COMING: A point by point refutation of the distortions and lies about Barack Obama the Republican National Committee is spreading. Until John McCain can curb the malicious and outright mendacious approach of the RNC, I would not give him the time of day as he seeks to be both Jekyll & Hyde, proposing cozy Town Halls. Barack Obama is controlling the DNC big time. Too bad if McCain is unable to put a brake on the RNC’s their silly and lazy efforts to continue the tradition of Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes. [Please bookmark this site for daily content to help bring about the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States.]
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About | Predictions | Obama Vs. McCain | 538.com
Barack Obama has proposed the most bold and effective effort to reduce health care costs for American families. Continuing our series of concise statements of Barack Obama’s positions and program proposals, drawn from the official Obama for America Site.
BARACK OBAMA’S COMPREHENSIVE PLAN TO CONTAIN SKYROCKETING HEALTH CARE COSTS
Experts project that the Obama plan will save the typical American family $2,500 per year in medical expenditures by investing in commonsense cost-reduction measures like health information technology (IT),
prevention and ensuring that all Americans have access to affordable, quality and portable health insurance.
The Obama health care plan builds on his successful effort in Illinois to expand health insurance to 150,000 more children and parents, and expose wasteful practices in the health insurance industry through mandating all health care providers publish yearly “report cards” about their spending.
In contrast, John McCain has blocked efforts to reduce health care costs and has proposed the same failed Bush approach for health care reform.1 John McCain voted against an effort to provide coverage for the uninsured,(2) and he even joined President Bush in opposing the expansion of the successful State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).(3)
And in this campaign, John McCain has advocated radically changing our employer-based health care system, which will leave insurance companies in charge with little oversight or attention to improving Americans’ health.(4) John McCain’s deregulation of the insurance industry will not decrease costs for American families, rather his plan is expected to raise administrative costs up to $20 billion per year (5) and create “prohibitively high health premiums” for older and unhealthy workers. (6)
Barack Obama Outlines His Health Care Plan
By recycling George W. Bush’s failed health care policies, John McCain is guaranteeing another four years of record high health care costs and insurance industry profits while more and more Americans lose their health insurance because of skyrocketing prices.
Barack Obama is the only candidate with the judgment, record and leadership we need to finally address the health care crisis and reduce health care costs for working families, business and government.
Barack Obama’s health care reform plan will save the typical family $2,500 every year by:
Ensuring Patients Receive and Providers Deliver Quality Care: Experts agree that several steps should be taken immediately to help patients get the care they need and to help providers improve medical practice.
Support disease management programs: Seventy five percent of total health care dollars are spent on patients with one or more chronic conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.
Obama will require that providers that participate in the new public plan, Medicare or the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) utilize proven disease management programs. This will improve quality of care, give doctors better information and lower costs.
IN ADDITION OBAMA WILL:
Coordinate and Integrate Care: Over 133 million Americans have at least one chronic disease and these chronic conditions cost a staggering $1.7 trillion yearly. Obama will support implementation of chronic disease programs and encourage team care to improve coordination and integration of care.Require Full Transparency about Quality and Costs: Obama will require hospitals and providers to collect and publicly report measures of health care costs and quality, including data on preventable medical errors, nurse staffing ratios, ospital-acquired infections, and disparities in care.
Promote Patient Safety: Obama will require providers to report preventable medical errors, and support hospital and physician practice improvement to prevent future occurrences.
Align Incentives for Excellence: Both public and private insurers tend to pay providers based on the volume of services provided, rather than the quality or effectiveness of care. Providers who see patients enrolled in the new public plan, the National Health Insurance Exchange, Medicare and FEHBP will be rewarded for achieving performance thresholds on outcome measures.
Comparative Effectiveness Research: Obama will establish an independent institute to guide reviews and research on comparative effectiveness, so that Americans and their doctors will have the accurate and objective information they need to make the best decisions for their health and well-being.
Tackle Disparities in Health Care: Obama will tackle the root causes of health disparities by addressing differences in access to health coverage and promoting prevention and public health, both of which play a major role in addressing disparities.
Reform Medical Malpractice: Obama will strengthen antitrust laws to prevent insurers from overcharging physicians for their malpractice insurance, and will promote new models for addressing physician errors that improve patient safety, strengthen the doctor-patient relationship, and reduce the need for malpractice suits.
Investing in Electronic Health Information Technology Systems: Most medical records are still stored on paper, which costs twice as much as electronic claims. Obama will invest $10 billion a year over the next five years to move the U.S. health care system to broad adoption of standards-based electronic health information
systems. By implementing this effort with comprehensive administrative and treatment reforms, both quality of care and efficiency in our health care system will increase. Obama will ensure that privacy is protected.
Increasing Competition in the Insurance and Drug Markets: The Obama plan will tackle needless waste and spiraling costs by increasing competition in the insurance and drug markets.Increase competition: The insurance business today is dominated by a small group of large companies that has been gobbling up their rivals. Barack Obama’s National Health Insurance Exchange will help increase competition by insurers. His plan will also force insurers to pay out a reasonable share of their premiums for patient care instead of keeping exorbitant amounts for profits and administration.
Lower prescription drug costs: Obama will allow Americans to buy their medicines from other developed countries if the drugs are safe and prices are lower outside the U.S. Obama will also repeal the ban that prevents the government from negotiating with drug companies, which could result in savings as high as $30 billion.
Finally, Obama will work to increase the use of generic drugs in Medicare, Medicaid and FEHBP, and prohibit drug companies from keeping generics out of markets.
Reducing Costs of Catastrophic Illnesses for Employers and Their Employees: Catastrophic health expenditures account for a high percentage of medical expenses for private insurers.
The Obama plan would reimburse employer health plans for a portion of the catastrophic costs they incur above a threshold if they guarantee such savings are used to reduce the cost of workers’ premiums.
Making Affordable, Quality and Portable Health Insurance Available to All Americans:
The Obama plan will guarantee coverage for every American through partnerships among employers, private health plans, the federal government, and the states. The plan both builds on and improves our current insurance system, which most Americans continue to rely upon, and leaves Medicare intact for older and disabled Americans.
FOOTNOTES:
1 Washington Post, 4/30/08, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/
content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042902706.html?nav=emailpage
2 United States Senate vote #47, 3/11/04,
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=108&session=2&vote=00047
3 United States Senate vote #307, 8/2/07,
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00307; CNN.com,
10/3/07, http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/03/mccain.interview/
4 Wall Street Journal, 4/19/08, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120855770454527527.html
5 Peter Harbage, “McCain’s Hidden Increase in Health Care Costs”, Center for American Progress, May 2008,
http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/health_admin_costs.pdf
6 Len Burman, Testimony to House Committee on the Budget, 10/18/07, http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/901121_tax_code.pdf
Barack to His Staff: “We Have To Win”
Excerpts from Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Health Care Town Hall
Bristol, VA | June 05, 2008
It’s time to finally challenge the special interests and provide universal health care for all. That’s why I’m running for President of the United States – because I believe that health care should be guaranteed for every American who wants it and affordable for every American who needs it.
And this is an area where John McCain and I have a fundamental disagreement. Now, I respect John McCain, and I honor his service to this country. My differences with him are not personal; they’re about the policies he’s proposed on this campaign – policies that are no different than the ones that have failed us for the last eight years.
And that starts with health care. We know that since George Bush took office, premiums have gone up four times faster than wages, and Virginia families are now paying over 35% more for health care. Seven million more Americans are uninsured, including nearly 200,000 here in Virginia. Yet John McCain actually wants to double down on the failed policies that have done so little to help ordinary Americans.
Like George Bush, Senator McCain has a plan that only takes care of the healthy and the wealthy. Instead of offering a comprehensive plan to cover all Americans and control rising costs, he’s offering a tax cut that doesn’t even amount to half of the cost of an average family health care plan, and won’t make health care affordable for the hardworking Americans who need help most.
But it’s not just that his plan won’t help reduce costs; it could actually drive costs up. Senator McCain’s plan would weaken the employer-based system that most Americans count on for health care. It’s a plan that could subject your coverage to the whims of the market, generate up to $20 billion in new administrative costs, and actually put health care costs out of reach for even more older workers, even more sick Americans, and even more families. Senator McCain’s campaign has even acknowledged that his plan could have the effect of raising taxes on some workers.
Well, I don’t think the American people can afford another four years of a health care plan that does more to help the big drug and insurance companies than it does to lower costs for ordinary Americans. We need to make health care affordable for every single American, and that’s what I’ll do as President.
In an Obama administration, we’ll lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year. And we’ll do it by investing in disease prevention, not just disease management; by investing in a paperless health care system to reduce administrative costs; and by covering every single American and making sure that they can take their health care with them if they lose their job. We’ll also reduce costs for business and their workers by picking up the tab for some of the most expensive illnesses. And we won’t do all this twenty years from now, or ten years from now. We’ll do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States.
So the American people will have a clear choice on health care in the fall. We can either extend the Bush policies that we know don’t work; or at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say enough is enough, we’re going to finally solve this problem once and for all.
I don’t want to wake up many years from now and see that even more Americans are uninsured and even more seniors can’t afford prescription drugs and even more families are being driven to financial ruin trying to pay their bills because we failed to take on the drug and insurance companies and provide universal health care. That’s not the future I want for my children. That’s not the future I want for your children. That’s not the future I want for this country.
I want to wake up and know that every single American has health care when they need it, that every senior has prescription drugs they can afford, and that no parents are going to bed at night worrying about how they’ll afford medicine for a sick child. That’s the future we can build together. That’s the choice you’ll have this fall. And that’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America.
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