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Health Care for America Now (HCAN) and Updates on Health Care Legistlation

July 29, 2008
Launched on July 9, 2008, Health Care for America Now (HCAN) is a national campaign to assure that that the next President and Congress pass legislation in 2009 that guarantees quality, affordable health care to all Americans. HCAN’s vision is for Americans to have the option of choosing between private or public health coverage plans. The HCAN campaign also calls for new regulations to be enforced on the insurance industry including regulations of costs for consumers, rules against the practice of retroactive rescinding of policies and denials of coverage due to pre-existing conditions, among other issues. This new organization will once again bring health care reform to the forefront of the public’s attention. Health Access California along with other California organizations including California ACORN, the California Partnership, will be leading the effort in California. Part of the effort will be to organize in communities around the state and to get commitments from Congressional leaders to make health care reform a top priority in 2009. The California movement is pushing for health care reform at both the state and federal levels.

In other news, a new national health care bill protecting Medicare was passed on Tuesday, July 15, 2008. President Bush had vetoed the bill earlier that day but both houses, however, overrode the president’s veto with bipartisan majorities. The Medicare bill reverses the July 1 cut to doctors’ reimbursement rates for providing Medicare patients’ care and cuts over-payments to private insurers instead. The bill also installs some new consumer protections for seniors.

On the California level, the Budget Conference Committee rejected the cuts to health care that would have resulted in over one million more Californians not getting health coverage in addition to three and a half million more Californians having to pay more or get less in terms of care and coverage. There were, however, cuts to children’s coverage; more than a quarter-million children are expected to lose coverage under this budget proposal.