One of the greatest problems of the health insurance reform fight is that most people do not actually know what the proposed bills include in terms of coverage or costs and benefits to individuals both directly and indirectly. Because of this, it is very easy for the big insurance companies and others who would misinform you, such as the Teabaggers, conservative Republicans, and the Birther folks for example, to stretch, bend and break the truth.
If reform is going to be successful we have to work create an educated population. It is always easier to point out what is wrong and tear something down than it is to support something and convince others to join you. But it is possible and it can be done provided you have the correct information and the desire to spread the word around. Two things are on our side. The vast majority of Americans will directly benefit from Health Insurance Reform and many others will reap indirect benefits. Secondly, the power of telling the truth out weighs the easy of telling the quick and simple lie.
The Kaiser Family Foundation has prepared an easy to use website that includes many of the important points of the major proposals floating around Washington, D.C. The site also provides flexible data that allows comparisons on various issues and concerns. I have not fully examined all of the possibilities, but it has a lot of data.
The question you ask may be "who is the Kaiser Family Foundation?" Here is their mission statement and their guiding principles:
Who We AreA leader in health policy and communications, the Kaiser Family Foundation is a non-profit, private operating foundation focusing on the major health care issues facing the U.S., as well as the U.S. role in global health policy. Unlike grant-making foundations, Kaiser develops and runs its own research and communications programs, sometimes in partnership with other non-profit research organizations or major media companies.
We serve as a non-partisan source of facts, information, and analysis for policymakers, the media, the health care community, and the public. Our product is information, always provided free of charge – from the most sophisticated policy research, to basic facts and numbers, to information young people can use to improve their health or elderly people can use to understand their Medicare benefits.
The Kaiser Family Foundation is not associated with Kaiser Permanente or Kaiser Industries.
What We DoThe Foundation has many programs and a complex organizational chart, but essentially we do three things:
We serve as a trusted and independent expert voice in a U.S. health system dominated by commercial, political, and ideological interests; a place where people can turn for unbiased and non-partisan analysis, basic facts, and explanation of the biggest domestic and global health policy issues and public opinion shaping them. This is the role for which we are best known in the U.S.
We operate a large-scale health news and information service on the Web and a series of specialized websites, featuring both data we produce as well as the latest and best data from others, to help to ensure that everyone has the same kind of information and access to events as insiders do. We also make a major effort to assist journalists and news organizations working to inform the public about complex health policy and public health issues.
These currently focus on HIV/AIDS, with an emphasis on reaching young people. Kaiser campaigns are based on a new model of public service programming pioneered by the Foundation —direct partnerships with major media companies and a comprehensive “multi-platform” communications strategy that goes far beyond traditional “PSAs.” Current partners in the U.S. include MTV, BET, Univision, Viacom/CBS, and Fox. Together, Kaiser's campaigns reach tens of millions of people annually, and have won multiple Emmy and Peabody awards in recent years.
This is a tool worth taking a good look at.
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