Health Care Reform Update: Obama Administration Briefs Mayors
by Alta Price, M.D.
Davenport Mayor Bill Gluba invited me to participate in a conference call Monday afternoon between the Obama Administration and many mayors around the country. Knowing of my work on health care reform, Bill asked me to advise him on health care reform issues, and guessed (correctly!) that I would be interested in what they had to say. The call was hosted by Presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom
. The purpose was to engage mayors in the push for health care reform.Mayor Newsom spoke first, and mentioned the timeliness and importance of health care reform. Most campaigns, he said, have a lot of rhetoric about health care reform, but the Obama campaign was not just rhetoric. This is our moment, and it might be our only chance to do anything on the issue for a long time. He wanted mayors to get involved in the grassroots push to compel action in Congress. His call to action and Ms. Jarrett’s were the same, so I’ll cover that after reporting what she had to say.
Ms. Jarrett said the Obama Administration supports meaningful reform that must include the following:
1) Costs must be controlled. The burden of health care costs is crushing families, local governments, state governments, and business.
2) People’s choices must be protected. They should be free to keep the insurance they have now if they want to. They should have a choice of doctors, hospitals, and insurance plans.
3) Quality, affordable health care must be guaranteed for all Americans.
The Obama Administration wants to “protect what works in our health care system and fix what is broken”. They would like to strengthen employer based insurance. They want to help people purchase insurance if they can’t afford it. They don’t want to raise deficits in the short term, and expect to reduce deficits long term (I think they meant that reform would lower deficits, but I might have misunderstood this point). And they want to “get it done” this year. Although there have been attempts to reform health care before, they feel things are different this year, partly because so many diverse groups are calling for reform.
The “asks” included the following:
1) The U.S. Conference of Mayors will be considering a health care reform resolution, and the Administration would like city councils to pass a version of the resolution (different cities might want to modify the resolution to fit their circumstances).
2) Hold roundtables or town hall meetings on health care reform.
3) Engage the press by approaching editorial boards and writing op-eds.
4) Work with local people and groups to put a human face on the issue as it affects their city.
5) Involve all stakeholders, not just the traditional groups Congress always hears from.
Then they took questions from mayors in Albuquerque, Philadelphia, Boise, and cities they didn’t identify (or I didn’t catch). One mayor wanted a timeline for a bill with specifics (Senate – this week, House – end of July). Ms. Jarrett said they are really looking for support for the underlying principles, not for specific legislation. (This has been a fruitful approach for those of us in the Quad Cities working on health care reform, since many times it’s like herding cats.)
A mayor asked about local groups they would recommend to work with (Families USA and Health Care for America Now, although Ms. Jarrett reiterated they want them to include other locals who don’t normally get heard). A mayor brought up concern that legislation might impact their city in a different way, since they have a lot of providers (Ms. Jarrett asked mayors to contact them about issues of local concern to educate them about those issues).
One mayor asked about the Administration’s view on the public plan option. I was very relieved to hear that the President would like a government plan option, with Ms. Jarrett mentioning that this would provide competition and thereby help control costs.
How will this affect our planned actions on health care reform? Well, our local Democracy for America Democracy for America group will be making constituent visits with our state legislators to request them to support health care reform and to sign on to support of a public plan option StandwithDrDean.com. We could easily add visits to our local mayors to ask them to support the resolution the Administration wants adopted. (Mayor Gluba does not have a copy of the resolution, but his office will try to get it to me in the next day or so. I will post it at Blog for Iowa once it is available.)
So what are you going to do? Who can you ask to StandwithDrDean? President Obama (and Howard Dean) need all of us to participate. The time for action is now!
Alta
Price is a physician practicing Pathology in Davenport, Iowa. One of
the original Deaniacs, she stays involved with Democracy for America,
Iowa, and the Quad Cities. She advocates for quality, affordable health
care for all, primarily as a volunteer with Progressive Action for the
Common Good (Health Care Reform Issue Forum). Watch for Dr. Price's Health Care Reform Update every Tuesday here on Blog for Iowa. E-Mail Alta Price
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