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* Press release from yesterday…
Access to quality, affordable health care is the most fundamental basis for quality of life. Chris Kennedy, Democratic candidate for governor, and his running mate, Ra Joy, released their health care plan today to put Illinois on a path to accessible, affordable health care.
“Illinois can play a major role in ensuring that every resident has access to health care and quality healthcare experiences at all stages of life,” Kennedy said. “No individual or family should suffer for lack of access to care, and no individual or family should suffer because they cannot afford health care.
“Our state thrives when our residents are healthy and able to contribute fully to society. We envision a state where high-quality health care is easily accessible, affordable, and delivered with compassion.”
The campaign’s plan highlights women’s healthcare. Protecting a woman’s right to chose, providing broader access to birth control, and standardizing the state’s sex education curriculum to be inclusive of women’s needs is imperative.
The standardization of the state’s sex education will include information about birth control, Plan B, abortion, sexual harassment, domestic violence, rape, and tools for survivors. The increase in information is vital to future of our state.
The campaign’s plan is inclusive and includes a path to a single-payer system that starts by creating a state-backed public option of large-scale, Illinois-based employers and pre-existing municipal insurance pools to allow them to aggregate together as one negotiating entity to drive down costs. This will reduce our reliance on costly, profit-driven insurance companies and provide modern, accessible, and just coverage to all.
The employer-backed option will be made available to anyone in the state—including undocumented immigrants—which will further drive down costs for plan holders and the overall healthcare market in Illinois.
The campaign’s healthcare plan also proposes a $15 minimum wage bill that will be a required base minimum pay for all caregivers and healthcare workers. License-exempt caregivers who are caring for our children—often the children of low-income families—should not be earning less than minimum wage. Some license-exempt providers are earning as little as $16.22 per day.
“This is unacceptable. No one who works a full-time job should be forced to live in poverty,” Kennedy said.
The plan also includes works a program to treat addiction. The opioid crisis is claiming lives across our state: in big cities like Chicago, which have long suffered from government indifference to issues of addiction—particularly in predominantly minority communities—and in rural areas, where addiction to opioids has exploded in recent years. A Kennedy/Joy administration will follow Vermont’s innovative lead by adopting a Hub and Spoke model to treat addiction.
On the Path to Single-Payer: A State-Backed Public Option
A Kennedy/Joy administration will put Illinois on a path to a single-payer system. We will start by creating a state-backed public option of large-scale, Illinois-based employers and pre-existing municipal insurance pools to allow them to aggregate together as one negotiating entity to drive down costs. This will reduce our reliance on costly, profit-driven insurance companies and provide modern, accessible, and just coverage to all.
These aggregated insurance pools will emerge as an economic and political force in the state with clout, leverage, and contacts to overcome the insurance lobby. By allowing the largest employers in the state to work together to negotiate the cost of health coverage and drug prices, existing insurance companies will become nothing more than benefits managers.
Once established, with a solid foundation of committed members and employers, the employer-backed option will be made available to anyone in the state—including undocumented immigrants—which will further drive down costs for plan holders and the overall health care market in Illinois. […]
Medicaid Buy-In Program
Every person in our state should have access to affordable, quality health insurance. However, for a family of four in Illinois, the federal government will only subsidize the cost of monthly premiums if that family’s net income is $98,400 or less. As premiums rise due to decisions by the republicans in Washington, but income levels stay the same, there will be a gap in coverage, a so-called “donut” of people, who do not qualify for Medicaid but whose premiums are too high to be affordable.
A Kennedy/Joy administration will create a Medicaid Buy-In Program to allow those families who cannot afford a plan on the Health Care Exchange but who also don’t qualify for Medicaid to pay a less expensive premium, based on their income, in order to receive Medicaid coverage.
Thoughts?
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Jan 19, 18 @ 9:33 am
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Kennedy and JB both propose Medicaid buy-ins, but after the reorg, what is there to buy into?
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Jan 19, 18 @ 9:39 am
A healthcare bill that is supposed to reduce costs and establishes a new, higher, healthcare worker minimum wage? Pass the popcorn. These guys are hilarious.
Comment by Robert the 1st Friday, Jan 19, 18 @ 9:39 am
There is a buy in system in place for seniors and those on disability who are over income regular Medicaid coverage already. Expanding this might be feasible, but cost wise I don’t see the state coming out ahead on this.
Comment by Fixer Friday, Jan 19, 18 @ 9:42 am
Is this vastly different from Pritzker’s plan?
Comment by Mr.Black Friday, Jan 19, 18 @ 9:43 am
Right, this is what most of us want, a state that hasn’t been able to run what it currently does and has racked up billions in debt now running our healthcare. A state that has allowed thousands of people with disabilities to languish on waiting lists for years to tell us what kind of services we can have. Yep, that’s gonna work just fine.
Comment by NeverPoliticallyCorrect Friday, Jan 19, 18 @ 9:44 am
Great job Team Kennedy. It took you five months to plagiarize something JB put out early last fall. A public option for Medicaid but-in. Great idea.
Also, what took them so long to come out with a healthcare plan. Certainly not for lack of staff.
Comment by Anon0091 Friday, Jan 19, 18 @ 10:00 am
This is an excellent plan…if you’re vying for SEIU Healthcare PAC money.
Comment by City Zen Friday, Jan 19, 18 @ 10:07 am
–A healthcare bill that is supposed to reduce costs and establishes a new, higher, healthcare worker minimum wage?–
What’s your estimate, doctor, of the percentage of health care costs that are due to the minimum wage payroll of health care workers?
In 2014, the average cost of a day in an Illinois hospital ranged from $1,500 to $2,200.
You think the lady changing your sheets and emptying your bag is taking a big chunk of that? Show your arithmetic.
http://www.realtorsinsurancemarketplace.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-spend-a-day-in-the-hospital/
Comment by wordslinger Friday, Jan 19, 18 @ 10:10 am
A lot of words…including calling for the creation of programs that already exist. Glad they are not wasting scarce campaign dollars on policy people.
Comment by Red Ranger Friday, Jan 19, 18 @ 10:17 am
while you’re at it, Kennedy, let’s insure every person gets $1,000. It worked so well for McGovern.
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Jan 19, 18 @ 10:47 am
Any expectations as to cost and financing. We already have providers reluctant to serve the Medicaid population we have
Comment by Sue Friday, Jan 19, 18 @ 11:45 am
Can speak from the experience in California. Basically, voters were politically on board with single payer until the details came out. To enact single payer, the state was going to outlaw private health insurance completely and group everyone together in the same health system. The plan was going to be funded through an increase in the income tax combined with an employer tax (only the concept was proposed, not hard numbers). Basically the upper-middle and upper class were going to pay more for healthcare while the lower and middle class were going to pay about the same of slightly less. The progressivity of the income tax in California made the situation cheap enough for lower income people to get healthcare access. In short, the higher incomes were going to subsidize the system for lower incomes.
The bill passed the the house (”Assembly”).
When word got out that private health insurance would be outlawed, there was legit panic among voters (Dem and Rep) who currently had employer-sponsored health insurance that they liked. As such, the bill was quickly killed in the Senate and Governor Brown signaled a veto threat.
I think what happened is that people supported the concept of poor residents getting insurance/health care access, but were strongly opposed/had anxiety about relinquishing their current situation.
Not trying to argue for/against it, but just noting the political ramifications of passing a system that requires multiple steps of thinking. I also think it will be an ever harder sell in Illinois because the income tax there is flat.
Comment by California Guy Friday, Jan 19, 18 @ 2:15 pm
who gonna flip the difference on the bill?
Comment by pskila Friday, Jan 19, 18 @ 2:49 pm