Quick Facts on "Health Care For America"

"Health Care for America: A Proposal for Guarnteed, Affordable Health Caer for All Americans Building on Medicare and Empoyment-Based Insurance" By Jacob S. Hacker, Ph.D., Political Science Professor at UC Berkeley.

Central Elements

• The Health Care for America Plan would be a new public insurance pool modeled after Medicare and open to any legal U.S. resident without access to Medicare or good workplace coverage.
  
  
• There would be a requirement that employers (and self-employed) either purchase coverage comparable to the Health Care for America Plan for all their workers or pay a relatively modest payroll contribution to help fund the Health Care for America Plan (to help pay for coverage of their employees).
  
  
• There would be a requirement that Americans who remain without insurance take responsibility for their and their families' health by purchasing private coverage or buying into the Health Care for America Plan.

The Health Care for America proposal allows people to keep the health care coverage they have while offering Americans the choice to buy into a public plan like Medicare. It combines personal responsibility with choice and an employer contribution to create a new framework ensuring that everyone is covered, that risk is spread broadly, and that costs are controlled and quality improved.

The Health Care for America plan builds on the most successful elements of our current healthcare system: Medicare and employment-based health insurance for well-compensated workers.

At the heart of the Health Care for America Plan is the idea of social insurance: combining employer and personal responsibility with strong public commitment

The Health Care for America Plan guarantees affordable health care for all by extending insurance to all non-elderly Americans through a new Medicare-like program and workplace health insurance.