Obama on Health Care

BARACK OBAMA’S PLAN FOR A HEALTHY AMERICA
Lowering health care costs and ensuring affordable, high-quality health care for all

The U.S. spends over $2 trillion on health care every year, and offers the best medical technology and scientific research in the world. Yet, the benefits of the American health care system come at a price that an increasing number of individuals and families, employers and employees, and public and private providers cannot afford. Millions of Americans are uninsured or underinsured because of rising medical costs. Nearly 45 million Americans—including 9 million children—lack health insurance.

Health care costs are skyrocketing. Health insurance premiums have risen 4 times faster than wages over the past 6 years. Lack of affordable health care is compounded by serious flaws in our health care delivery system. About 100,000 Americans die from medical errors in hospitals every year.

Too little is spent on prevention and public health. The nation faces epidemics of obesity and chronic diseases as well as new threats of pandemic flu and bioterrorism. Yet despite all of this less than 4 cents of every health care dollar is spent on prevention and public health.

Obama’s plan will provide affordable, comprehensive and portable health coverage for all Americans by:
• Making available a new national health program that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health care similar to that available to federal employees. No one will be turned away or charged more due to illness, and everyone who needs it will receive a subsidy for their premiums.
• Making available a National Health Insurance Exchange to reform the private insurance market. Any American could enroll in participating private plans, which would have to provide comprehensive benefits, issue every applicant a policy, and charge fair and stable premiums.
• Ensuring all of the 9 million currently uninsured children have affordable, high-quality health coverage
• Expanding Medicaid and SCHIP and ensuring they continue to serve their critical safety net function.
• Requiring employers to make a meaningful contribution to the health coverage of their employees.

Obama’s plan will reduce costs and save a typical American family up to $2,500 each year:
• Driving adoption of state-of-the-art health information technology systems
• Improving access to preventive care and chronic disease management programs
• Requiring hospitals to collect and report health care cost and quality data
• Reforming our market structure to increase competition in the insurance and drug markets
• Reducing the costs of catastrophic illnesses for employers and their employees
• Lowering drug costs by allowing importation of safe medicines from other developed countries and increasing use of generics in public programs

Obama’s plan will promote public health by:
• Requiring coverage of preventive services
• Increasing state and local preparedness for terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

For a more detailed look at the plan, click here.