Wyden, Bennett Welcome New Senate Sponsors of the Healthy Americans Act
Grassley, Stabenow, Landrieu and Coleman join bipartisan effort to ensure that every American has quality, affordable health care
Washington DC - The bipartisan Senate effort to reform the nation's ailing health care system grew today as U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Bob Bennett (R-UT) announced that the Healthy Americans Act (S.334) gained four Senate co-sponsors, including two influential members of the Senate Finance Committee. U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Norm Coleman (R-MN) join a growing list of co-sponsors which already include: U.S. Senators Judd Gregg (R-NH), Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN).
"Senator Bennett and I are proud to welcome our colleagues Senators Grassley, Stabenow, Landrieu and Coleman to our effort to fix the nation's broken health care system," said Wyden. "It is well within our reach to create a universal health care system where every American is guaranteed quality, affordable health care that is at least as good as what their Member of Congress has today."
"We are pleased to have our colleagues join our bipartisan coalition to push for legislation that will provide every American with quality, affordable, private health insurance," said Bennett. "This marks a major development in our effort and shows the American people that senators -- Republicans and Democrats -- can come together to solve one of our country's greatest challenges."
Introduced by Wyden and Bennett, the Healthy Americans Act is the first bipartisan, comprehensive health reform bill in more than 13 years. In addition to guaranteeing that every American can afford quality, private health insurance, Wyden-Bennett would: give Americans choice in where they get their health care; break the link between employment and insurance to make health care portable from job to job (and continue if you lose your job); promote personal responsibility and preventative medicine and reform the insurance market so that insurers are forced to compete on price, benefits and quality.
An independent analysis conducted by the Lewin Group estimates that even covering all Americans, the Healthy Americans Act could save more than $1.5 trillion in health care spending over the next 10 years.
The Healthy Americans Act was introduced in the House of Representatives by Representatives Brian Baird (WA-03), Jo Ann Emerson (MO-08), Earl Blumenauer (OR-03), and Jim Cooper (TN-05).
In the Senate, the Healthy Americans Act is awaiting action by the Finance Committee. Senator Grassley is the Ranking Member and Senators Stabenow and Wyden are members of the Committee.
To learn more about S.334 visit http://wyden.senate.gov and http://bennett.senate.gov.
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