Charles B. Rangel
New York Amsterdam News
08-20-1994
Health care cannot be reformed without universal coverage.
Health care reform must mean that everyone will have access to decent and affordable quality health care.
My first goal is to make sure that Americans have health insurance coverage. Many have health coverage of one form or another. However, there are millions whose employers either cannot afford or have chosen not to provide health coverage for their employees. Millions more who are unemployed cannot afford coverage.
My second goal is to ensure access to quality health care: an insurance card is not enough. The two-tiered system of health care that allows millions who live in poor and working-class urban and rural communities to be denied access to the most advanced health care system in the world must end.
But even those covered often do not have access to doctors, clinics and hospitals because of shortages of providers in the inner city and rural America. Because providers in these communities operate on the thinnest of financial margins many visits to doctors or hospitals bear a striking resemblance to going to the bank-your credit is checked before your pulse. The fact is health care rationing is already here for the poor of urban and rural America. This must end.
My third goal is to make sure that no one in the United States should have to prove they are citizens before receiving care. Access to health care is not a privilege, but is a necessity for all, regardless of citizenship.
New York is a national leader in health care delivery, education, technology and reform. It also leads in committing resources to serve the health care needs of the poor. It spends more on Medicaid than any other state. Because of its extraordinary public health care problems-AIDS, TB and drugabuse-any major change in health care will have a fundamental impact on New York.
The health care bill currently before the House is effective because it ends the two-tiered health system that leaves the poor and working Americans behind the rest of the nation. It will put all Americans on a par in the ability to pay providers and make it possible for quality health care to be delivered to the poor as it has always been available for the privately insured.
A provision I inserted in the bill offers a singular opportunity to make a tremendous impact on substance abuse. It will make substance abuse treatment available to all and encourage the development of comprehensive treatment programs that deal with education, job training and placement, and counseling as well a detoxification and sobriety.
To assure access to care in the inner city, the bill improves funding for community health centers. Without these centers our community would be left with virtually no primary care except for the emergency rooms and the crowded out-patient clinics of our community's hospitals.
One of the saddest developments in our society has been the meanness towards immigrants. A few states, including New York, have the lion's share of responsibility for indigent illegal immigrants. Against great resistance, I was able to federalize this responsibility so that all Americans share in the burden.
My chief concern is that every American be guaranteed access to health care from a provider of their choice. We cannot move forward on other vital social needs areas without first addressing health care for our workers and our children.
But, I can only support a health reform bill that allows us access to better health care than we now have. If we cannot improve health care, we should make no changes that will jeopardize what we have today.
Ethnic NewsWatch SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT
New York Amsterdam News
08-20-1994
Health care cannot be reformed without universal coverage.
Health care reform must mean that everyone will have access to decent and affordable quality health care.
My first goal is to make sure that Americans have health insurance coverage. Many have health coverage of one form or another. However, there are millions whose employers either cannot afford or have chosen not to provide health coverage for their employees. Millions more who are unemployed cannot afford coverage.
My second goal is to ensure access to quality health care: an insurance card is not enough. The two-tiered system of health care that allows millions who live in poor and working-class urban and rural communities to be denied access to the most advanced health care system in the world must end.
But even those covered often do not have access to doctors, clinics and hospitals because of shortages of providers in the inner city and rural America. Because providers in these communities operate on the thinnest of financial margins many visits to doctors or hospitals bear a striking resemblance to going to the bank-your credit is checked before your pulse. The fact is health care rationing is already here for the poor of urban and rural America. This must end.
My third goal is to make sure that no one in the United States should have to prove they are citizens before receiving care. Access to health care is not a privilege, but is a necessity for all, regardless of citizenship.
New York is a national leader in health care delivery, education, technology and reform. It also leads in committing resources to serve the health care needs of the poor. It spends more on Medicaid than any other state. Because of its extraordinary public health care problems-AIDS, TB and drugabuse-any major change in health care will have a fundamental impact on New York.
The health care bill currently before the House is effective because it ends the two-tiered health system that leaves the poor and working Americans behind the rest of the nation. It will put all Americans on a par in the ability to pay providers and make it possible for quality health care to be delivered to the poor as it has always been available for the privately insured.
A provision I inserted in the bill offers a singular opportunity to make a tremendous impact on substance abuse. It will make substance abuse treatment available to all and encourage the development of comprehensive treatment programs that deal with education, job training and placement, and counseling as well a detoxification and sobriety.
To assure access to care in the inner city, the bill improves funding for community health centers. Without these centers our community would be left with virtually no primary care except for the emergency rooms and the crowded out-patient clinics of our community's hospitals.
One of the saddest developments in our society has been the meanness towards immigrants. A few states, including New York, have the lion's share of responsibility for indigent illegal immigrants. Against great resistance, I was able to federalize this responsibility so that all Americans share in the burden.
My chief concern is that every American be guaranteed access to health care from a provider of their choice. We cannot move forward on other vital social needs areas without first addressing health care for our workers and our children.
But, I can only support a health reform bill that allows us access to better health care than we now have. If we cannot improve health care, we should make no changes that will jeopardize what we have today.
Ethnic NewsWatch SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT
