CLEVELAND, Ohio — Health care reform starts with a reform of the health insurance market, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown told a City Club of Cleveland audience on Wednesday.
“Today, private insurance competition is an oxymoron (mp3 recording) in a lot of places in Ohio, the Avon Democrat said to a capacity crowd at the historic downtown Cleveland speakers’ forum.
“In Ohio, the two largest insurance companies account for 58 percent of the market,” Brown said. “In some Ohio cities, it’s up to 89 percent.”
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Health insurance reform — specifically launching a federally backed insurance plan — doesn’t mean “doing away with the private market, as many detractors say,” he said. “Reforming the health insurance market gives consumers a choice.”
Last week, Brown introduced a Senate resolution signed by 27 of his colleagues “calling for inclusion of a federally backed health insurance option that would decrease cost and increase quality of affordable care,” he said. The resolution put in writing the Obama administration’s hopes for health insurance for all Americans, namely, universal health coverage.“Now finally, most of America realizes that health care reform is not just a moral imperative, it’s become an economic imperative,” Brown said Wednesday. “There’s no way to fix our economy without fixing our health care system. There’s no way to fix our health-care system without cutting costs, without covering everyone.”
During an impromptu interview after his speech, Brown said if the federal health insurance plan works out, it would come with a mandate that all Americans buy health insurance. “There will be a subsidy for low-income people to get on, and moderately low-income people to get on. But you’ve gotta have everybody join.”
Q. What would the subsidy look like?
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“I don’t know yet,” he said. “The subsidy will work in a way that people will be able to afford the premiums. You can’t tell people to do it, and they can’t afford to do it. But people will have to sacrifice a little to do it.”
Q. How would we pay for the subsidy?
“Rolling back some of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens,” Brown said, as well as stopping overpayment to private HMOs and the “subsidy to the drug industry” on the Medicare drug prescription plan.
“The efficiencies of information technology” also could generate savings to pay for reform, he said.
Q. Would you support taxing health care benefits to raise money for reform?
“No, I don’t like the taxing of health care benefits,” Brown said. “President Obama promised not to do that. I think he probably can’t break that promise.”
Q. So is health care reform really going to happen this time?
“I think it’s going to happen this year. All four committees are working separately and together to do this,” he said, adding that he expects a Senate bill by July.”
