For Dingell, health care reform bill is a legislative and familial landmark
Nicole Aber
Daily Staff ReporterNovember 15th, 2009
Many legislators, aides and other politicos played a role in pushing the health care bill through the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 7. For one man, though, the bill’s passage is more than just a historical moment for the country — it’s a significant breakthrough in one family’s 76-year-long fight for health care reform.
Congressman John Dingell (D), who represents Michigan’s 15th district, which includes Ann Arbor, has introduced a health care reform bill to the House every Congressional cycle since 1957. He has dedicated much of his career to the fight for health care reform, carrying the legacy of his father — storied House Rep. John Dingell Sr. — who first began working on health care reform under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“I feel very good,” Dingell said. “I’ve worked on this for 53 years and, before me, my dad for 23 more … and finally we got something through the House.”
In an extended interview with The Michigan Daily last Thursday, Dingell discussed the legislative and familial landmark.
The Affordable Health Care for America Act, H.R. 3962, has a number of key elements that would work to overhaul the nation’s health care system. These include providing coverage to all individuals, preventing exclusion based on preexisting conditions, preventing the cancellation of health care if a person becomes ill and the creation of a public option — the last of which Dingell said was one of the aspects of the legislation that made him the most proud.
“There will be an honest choice for every American,” he said, noting that people would be able to keep their current health care plan if they so choose, but that all Americans would have the choice of the government-run public option.
Despite his support of the House bill’s public option it was a major divergence from the government-run set-up that Dingell’s bill called for, which was a single-payer system in which the government would run the health care system through a value-added tax, similar to the Canadian and British health insurance systems.
Conversely, the public option in the legislation that passed is just one choice out of many health care options Americans would have to pick from.
Dingell said that while this drive to make health care affordable for every American originally sprang from the need to address a human rights issue, today the health care system's problems raise both humanitarian and economic concerns.
“The country can no longer afford to compete in the world market because of the harsh, awful fact that other countries have government-sponsored health insurance that enables them to frankly out-compete our people,” Dingell said.
According to Dingell, U.S. health care costs have doubled every eight years. Eight years ago health insurance cost an average of $6,000 to $7,000, today it costs about $12,000. Dingell said that without reform, these costs would continue to rise.
The Affordable Health Care for America Act would significantly alter the way Michiganders receive and pay for health care, Dingell said, by providing subsidies for low-income individuals and lowering health insurance costs for businesses. The thought is that this would in turn make industries in Michigan more competitive.
For Michigan citizens living in the 15th congressional district, the new legislation would provide 34,000 uninsured individuals with health coverage, provide 160,000 families with health coverage credits and prevent 1,800 families from going bankrupt by insuring protection for health care costs, according to the Committee on Energy and Commerce’s website.
Businesses with more than a $500,000 payroll will be required to cover all of their employees’ health insurance. But if a business chooses not to, Dingell said, it would be penalized with a graduated tax of up to 2.5 percent.
Changes to business tax policies in the legislation will allow for improved coverage for 488,000 residents in the 15th congressional district who rely on employer-based health insurance and provide tax credits to 11,600 small businesses in the district, according to the committee’s website.
Opponents of the new legislation say the bill is too repressive in requiring individuals to purchase health care and small businesses to provide health care for their employees or face penalties.
In response to these arguments, Dingell said the health care system must be reformed to address the health care needs of the 40 million Americans who have no health care. Because the legislation would provide a variety of options for individuals and businesses, Dingell said people will have the choice between continuing their current health care plan or to decide which new health care option best suits their needs.
“We cannot afford the current system and have to make significant changes,” Dingell said.
The legislation also includes the recently added Stupak amendment that prevents insurance plans, including private plans paid for through government subsidies, to pay for abortions.
For opponents of abortion, the amendment’s inclusion in the legislation was seen as a big victory for the pro-life cause. But for those in favor of a woman’s right to choose, the amendment was seen as a big step back, or as “the greatest restriction of a woman’s right to choose to pass in our careers,” as Rep. Diana DeGette, (D–Colorado) told The New York Times.
Dingell, a noted supporter of the pro-choice community, said that the amendment goes too far.
“Originally we had tried in the drafting of the bill to see to it that the bill was absolutely neutral and that nothing change per federal law with regard to abortion,” he said. “The Stupak amendment goes further than that and says that now private policies offered on the exchange will not, or cannot offer abortion.”
The health care bill now faces a tougher test in the Senate, where the Democrats hold a smaller majority.
Dingell said he can’t predict what the Senate will do with the bill but said he is hopeful the Senate will move the bill forward soon.
“As we go through and see how the due legislation works, if we’re able to get it to the president, which I contend that we shall, how it works so that we can then figure out what will be the next steps in terms of seeing to it that every American has health care and that health care is no longer a privilege and has become right,” Dingell said.
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