reform, and they should be encouraged in the development of innovative
programs that can serve as models for the nation. I am pleased to join
Senator Feingold and applaud his efforts to cover the uninsured.”
Feingold-Graham-Collins
State-Based Healthcare Reform Act
- Authorizes funding
for pilot projects so that a few states can ensure health care coverage
to all residents.
- Gives flexibility
to states to use own approach to achieve health care coverage for
all, as long as they meet certain coverage requirements and provide
low-income protections.
- Pilot programs
would last for five years and would be funded through a grant application
program overseen by the Health Care Reform Task Force established
in the legislation.
- The Task Force
would evaluate state applications, select state projects, and oversee
implementation of the states’ proposals.
- Participating
states will be required to submit an annual report to the Task Force
detailing their progress.
- The Task Force
will be responsible for submitting an evaluation of all pilot projects
to Congress at the end of the initial five-year grant period. The
recommendations will be based on states’ experiences, and the
bill requires congressional debate of these recommendations and findings.
More information
on Feingold’s 2008 bipartisan initiatives can be found here: http://feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/releases/07/12/20071228.html.
More information
on the Badger Poll conducted by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center
can be found here: http://www.uwsc.wisc.edu/BP26Release4_HC2008.pdf. |