ALEC's Efforts to Limit Patient Rights and End Social Welfare Programs
The bills on this page represent ALEC corporations' efforts to privatize Medicare, deregulate health insurers, protect negligent doctors, limit Medical Assistance, and cut holes in the safety net. These anti-patient "model bills" are drafted at American Legislative Exchange Council conventions with input from, and approval by, Big Insurance and Big Pharma, then introduced in state legislatures to erode the rights of all Americans. Politicians are elected to represent the people, not corporations; through ALEC, corporations have both a VOICE and a VOTE on specific state laws. Do you?
To see a full list of bills from this section and send them to your computer of them individually, click here.For descriptions of some of these bills, scroll down or click here.
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Learn MORE about the "Model Bills" ALEC Corporations Are Backing to Rewrite YOUR Rights
The Center for Media and Democracy analyzed the bills ALEC politicians and corporations voted for. More analysis is available below and also at ALEC Exposed's sister sites, PRWatch and SourceWatch.
How are corporations limiting patient rights and increasing healthcare profits in these bills?
These bills limit the rights of patients and increase Big Insurance profits by:
Promoting health savings accounts with tax benefits, accounts that undermine the affordability of comprehensive health insurance plans and can be used by the wealthy as a tax shelter
These are but a few of the bills that limit patient rights and increase the cost of health care; to download all of these ALEC bills, click here.
Some of this Corporate Agenda Has Already Become Law
(PLACEHOLDER) Wisconsin Governor (and ALEC alum) Scott Walker took a cue from the ALEC corporate wish list and introduced a radical bill in February 2011 to bust public employee unions. Wisconsin Act 10 inspired months of protests and has been subjected to a series of legal challenges. The changes to collective bargaining included X, which closely resembles the "Y Act" from ALEC. It also included Z, a policy put forth in "A Act" from ALEC (PLACEHOLDER). To learn more about this story, click here (PLACEHOLDER) (Have any of these bills been introduced or enacted in YOUR state? If so, please add that information to the ALEC Exposed page on your state by searching for your state's name in the search engine at the top of this page.)
How are corporations attacking social welfare programs in these bills?
These bills aim to erode social security protections in favor of corporate interests by:
(click the link to download the bill)
Supporting Medicare privatization by urging individual health savings accounts that may not cover the cost of care (5K3)
Capping Medical Assistance benefits in a state at the federal minimum through:
prohibiting additional benefits that the state’s residents may need (5N0), or
creating barriers to the enactment of new health benefits (5N1)
Privatizing Medicaid through, for example:
giving disadvantaged persons "vouchers" to purchase private insurance (in the form of a cash allowance), likely at high deductibles that would make most medical care unaffordable (5V3),
encouraging recipients to forego care by providing a partial refund to low-income recipients who do not use the full value of their benefits (5V0)
Opposing efforts at public health care in favor of a “free-market” approach that expands the pool of consumers for private insurance companies (5U11)
Rejecting guaranteed issue and community rating, or federal authority over state health reform programs (5U12)
These are but a few of the bills that attack the social safety net; to download all of these bills, click here.
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