Posted on 05/15/2008 12:33:03 AM PDT by Bob J
Today, In Florida, John McCain Outlined His Plan For Health Care Reform. John McCain believes we can and must provide access to health care for every American. He has proposed a comprehensive vision for achieving that. For too long, our nation's leaders have talked about reforming health care. Now is the time to act.
Americans Are Worried About Health Care Costs.The problems with health care are well known: it is too expensive and 47 million people living in the United States lack health insurance.
John McCain Believes The Key To Health Care Reform Is To Restore Control To The Patients Themselves. We want a system of health care in which everyone can afford and acquire the treatment and preventative care they need. Health care should be available to all and not limited by where you work or how much you make. Families should be in charge of their health care dollars and have more control over care.
John McCain Will Reform Health Care Making It Easier For Individuals And Families To Obtain Insurance. An important part of his plan is to use competition to improve the quality of health insurance with greater variety to match people's needs, lower prices, and portability. Families should be able to purchase health insurance nationwide, across state lines.
John McCain Will Reform The Tax Code To Offer More Choices Beyond Employer-Based Health Insurance Coverage. While still having the option of employer-based coverage, every family will also have the option of receiving a direct refundable tax credit - effectively cash - of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to offset the cost of insurance. Families will be able to choose the insurance provider that suits them best and the money would be sent directly to the insurance provider. Those obtaining innovative insurance that costs less than the credit can deposit the remainder in expanded Health Savings Accounts.
John McCain Proposes Making Insurance More Portable. Americans need insurance that follows them from job to job. They want insurance that is still there if they retire early and does not change if they take a few years off to raise the kids.
John McCain Will Encourage And Expand The Benefits Of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) For Families. When families are informed about medical choices, they are more capable of making their own decisions and often decide against unnecessary options. Health Savings Accounts take an important step in the direction of putting families in charge of what they pay for.
John McCain's Plan Cares For The Traditionally Uninsurable. John McCain understands that those without prior group coverage and those with pre-existing conditions have the most difficulty on the individual market, and we need to make sure they get the high-quality coverage they need.
John McCain Will Work With States To Establish A Guaranteed Access Plan. As President, John McCain will work with governors to develop a best practice model that states can follow - a Guaranteed Access Plan or GAP - that would reflect the best experience of the states to ensure these patients have access to health coverage. One approach would establish a nonprofit corporation that would contract with insurers to cover patients who have been denied insurance and could join with other state plans to enlarge pools and lower overhead costs. There would be reasonable limits on premiums, and assistance would be available for Americans below a certain income level.
John McCain Will Promote Proper Incentives. John McCain will work with Congress, the governors, and industry to make sure this approach is funded adequately and has the right incentives to reduce costs such as disease management, individual case management, and health and wellness programs.
John McCain Proposes A Number Of Initiatives That Can Lower Health Care Costs. If we act today, we can lower health care costs for families through common-sense initiatives. Within a decade, health spending will comprise twenty percent of our economy. This is taking an increasing toll on America's families and small businesses. Even Senators Clinton and Obama recognize the pressure skyrocketing health costs place on small business when they exempt small businesses from their employer mandate plans.
CHEAPER DRUGS: Lowering Drug Prices. John McCain will look to bring greater competition to our drug markets through safe re-importation of drugs and faster introduction of generic drugs.
CHRONIC DISEASE: Providing Quality, Cheaper Care For Chronic Disease. Chronic conditions account for three-quarters of the nation's annual health care bill. By emphasizing prevention, early intervention, healthy habits, new treatment models, new public health infrastructure and the use of information technology, we can reduce health care costs. We should dedicate more federal research to caring and curing chronic disease.
COORDINATED CARE: Promoting Coordinated Care. Coordinated care - with providers collaborating to produce the best health care - offers better outcomes at lower cost. We should pay a single bill for high-quality disease care which will make every single provider accountable and responsive to the patients' needs.
GREATER ACCESS AND CONVENIENCE: Expanding Access To Health Care. Families place a high value on quickly getting simple care. Government should promote greater access through walk-in clinics in retail outlets.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: Greater Use Of Information Technology To Reduce Costs. We should promote the rapid deployment of 21st century information systems and technology that allows doctors to practice across state lines.
MEDICAID AND MEDICARE: Reforming The Payment System To Cut Costs. We must reform the payment systems in Medicaid and Medicare to compensate providers for diagnosis, prevention and care coordination. Medicaid and Medicare should not pay for preventable medical errors or mismanagement.
SMOKING: Promoting The Availability Of Smoking Cessation Programs. Most smokers would love to quit but find it hard to do so. Working with business and insurance companies to promote availability, we can improve lives and reduce chronic disease through smoking cessation programs.
STATE FLEXIBILITY: Encouraging States To Lower Costs. States should have the flexibility to experiment with alternative forms of access, coordinated payments per episode covered under Medicaid, use of private insurance in Medicaid, alternative insurance policies and different licensing schemes for providers.
TORT REFORM: Passing Medical Liability Reform. We must pass medical liability reform that eliminates lawsuits directed at doctors who follow clinical guidelines and adhere to safety protocols. Every patient should have access to legal remedies in cases of bad medical practice but that should not be an invitation to endless, frivolous lawsuits.
TRANSPARENCY: Bringing Transparency To Health Care Costs. We must make public more information on treatment options and doctor records, and require transparency regarding medical outcomes, quality of care, costs and prices. We must also facilitate the development of national standards for measuring and recording treatments and outcomes.
John McCain Will Develop A Strategy For Meeting The Challenge Of A Population Needing Greater Long-Term Care. There have been a variety of state-based experiments such as Cash and Counseling or The Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) that are pioneering approaches for delivering care to people in a home setting. Seniors are given a monthly stipend which they can use to: hire workers and purchase care-related services and goods. They can get help managing their care by designating representatives, such as relatives or friends, to help make decisions. It also offers counseling and bookkeeping services to assist consumers in handling their programmatic responsibilities.
MYTH: Some Claim That Under John McCain's Plan, Those With Pre-Existing Conditions Would Be Denied Insurance.
FACT: John McCain Supported The Health Insurance Portability And Accountability Act In 1996 That Took The Important Step Of Providing Some Protection Against Exclusion Of Pre-Existing Conditions.
FACT: Nothing In John McCain's Plan Changes The Fact That If You Are Employed And Insured You Will Build Protection Against The Cost Of Any Pre-Existing Condition.
FACT: As President, John McCain Would Work With Governors To Find The Solutions Necessary To Ensure Those With Pre-Existing Conditions Are Able To Easily Access Care.
What do you do with part time workers?
I can't speak for McCain.
Today we're paying for medical treatment for illegals.
Like it or not, most of them are staying. Hopefully with serious vetting for criminal offences, and with limited citizenship paths, but McCain supports guest workers and Obama will open the borders. That's simply a fact.
I did say taxes would pay for it, but that doesn't translate to increased taxes.
The dems are wrong, we do have universal health care today, no one goes untreated. But the taxpayers pay for treatment through medicaid, and the insured through higher premiums.
You addressed illegals. IMO, don't know what McCain thinks, a guest worker program should guarantee health insurance, liability insurance, and some level of unemployment and disability insurance. I don't care if the employee has to pay for it, but the employer must be responsible for it, and post reasonable assurance, bond for smaller employers which the insurance industry will be glad to sell.
Under those circumstances, no, I don't think public costs will go up, in fact I think they'll go down.
The cost of employing those who do the jobs Americans won't do if you have to pay them, yes, that cost will go up.
Increased taxes, no, I don't think so. Under a rational plan. Again, these issues aren't addressed in the policy statement above.
You see, that’s something I didn’t know before this thread.
Yes high and mighty old oldbie liberal supporter Of McCain. I respect your service and high and mighty senority, even though many are gone now for supporting liberals. But I bow to your weak cheap shot.
I am probably older than you Bob, left my swaddling behind years ago. You seem to be the one doing the whining.
Why is that? Is it just that you are not tough enough?
Unless you're also posting as "Bob J" (which I seriously doubt), you weren't accused of "ignoring" anything. Stop flinching. ;)
I did say taxes would pay for it, but that doesn't translate to increased taxes.
Please explain how paying health care costs for (most commonly accepted guesstimate) an additional 30 to 40 million uninsured illegals would not, somehow, translate into increased taxes. This, finally, is the question Bob J has been frantically dodging, to no avail: where would those billions of dollars come from?
I’m not sure if you’re part of the militant anti-McCain/immigration/3rd party cabal, but whether or not you place too much influence in their hands. Sure, there are a lot people pissed off at McCain but if the rabidly militant crowd were to evaporate tomorrow on FR nobody would notice...except the place would be a whole lot more livable.
And I don’t care what some people think of me, expecially the “knock this chip off my shoulder” types. I’ll keep saying what I’m saying and doing what I’m doing because I have no hidden agendas like some around here.
No, you misunderstood me. I think employer based health insurance is an abberation still with us from WWII, which raises costs, and limits limits employment oportunity and flexability.
I can't think of any reason to tie health insurance to employment, and would in no way look to the employer as a solution.
Costs are costs, I can't predict how they'd break up employer vs employee for those covered today. As to the customer, I suspect a more rational system would reduce overall costs, so I doubt higher price would be in store, but that's not the issue.
A simple solution. For the responsible ones among us, the irresponsible are a separate issue, and I've addressed guest workers, former illegals, in my last post. Employ them, you own them.
The Federal government, like most large employers has a large health care plan, with multiple insurers, available to all comers, regardless of pre-existing conditions. Each plan with different levels of coverage, but all with a base level of coverage.
Choice as Obama might say, but with personal responsibility.
Establish a similar system based geographically, on states or regions at the states option. If an insurer wants to insure my state, Illinois, as he does in large employer plans, he takes all comers. Or he can stay home.
Who pays, that's an employer/employee thing, but is ensures the availability of health insurance for all, at the cost of those in large group plans.
Those who won't participate, I won't throw them in the gutter, but that's going to be a taxpayer responsibility, and perhaps for another thread.
And as to medicaid, it needs to be fixed, and should be available to the indigent, but for those who opt out of insurance, I'd be in favor of aggressive recovery of costs.
You’ve been here a little over a year and a half, so yes you are still in your FR swaddling. And before you go telling others what FR “is about” I suggest you spend a little more time around the place. FR has been through dozens of intra-site fratricides and blood-lettings that make this McCain issue look like childs play. I survived them all and am still here.
I’m not whining, I’m telling you the way it is.
What do you think of individuals being required to carry catastrophic health insurance only and let them pay the minor expenses out of their pockets (or get a regular plan if they so desire)?
Seems to me this whole hysteria about health costs impoverishing familes has to do with the uncommon catastrophic accident or illness and that most regular/annual health expenses are affordable to almost anyone.
Catastrophic health insurance is very inexpensive. If someone chooses not have an everyday policy they can pay those odd expenses out of their pockets.
However that's not really the point.
The issue is whether we can return the health care system to the private sector.
Univeral availability, not universal health care, will do that.
Arguements about whether an employee pays a thousand more or a thousand less, I don't think that a public policy issue.
The system is broken, needs to be fixed, and who pays what at the margins isn't the issue.
IMO, overall costs would go down, which flies in the face of I pay more, you pay more.
Bob, we would all like to have everyone agree with us and get along. And yes, it would be more peacful around here. Shame it isn’t the way it worked out.
You are free to flame me all you like, I can take it. If we all had to agree we wouldn’t have a democracy. You may be angry at those who oppose McCain, but they feel that way for a good reason.
In my personal life, I do not go out a activley campaign against McCain. I also won’t vote for him. People here are into politics, and it so happens many agree with me. People also agree with you. I figure that here we can all take it, so I express my opinion to people on this forum.
You can come after me and I don’t hold it against you. No harm done. Thats what we get when we express our opinion.
I have quite a few posts behind me and have made many FRiends here.
If health care is "universally" available, on a state or regional basis, I don't see that as an issue. It's then no different that auto insurance, other than I wouldn't mandate it as most (I think all) states do.
You're really addressing the question of what to do with those who legitimately can't afford to purchase insurance, under a rational system.
I'm happy to pay taxes for welfare, legitimate welfare, food stamps, disability payments, heck I'll pay for treatment for addicts. So for those who truely can't afford insurance, I'll accept that as a taxpayer.
But I'd love to see a system that sorts the legitimate out, which is a bit afield from the policy statement.
You may certainly jot me down within their midst, and I consider myself to be in the best of company. I am a dyed in the wool Reagan Conservative, and I am vehemently opposed to John McCain, and the entire Baker wing of the Republican Party. I do not like where the country is being forced to go, and I am happy to rise in opposition to moderates and RINOs at any time.
A distinction without a difference, if it's the poisoned fiscal "sugar cube" being used to lure the hopelessly innumerate into rationalizing support for a scheme as jaw-droppingly confiscatory as this one. If we're going to start lobbying aggressively for even greater governmental control of all things medical at the federal level, at this juncture: we might just as well save time by pledging support to Obama en masse right now, rather than pretending to be "conservatives" any longer, in any meaningful sense.
And in the aggreate most employers are not paying $10,500 per employee in health insurance.
Citation...?
The system is broken, needs to be fixed, and who pays what at the margins isn't the issue.
Words fail me.
Indeed!
Attn McCain Apologists: Talk all you want!
I, too, regard posters such as the above as being "the best of company!" ;)
Last time I flinched was about 4 years ago with a 12" TC 30/30 barrel, and the deer, legal thanks me.
It's not about illegals.
Like it or not, todays illegals will become guest workers.
I can't speak for McCain here, it's beyond the policy statement, but I'll repeat in my opinion, employers of guest workers must be responsible for the costs of health insurance, liability insurance, and some level of "unemployment", since job mobility is important to prevent employer abuses.
If McCain agrees with me, there are no increased costs, costs will be reduced as illegals become guest workers, health costs paid by their employers.
Again, you're a bit off topic here.
The question you're addressing is what will happen to all the former "illegals" when they become "guest workers", and under my plan their employer is either paying their health, liability and unemployment costs.
Or firing them, bye bye
Or breaking the law, which imo must be dealt with severely.
“I do not like where the country is being forced to go, and I am happy to rise in opposition to moderates and RINOs at any time.”
Guess you didn’t rise up against Bush II fast enough...
You can answer that same question a dozen times but it will never permeate the cranium because it conflicts with their carefully constructed chocolate castle and marshmallow moat.
Nope. He had me fooled the first time around. The second time around I voted for the war, not the president. I will not make that mistake again.
Personal choice, and it would be available under a market based, as in sell to a couple million people or stay home, system.
But you said required, no, I don't think people should be required to pay for health insurance, catastrophic or otherwise. But you correctly note that high deductable insurance is available, and inexpensive, and might motivate consumers to ask their docs WHAT THE *ELL ARE YOU CHARGING. Which in most cases is triple what doc knows insurance will pay, the uninsured being cheated. I would have said screwed, but I honestly think some of these practices approach fraud.
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