Speaking of Health Care

I just read that the Pennsylvania House passed a subsidized health care plan that would provide coverage for 273,000 adults. The plan will cost $479 million for its first year.

Hmmmm, I wonder who's going to pay for that?

This would make a good test case for similar Democratic plans, however, I'm not thrilled that I get to be one of the guinea pigs.

via PennLive

Speaking of Health Care

http://politics4moms.blogspot.com/2008/03/speaking-of-health-care.html

Clinton Health Care Plan

A foundational issue for Hillary Clinton's campaign is to ensure that all Americans have affordable, quality health insurance. Her focus on lowering costs while still providing value and quality is the cornerstone of her American Health Choices Plan.

Clinton's plan covers every American, including the estimated 47 million uninsured and the tens of millions of workers with coverage. Employees who lose or change jobs still would keep their health insurance. She promises this with no increase in health spending or taxes.

For those with health insurance, her plan builds on the current system to give businesses and their employees greater choice of health plans - including keeping the one they have - while lowering cost and improving quality. The new array of choices offered in the Menu would provide benefits at least as good as the typical plan offered to Members of Congress, which includes mental health and dental coverage.

She believes the plan will improve quality and lower costs by removing hidden taxes, stressing prevention and focusing on efficiency and modernization. The plan also ensures that no American is denied coverage, refused renewal, unfairly priced out of the market, or forced to pay excessive insurance company premiums by creating insurance rules that transfer across states and markets.

Of course, Clinton's plan is only as good as the players, so she will work with insurance and drug companies so they can't deny you coverage based on pre-existing conditions or expectations of illness, and drug companies will offer fair prices and accurate information.

Insurance companies will also have to offer and renew coverage to anyone who applies and pays their premium. And like other things that you buy, they will have to compete for your business based on quality and price.

Affordable Coverage
Clinton's plan provides tax credits for working families to help them cover their costs. The tax credits will ensure that working families never have to pay more than a limited percentage of their income for health care.

Clinton would give tax credits to small businesses that provide health care to their workers to help defray their coverage costs. This will make small businesses more competitive and help create good jobs with health benefits that will stay here in the U.S. The Plan will also fix the holes in the safety net to ensure that Medicare and CHIP receive affordable, quality care.

To read Senator Clinton's complete health care plan, you can visit her campaign site.

Clinton Health Care Plan

http://politics4moms.blogspot.com/2008/03/clinton-health-care-plan.html

20 Surprising Ways Wal-Mart Clinics Affect US Healthcare

We looked at all the Republican candidates' healthcare plans this week and next week we'll tackle the Democrats. But maybe we need to look to the US's largest retailer for how to solve this crisis.

20 Surprising Ways Wal-Mart Clinics Affect US Healthcare

http://politics4moms.blogspot.com/2008/02/20-surprising-ways-wal-mart-clinics.html

Ron Paul on Health Care, On the Issues

Ron Paul's Health Care Bill, DownsizeDC

Ron Paul, M.D. Speaks on Healthcare, The Dartmouth Review

Ron Paul Unplugged: Get Government Out of Health Care, ABC News

http://politics4moms.blogspot.com/2008/02/ron-paul-on-health-care-on-issues-ron.html

Ron Paul's Health Care Plan

via Ron Paul 2008

The federal government decided long ago that it knew how to manage your health care better than you and replaced personal responsibility and accountability with a system that puts corporate interests first. Our free market health care system that was once the envy of the world became a federally-managed disaster.

Few people realize that Congress forced Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) on us. HMOs rose to prominence through federal legislation, incentives, and coercion.

Now, the Food and Drug Administration's bias toward large pharmaceutical companies enlarges their power, limits treatment options, and drives consumers to seek Canadian medicines. Regulations from D.C. make it virtually impossible for small business owners to cover their employees. Thanks to government interference in the health care market, many Americans, including the unemployed and those who work for small businesses, cannot afford health insurance. This causes the uninsured to seek basic medical care at already overcrowded emergency rooms, further driving up health care costs and causing premiums to rise for those with insurance.

The federal government will not suddenly become efficient managers if universal health care is instituted. Government health care only means long waiting periods, lack of choice, poor quality, and frustration. Many Canadians, fed up with socialized medicine, come to the U.S. in order to obtain care. Socialized medicine will not magically work here.

Health care should not be left up to HMOs, big drug companies, and government bureaucrats.

It is time to take back our health care. This is why I support:

• Making all medical expenses tax deductible.
• Eliminating federal regulations that discourage small businesses from providing coverage.
• Gving doctors the freedom to collectively negotiate with insurance companies and drive down the cost of medical care.
• Making every American eligible for a Health Savings Account (HSA), and removing the requirement that individuals must obtain a high-deductible insurance policy before opening an HSA.
• Reform licensure requirements so that pharmacists and nurses can perform some basic functions to increase access to care and lower costs.

By removing federal regulations, encouraging competition, and presenting real choices, we can make our health care system the envy of the world once again.

Ron Paul's Health Care Plan

http://politics4moms.blogspot.com/2008/02/ron-pauls-health-care-plan.html

Mike Huckabee on Health Care, USA Today

Mike Huckabee's Health Care Plan, Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review

Reforming Health Care, goHealth Insurance

Where Do the Candidates Stand on Health Care? Mike Huckabee, DMI Blog

http://politics4moms.blogspot.com/2008/02/mike-huckabee-on-health-care-usa-today.html

Mike Huckabee Health Care Plan

Huckabee approaches health care in a similar fashion to McCain. He believes that universal health care is not the answer but rather a system that is focused on containing costs and putting a priority on preventative care. This will give Americans more control of their health care options and make health care competitive in a global economy.

"It is time to recognize that jobs don't need health care, people do, and move from employer-based to consumer-based health care."

Huckabee is passionate that the health care system in this country is irrevocably broken, in part because it is only a "health care" system, not a "health" system. He asserts that is we need to get serious about preventive health care, instead of chasing more and more dollars to treat chronic disease, which currently gobbles up 80% of our health care costs, and yet is often avoidable.

Huckabee also advocates policies that will encourage the private sector to seek innovative ways to bring down costs and improve the free market for health care services. He wants to change a system that happily pays $30,000 for a diabetic to have his foot amputated, but won't pay for the shoes that would save his foot.

Huckabee's strategies to make health care more affordable include:

• reforming medical liability
• adopting electronic record keeping
• making health insurance more portable from one job to another
• expanding health savings accounts to everyone, not just those with high deductibles
• making health insurance tax deductible for individuals and families as it now is for businesses. Low income families would get tax credits instead of deductions.

Health care spending is now about $2 trillion a year, which is close to $7,000 for each American. It consumes about 17% of our gross domestic product, easily surpassing the few European nations where spending is close to 10% and far higher than any other country in the world. According to Huckabee, if we reduced our out-of-control health care costs from 17% to 11%, we'd save $700 billion a year, which is about twice our annual national deficit.

Huckabee also points out that our health care system is making our businesses non-competitive in the global economy. How?

• General Motors spends more on health care than it does on steel, $1,500 per car.
• Starbucks spends more on health care than it does on coffee beans.

We have an employer-based system from the 1940's, a system devised not because it was the best way to provide health care, but as a way around World War II wage-and-price controls. Costs have skyrocketed because the party paying for the health care---the employer---and the party using the health care---the employee---are not the same. It is human nature to consume more of something that is essentially free.

Workers complain that their wages are stagnant, but businesses reply that their total compensation costs are rising significantly because they are paying so much more for health care. Huckabee sees that health care costs are adversely affecting your paycheck, even if you're healthy. Some Americans are afraid to change jobs or start their own businesses because they're afraid of losing their health insurance.

Huckabee says it is time to recognize that jobs don't need health insurance, people do, and to ease the burden on businesses. The employer-based system has outlived its usefulness, but Huckabee's answer is a true consumer-based system, not socialized medicine.

via Mike Huckabee for President

Mike Huckabee Health Care Plan

http://politics4moms.blogspot.com/2008/02/mike-huckabee-health-care-plan.html

McCain Health Care

An Analysis of Senator John McCain's Health Care Reform Plan, The Health Care Blog

McCain Health Care Plan Puts Focus on Spending, New York Times

An Analysis of Senator John McCain's Health Care Reform Plan, Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review

McCain Clarifies Health Care Plan, MSNBC

McCain Health Care

http://politics4moms.blogspot.com/2008/02/mccain-health-care.html

John McCain's Healthcare Policy

As the Democrats focus on covering the uninsured with their health care plans, McCain is taking a different approach to the health care crisis. He is focused on cost. More specifically, the cost of chronic conditions such as diabetes, asthma and CAD which account for 75% of the US' entire $2 trillion health care bill.

McCain believes that bringing costs under control is the only way to provide affordable health insurance, save Medicare and Medicaid, protect private health benefits for retirees, and allow our companies to effectively compete around the world. Here are the three main elements of his plan:

Put families in charge of their health care dollars and give them more control over their care while improving the quality of care and lowering costs by promoting competition

• Take better care of our citizens with chronic illness and promote prevention that will keep millions of others from ever developing deadly and debilitating disease.


• Provide access to health care for all our citizens---whether temporarily or chronically uninsured, whether living in rural areas with limited services, or whether residing in inner cities where access to physicians is often limited.


• Give Veterans the freedom to choose to carry their VA dollars to a provider that gives them the timely care at high quality and in the best location.


• Reform federal policy and programs to focus on quality while controlling costs


• Promote competition throughout the health care system between providers and among alternative treatments.


• Give patients a larger role in both prevention and care, putting more decisions and responsibility in their hands.


• Give public more information on treatment options and require transparency by providers regarding medical outcomes, quality of care, costs, and prices.


• Facilitate the development of national standards for measuring and recording treatments and outcomes.


• Reform the payment systems in Medicare to compensate providers for diagnosis, prevention, and care coordination. Medicare should not pay for preventable medical errors or mismanagement.


• Dedicate federal research on the basis of sound science resulting in greater focus on care and cure of chronic disease


• Give states the flexibility to experiment with: alternative forms of access; risk-adjusted payments per episode covered under Medicaid; use of private insurance in Medicaid; alternative insurance policies and insurance providers; and, different licensing schemes for medical providers.


• Build genuine national markets by permitting providers to practice nationwide.


• Support innovative delivery systems, such as clinics in retail outlets and other ways that provide greater market flexibility in permitting appropriate roles for nurse practitioners, nurses, and doctors.


• Where cost-effective, employ telemedicine, and community and mental health clinics in areas where services and providers are limited.


• Foster the development of routes for safe, cheaper generic versions of drugs and biologic pharmaceuticals. Develop safety protocols that permit re-importation to keep competition vigorous.


• Pass tort reform to eliminate frivolous lawsuits and excessive damage awards.
  Protect the health care consumer through vigorous enforcement of federal protections against collusion, unfair business actions, and deceptive consumer practices.

John McCain believes that insurance reforms should increase the variety and affordability of insurance coverage available to American families by fostering competition and innovation.

• Reform the tax code to eliminate the bias toward employer-sponsored health insurance, and provide all individuals with a $2,500 tax credit ($5,000 for families) to increase incentives for insurance coverage. Individuals owning innovative multi-year policies that cost less than the full credit can deposit remainder in expanded health savings accounts.


• Families can purchase health insurance nationwide, across state lines, to maximize their choices, and heighten competition for their business that will eliminate excess overhead, administrative, and excessive compensation costs from the system.


• Insurance should be innovative, moving from job to home, job to job, and providing multi-year coverage.


• Require any state receiving Medicaid to develop a financial "risk adjustment" bonus to high-cost and low-income families to supplement tax credits and Medicaid funds.


• Allow individuals to get insurance through any organization or association that they choose: employers, individual purchases, churches, professional association, and so forth. These policies will be available to small businesses and the self-employed, will be portable across all jobs, and will automatically bridge the time between retirement and Medicare eligibility.

John McCain Believes in Personal Responsibility

• We must do more to take care of ourselves to prevent chronic diseases when possible, and do more to adhere to treatment after we are diagnosed with an illness.


• Childhood obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure are all on the rise. We must again teach our children about health, nutrition and exercise.


• Public health initiatives must be undertaken with all our citizens to stem the growing epidemic of obesity and diabetes, and to deter smoking.

via John McCain 2008

John McCain's Healthcare Policy

http://politics4moms.blogspot.com/2008/02/john-mccain-healthcares-policy.html