Health Insurance Coverage

Senator Wyden's Plan Includes Health Insurance Coverage for All, and for Less

May 2008

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has been working on the same health care plan for a couple of years now, and has potentially crafted a plan for health insurance coverage that would be both universally available to Americans, and yet affordable as well.

His plan, known as the "Healthy Americans Act" has actually gained some noticeable bipartisan support, mostly because this health insurance coverage claims to pay for itself.

How so? It would allow workers to carry their insurance from job to job. They, not their employers, would be purchasing their own individual health insurance plans. Employers would cash out of existing health plans and give their employers increased wages with which to purchase health insurance coverage from a large pool of private agencies. After 2 years, employers would switch to paying into an insurance pool based on annual revenues and the number of workers.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation evaluated Wyden's health-care plan and found that it would become revenue-neutral two years after it became fully operational and even eventually generate budget surpluses.

But as yet, no one has mentioned whether or not prices for individual health insurance would be kept at a minimum, or allowed to continue growing at twice the rate of inflation (as has been the case in recent years).

It would also be a good idea to debate what type of health insurance coverage would be available to all Americans, including quality of care and coverage for expensive medications.

However, if both sides of the political aisle can finally agree on something, perhaps they can get the ball rolling and make sure that the individual health insurance Americans get is reflective of what they really need.