Detroit Families to Share Health Care Stories at Roundtable With Health Insurance Plans

    AHIP's Campaign for an American Solution listening tour comes to

Detroit



    DETROIT, Aug. 13 /EMWNews/ -- Detroit families and

community leaders will share their health care stories and their priorities

for health care reform at a roundtable today with representatives from the

health insurance industry.



    Detroit, MI is the second stop on a listening tour conducted by

America's Health Insurance Plans' (AHIP) Campaign for an American Solution.

The campaign is a new national grassroots and educational initiative to

build support for workable health care reform based on six core principles:

coverage, affordability, quality, value, choice and portability.



    "As we listen to the health care stories of families in Detroit and

across the country, we are also seeking their input on our reform proposals

and what the country can do to make coverage more affordable and more

portable," said Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of AHIP.



    The Campaign for an American Solution is engaging in conversations

about health care with Americans from all walks of life--those with

coverage and those without, small business owners and employees, union

leaders and members, physicians and other providers, and working families

from diverse communities.



    "We are encouraging all Americans to have their voices heard in the

health care reform discussion," said Ignagni.



    Over the past two years, AHIP's Board of Directors has developed a

range of comprehensive policy proposals to provide families with greater

access to high-quality affordable health care coverage. AHIP's proposals

would:



    -- Ensure that all Americans have access to health care coverage;



    -- Repair the health care safety net by expanding Medicaid to cover

every uninsured American living in poverty and making all children from

low-income uninsured families eligible for the Children's Health Insurance

Program;



    -- Strengthen the employer-based health care coverage system that

enables tens of millions of working families to access insurance;



    -- Guarantee access to health care coverage in the individual market to

ensure that no one falls through the cracks;



    -- Give working families a helping hand to afford health care coverage

by providing tax credits on a sliding-scale up to 400 percent of the

federal poverty line;



    -- Give workers portability with a new tax-free portable health account

that can be used to purchase any type of health care coverage. Individuals,

employers, the federal government and state governments could all

contribute to the account;



    -- Slow the growth rate of the cost of medical services to help make

coverage more affordable for working families; and



    -- Improve the value that consumers get for their health care dollars

by rewarding quality, promoting wellness and prevention, and providing

consumers with better access to information about what medical treatments

are most effective.



    Currently, more than one million people in Michigan, or ten percent of

the state's population, are uninsured, according to Urban Institute and

Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured estimates based on U.S.

Census Bureau March 2006 and 2007 Current Population Survey data. The same

report estimates nearly 47 million Americans do not have health insurance

coverage.

    About the Campaign for an American Solution



    The Campaign for an American Solution is a non-partisan, educational

and grassroots initiative of America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the

national trade association whose members provide coverage to more than 200

million people. The Campaign's goal is to build support for workable health

care reform based on core principles supported by the American people:

coverage, affordability, quality, value, choice and portability. For more

information, please visit http://www.americanhealthsolution.org.



    America's Health Insurance Plans - Providing Health Benefits to More

Than 200 Million Americans