MMA Work Group Wants Health Care for All by 2012

WASHINGTON–Giving all Americans access to core health care
services by 2012 is just one of the interim recommendations issued
last month by the Citizens’ Health Care Working Group.

Authorized under the Medicare Modernization Act, the group is
comprised of 14 members appointed by the U.S. Comptroller General,
and its mission is to foster a nationwide public debate about
improving the health care system with an action plan for Congress
and the president to consider.

The group’s interim recommendations reflect input from more than
20,000 citizens who took part in more than 75 community meetings
nationwide or who commented online, and include “a public policy
that all Americans have affordable health care” and a “core
benefits package for all America” by 2012.

“Across every venue we explored, we heard a common message:
Americans should have a health care system where everyone
participates, regardless of their financial resources or health
status, with benefits that are sufficiently comprehensive to
provide access to appropriate, high-quality care without
endangering individuals or family financial security,” the group’s
report stated.

The recommendations also include guaranteed financial protection
against very high health care costs; development of integrated
community health networks; more intensive efforts to improve
quality of care and efficiency; and new ways to provide and finance
palliative care, hospice and other services so that people living
with advanced incurable conditions have access to them in the
environment they choose.

The group’s final recommendations are to be issued at the end of
September and will be sent to Congress for hearings. The public has
until Aug. 31 to comment on the interim recommendations, which are
posted on the work group’s Web site at www.citizenshealthcare.gov