We've been hearing a lot about healthcare in our never-ending Presidential campaign. Let's forget McCain, who's useless on it. The question then becomes who's better on healthcare: Senator Clinton or Senator Obama? Who has the greatest plan to get closer to ending our national embarrassment? How about neither. From what I've been reading Oregon's own Ron Wyden is leading the way on healthcare, and might just be able to get bipartisan, universal legislation passed.

Working closely with an unlikely ally, Utah Republican Senator Bob Bennett, Wyden has succeeded in gathering significant bipartisan support for his Healthy Americans Act, a plan that would fundamentally alter the way our nation handles healthcare. Presently, most of our business is through employers. Choice is limited, and coverage is ridiculously expensive for even the most basic procedures. But those could soon be things of the past. From Wyden's Stand Tall for America website:

The Healthy Americans Act:

* guarantees you private health care coverage that doesn't go away, even if you change jobs, lose your job, retire, go to school, or become too sick to work.
* provides a generous benefit equal to those of Members of Congress
* ensures that everyone has affordable health care coverage, including meaningful assistance to low-income Americans.
* puts you in charge of your health care choices, not your employer
* makes sure that everyone has the same affordable coverage options, no matter your age, gender, genetic information, or pre-existing health conditions
* saves $1.48 trillion over 10 years through tough cost containment
* provides incentives for individuals and insurers to focus on prevention, wellness and disease management
* creates meaningful and easy-to-understand wellness statistics so that Americans can compare health care plans
* is fully paid for by spending the $2.2 trillion currently spent on health care in America

Those all sound very nice, but how does it work? The key is that it puts the consumer in the driver's seat, and not employers. Ezra Klein, writing at The American Prospect, explains it beautifully:

Our employer-based health system is a costly mistake, the outgrowth of World War II-era wage and price controls and tax breaks that let newly flush employers shield their profits in benefits and escape taxation on health spending. Even today, employer spending on health care is tax deductible, while individual spending is not. It's terrifically distorting, locking individuals into jobs they don't want and stifling entrepreneurship, burdening corporations with duties they shouldn't assume, and vastly increasing their power over employees. General Motors, after all, is a car company. They make cars. Who decided it should be in the health-care business, too? And if their employee decides to set off and make a better car, do we really want his plans foiled because he can't interrupt his daughter's dental care?

Rather than patching up the employer-based system and offering alternatives that individuals would maybe migrate toward, as both Clinton's and Obama's plans do, Wyden-Bennett end the employer-based system. They force employers to account for every dime and dollar they spend on employee health care and, the year after the bill's passage, redirect that cash into employee paychecks. So if your employer is spending $7,000 a year for your health insurance, your paycheck gets a $7,000 boost as soon as their bill passes. You have the money they spent on your health care, but you are no longer dependent on them for that health care.

All Americans who formerly had obtained insurance through their work would now receive additional pay to defray the costs of a better-managed, higher-choice, more-affordable system. Yes, yes please. As it is, my wife and I pay several hundred dollars per month for our coverage through her work. Late last year, after I had a bike accident, I needed to see the doctor and get an x-ray. Of the nearly $350 dollars in bills, our healthcare covered maybe 10% of the charges. Maybe. And that's after our premiums.

It's time for major healthcare reform in our nation. Democrats want it. Republicans want it. Once we have a Democrat in the White House, we'll be good to go. But first we all need to do one thing: go to Ron Wyden's PAC website and read more about his healthcare plan. It's not perfect, but it might just be the best plan out there that is well-formed, comprehensive, and has a shot of passing. If we can get coverage for our poorest at the levels seen in Congress, then we'll have come a long way towards ending one of America's greatest shames.

PS: If you're also interested in electing another progressive U.S. Senator to help Ron Wyden, why don't you check out Jeff Merkley. Right now, he's working down in Salem to ensure that every Oregonian receives healthcare. He believes it's a fundamental right, and would bring awesome, progressive values to Washington.