How Hillary can make Health Care more affordable?

Unlike the current health system where insurance premiums send people into bankruptcy, the 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.

This aspect of Hilary's health plan may be more important than some people realize. It is generally assumed that people with health insurance are protected in almost all cases against a financial dooms day by their coverage. Americans that do need health insurance have some outragously high premiums. I have found an article that is titled: When staying alive means going bankrupt. This title is meant to grab attention, but provides a story about some of the hardship that people may have to endure even with insurance (let alone people without insurance).

The story that is told in this article is about a female, mother of three with a very good past credit history who had ovarian cancer two times and the medical bills she incured caused her to go bankrupt. Her monthly premius is $619 and she is liable for up to $7,000 with co-payments and her deductable. She was forced to file for bankruptsy with medical bills that were totalling $20,000. At that time BCBS of California said that the reason that her $7,000 cap was broken is because she did not follow the proper protocol when attempting to dispute the charges. This was a very difficult situation and a sad story. I am not trying to claim that everyone is being mistreated, but I am saying that there are instances when working families are literally a single medical catastrophe away from bankrupt.

We need to find a way to help the people who are working hard and just have had some bad luck. Take a second to look over the article. Hillary's tax breaks would allow for less of the take home money go toward health insurance. Is there a better way to fix problems like the case presented above?

Healthcare Platform Highlights: Barack Obama

Senator Obama on Healthcare:

"I...believe that every American has the right to affordable health care. I believe that the millions of Americans who can't take their children to a doctor when they get sick have that right...We now face an opportunity - and an obligation - to turn the page on the failed politics of yesterday's health care debates. It's time to bring together businesses, the medical community, and members of both parties around a comprehensive solution to this crisis, and it's time to let the drug and insurance industries know that while they'll get a seat at the table, they don't get to buy every chair."

-Barack Obama, Speech in Iowa City, IA, 5/27/07

Obama's Healthcare reform plan:

Item 1: Lowering health care costs and ensuring affordable, high-quality health care for all

Barack Obama believes we live in the greatest country in the world and that when it comes to health care, America can and must do better. The Obama plan will save a typical American family up to $2,500 every year on premiums by:

1. Providing affordable, comprehensive and portable health coverage for every American;
2. Modernizing the U.S. health care system to contain spiraling health care costs and improve the quality of patient care; and
3. Promoting prevention and strengthening public health to prevent disease and protect against natural and man-made disasters.

Item 2: Quality, Affordable & Portable Health Coverage for All

• Mandatory Coverage of Children. Obama will require that all children have health care coverage.

• Expansion of Medicaid and SCHIP. Obama will expand eligibility for Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

• Flexibility for State Plans. Obama's plan allows states to continue innovating on health care reform.

Item 3: Modernizing the U.S. Health Care System to Lower Costs and Improve Quality

Some of the major attributes of this item are:

• The plan would reimburse employers that incur catastrophic procedure costs, provided that employers use these savings to lower insurance premiums
• Another feature involves establishing transparency within Healthcare organizations so that patients can measure cost and quality.
• Tackling disparities in Healthcare: Obama will maintain funding for organizations like Centers for Excellence in Women's Health

Item 4: Promoting Prevention and Strengthening Public Health

Facets of this plan include reforms like: providing funding for the global fight against aids, providing insurance plans that cover preventative care, getting junk food out of our nation's school systems. Additionally, Obama will call upon Federal, State, and Local governments to implement programs that improve public within each region.
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The above is a summary of the Obama plan. For a full detailed plan, please visit:
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

Hillary Clinton on Healthcare

In this clip Hillary addresses the value of the money that we are spending on health care. She says--

"...if this were a comodity other than health care that you were spending so much money on and getting so little in return that you would never put up with it."

This issue has been discussed in our blog previously, but this statement gives you an idea of the way that Hillary feels about the value of the money spent on health care. She also believes the there is the problem with the way that health care is structered. Our health care system concentrates on treating illness instead of preventing it. This causes problems like rising health care costs and worse health outcomes.

On Universal health insurance: Hillary makes the point that many countries that spend much less than us already offer care to all citizens and have better quality care. Is the money already available? Could Universal health care coverage be accomplished without any additional capital?

John Edwards on how to Fix Health Care

Democratic Presidential candidate briefly speaks about Universal Health Care and its cost. At this conference Mr. Edwards tells the crowd that in order to have Universal Health Care we will need to raise taxes. Do you agree with this statement? How do you think that the American people will react to the idea of raising taxes to pay for health care? Watch this short clip and let us know what you think.

Bush Vetoes SCHIP Reform

A link to CNN's article discussing President Bush's Veto of the SCHIP reform

CNN Article

Summary of Facts:

President Bush vetoed the proposed SCHIP reform. The legislation was passed by the House with a margin of 265-159 and by the Senate with a vote of 67-29. The senate majority was large enough to overturn the veto, but the house needs an additional 15 votes to swing for the legislation for the veto to be over turned.

The legistlation would have increased the annual budget of $5 billion to $12 billion for the next 5 years. of the SCHIP program significantly. It would have doubled the number of insured children from 4 million to 8 million