LOVELL, Wyoming (STPNS) -- U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi told an audience in Lovell last week that it?s high time for Congress to do something ? anything ? about the health care crisis facing America.

Wyoming?s senior senator paid a visit to Lovell as part of a 10-town tour of the state to promote his bill ?10 Steps to Transform Health Care (S. 1783).? Enzi calls the bill ?a comprehensive solution to expand access to affordable health care for all Americans.?

Americans are concerned about health care, and Wyoming is no different, Enzi said in introducing the topic Tuesday night at the Lovell Community Center.



?I?m home almost every weekend, and I see as many people as possible,? Enzi said. ?I don?t do polls, because I talk to people and know that health care is one of the primary issues in Wyoming.

?I?ve been trying to solve some of the health care issues and help the people of Wyoming,? the senator said. ?I?ve been collecting ideas from both sides of the aisle and have been massaging it into a package, but not one gigantic concept. Ten different bills are easier to pass than one large bill.?

Enzi unveiled his legislation last July, saying it builds on numerous health care proposals to expand access to health insurance and health care providers while improving the quality of health care in the United States. He said the bill would stabilize and reform the nation?s health care system and provide ?more options, more choices and more control to every American.?

Tuesday in Lovell, Enzi said that while the initial bill is a comprehensive plan to establish his 10-step program, he realizes that one comprehensive bill might be more difficult to pass, so he is also pleased to see some of the ideas contained in his plan spin off as separate bills.

Working with fellow senators is the key to advancing legislation, he said.

?We need to take what we can get and get it finished to lower costs and increase access and assure that everyone in America will have access to health care,? he said. ?That?s the way I operate.?

The average congressional committee passes three bill every two years, Enzi said, but when he was chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, the committee passed 27 bills. He is still the ranking member of the committee on the Republican side, although no longer chairman now that the Democrats are the majority party.

?We need to work to find agreement and work out the differences. We have to do something,? he said, noting that more than 46 million people in the United States are uninsured.

The plan

Enzi then discussed his 10-point plan:

1) Eliminate the unfair tax treatment of health care for all Americans and, thus, expand choices, coverage and control over individual health care. He said the government enacted wage controls during World War II but did not regulate health benefits, leading companies to offer health benefits in lieu of increased wages. Congress then declared that providing the benefits would not count as taxable income. Individuals who purchase their own health insurance do not enjoy that same tax benefit, so Congress unwittingly penalized people who get their coverage privately.

Step one of the Enzi plan would remove the tax bias and ensure that anyone can benefit from the tax savings whether they get their insurance from their employer, purchase insurance individually or decide to get off Medicaid and switch to private insurance.

2) The second step follows naturally from the first, Enzi said, increasing affordable options for working families to purchase health insurance through a standard tax deduction. The standard deduction for health insurance would equal $15,000 for a family and $7,500 for an individual.

3) Step three ensures affordable health insurance to low-income families through a refundable, advanceable, assignable tax-based subsidy.

4) The fourth step allows insurers to create new small business health plans, allowing companies through their professional associations to pool their resources across state lines to reduce costs and increase access to health insurance through greater negotiating power with insurance providers.

5) Step five increases portability, blending the individual and group market to extend HIPPA portability protections to individuals so that insurance security can move with a person from job to job.

6) This step emphasizes preventive benefits and helps people with chronic diseases so citizens will have health care and not sick care, Enzi said. Any plan purchased with the tax subsidy would have to include basic preventive services and a medical self-management component.

7) The seventh step allows individuals the choice to convert the value of their Medicaid and SCHIP program benefits into private health care insurance, putting people in control of their health care. Many people do not want to participate in the federal programs, he said, but would prefer to purchase their own insurance if they could.

8) Step eight encourages the adoption of health information technologies so that all of a person?s important health care information can be carried on a card. Such a card would save on time now spent filling out long forms at the hospital, help make sure that patient information is complete, make health information portable in the event of a move, help eliminate duplicate tests and reduce medical errors, the senator said.

9) Step nine would increase access to primary care in rural and frontier areas by helping future providers and nurses pay for their education by serving in such area.

?I?ve spent a lot of time in Washington explaining the west to the east,? Enzi said. ?We?re underserved by medical providers in Wyoming. This would provide incentives for people to come to underserved areas.?

10) The final step would be a provision to encourage states to adopt medical courts and enact methods of encouraging early disclosure of preventable health care errors, prompt and fair compensation for injured patients and careful analysis on patterns of health care errors to prevent future injuries.

Enzi said he has been encouraged by the interest from his colleagues in the Senate, who he said are interested in hearing what his constituents in Wyoming say.

?You are part of the process of educating Congress,? he said.

Public comments

When the senator took questions from the audience, John Cordner of Frannie asked if senators are ?bought and paid for? by health care associations, insurance companies and lobbyists. He asked if lobbyists can ?torpedo? a bill.

?Only if the average person does nothing,? Enzi replied. ?You have more influence on me than any lobbying firm.?

Cordner also said he has experience through his family with ?bad-faith conduct? by insurance companies such as a person getting seriously ill and finding their insurance cancelled. Enzi said one of the keys would be building in a mechanism for appeal of such decisions.

Mary Jensen of Byron asked about the accelerating amount of paperwork involved with health care, and Enzi replied that the information technology portion of his plan would help reduce paperwork. He said he would also like to see a standardized process among Medicare, veterans? services and the private sector.

Diane Badget of Cowley said she?s concerned about the amount of money pharmaceutical companies are spending on television advertising, which she said helps make one pill cost $98.

?Pharmaceutical advertising is ridiculous,? she said. ?We don?t need someone singing the praises of a herpes medication during the dinner hour. It encourages doctor shopping and inflates the cost of drugs.?

?You?ve figured it out,? Enzi said. ?We tried to eliminate advertising on drugs one time but came in contact with the constitution. It became a free speech issue.?

Frank Wilkerson asked why the government wasn?t putting more money into Alzheimer?s research like the effort that went into developing the polio vaccine many years ago. Enzi said the National Institute has been given a lot of money to put into Alzheimer?s research and has the flexibility to move money from other areas if needed.

The senator said Congress is trying to take care of special diseases, noting that there are 654 drugs in clinical trials that could make a difference in the fight against cancer.

Asked which portions of his plan have a good chance of passing, Enzi said the information technology bill is moving along with good support from the Senate. He said he?ll have support in the House as well.

The bill allowing the pooling of health care plans across state lines is also moving well, he said, and the medical courts bill has bipartisan support.