NEWShealthcare

Health Care
The President's Plan
Watch the new "Obama Plan in Four Minutes" video to get the basics down:

download .mp4 (61 MB)

In an address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama explained how health insurance reform will
provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance, coverage for those who don’t, and will
lower the cost of health care for our families, our businesses, and our government.

Read the full transcript of the President's remarks.
Watch the full video of the President's remarks.
Read the full plan for health insurance reform.
Download a concise, printable version (pdf).
"I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century
after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and
the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not
wait, and it will not wait another year."

– President Barack Obama, February 24, 2009

Progress
The President signed the Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act on February 4, 2009, which provides
quality health care to 11 million kids – 4 million who were previously uninsured.
The President’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act protects health coverage for 7 million Americans who
lose their jobs through a 65 percent COBRA subsidy to make coverage affordable.
The Recovery Act also invests $19 billion in computerized medical records that will help to reduce costs and
improve quality while ensuring patients’ privacy.
The Recovery Act also provides:
$1 billion for prevention and wellness to improve America’s health and help to reduce health care costs;
$1.1 billion for research to give doctors tools to make the best treatment decisions for their patients by
providing objective information on the relative benefits of treatments; and
$500 million for health workforce to help train the next generation of doctors and nurses.
Guiding Principles
President Obama is committed to working with Congress to pass comprehensive health reform in his first year
in order to control rising health care costs, guarantee choice of doctor, and assure high-quality, affordable
health care for all Americans.

THE OBAMA HEALTHCARE SPEACH ...

Learn about the fundamental health insurance consumer protections included in reform.
Comprehensive health care reform can no longer wait. Rapidly escalating health care costs are crushing family,
business, and government budgets. Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have doubled in the last 9
years, a rate 3 times faster than cumulative wage increases. This forces families to sit around the kitchen
table to make impossible choices between paying rent or paying health premiums. Given all that we spend on
health care, American families should not be presented with that choice. The United States spent
approximately $2.2 trillion on health care in 2007, or $7,421 per person – nearly twice the average of other
developed nations. Americans spend more on health care than on housing or food. If rapid health cost growth
persists, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2025, one out of every four dollars in our national
economy will be tied up in the health system. This growing burden will limit other investments and priorities that
are needed to grow our economy. Rising health care costs also affect our economic competitiveness in the global
economy, as American companies compete against companies in other countries that have dramatically lower
health care costs.

The President has vowed that the health reform process will be different in his Administration – an open,
inclusive, and transparent process where all ideas are encouraged and all parties work together to find a
solution to the health care crisis. Working together with members of Congress, doctors and hospitals,
businesses and unions, and other key health care stakeholders, the President is committed to making sure we
finally enact comprehensive health care reform.

The Administration believes that comprehensive health reform should:

Reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government
Protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs
Guarantee choice of doctors and health plans
Invest in prevention and wellness
Improve patient safety and quality of care
Assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans
Maintain coverage when you change or lose your job
End barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions
Please visit www.HealthReform.gov to learn more about the President’s commitment to enacting comprehensive
health reform this year.

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AFL-CIO ... BOTH SIDES of HEALTHCARE ...

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“Reform” Means You Pay More for Health Care
Posted October 12th, 2009 at 10.04am in Health Care.

A major new report confirms the worst fears of many: Health care reform will raise the costs for most
Americans—by about 18% on average. That is on top of existing inflation of health coverage.

Once the plan is fully phased-in (by 2019), a typical family of four would pay an extra $4,000 each year.

When combined with existing inflation, costs would rise from today’s $12,300 annual average to $25,900. Of
that 111% increase, $9,600 is due to existing factors uncorrected by the legislation, and $4,000 due to
additional costs created by the legislation.

For single persons, the differential is projected at $1,500 a year. Premiums would rise from today’s $4,600 a
year to $9,600 overall.

Prepared by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), the new analysis was requested by AHIP—America’s Health
Insurance Plans. It focuses on the leading plan pending in Congress, sponsored by Sen. Max Baucus (D, MT),
which is scheduled for a Senate Finance Committee vote on Tuesday. The PWC report can be read here.

The PWC projections track what The Heritage Foundation and many others have said about the legislation: It
does not save money. It simply taxes those who have health coverage and uses the money to give care to
others.

The White House is said to be livid. After all, President Obama’s claims that he makes care more affordable
are exposed as a myth by the new study. Lawmakers claim the bill would “save” money, but that’s not true for
those who have insurance. The only “savings” would be to those who receive government-paid health care and
subsidies at the cost of higher prices for everyone else. (Even if the legislation “reduced the deficit”, it would
do so by making citizens pay more, not by controlling government spending.)

Despite the enormous costs, estimates say 25-million people would remain uninsured under the Baucus bill. The
new study also criticizes the Baucus plan for not placing tougher mandates and penalties on those who do not
buy health insurance, which would help spread the costs (and create new customers for insurers). PWC reports
higher costs would occur due to these parts of the bill:

Requirements to cover pre-existing conditions with guaranteed-issue insurance
The new tax created on so-called “high cost” health care plans
The new taxes on medical devices and other segments of health care
Reduction in Medicare payments, which care providers would offset by raising rates on their other patients.
The report will be denounced as a political attack by the insurance industry. But the real attack is Washington’
s assault on our pocketbooks and our freedoms.

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Wait For Health Care Benefits Is 3 Years If Health Care Bill Passes
digg Huffpost - Wait For Health Care Benefits Is 3 Years If Health Care Bill Passes stumble reddit del.ico.
us ShareThisRICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR | 10/11/09 12:02 AM |

Read More: Benefits, Cbo, Deny Coverage, Health Care, Health Care Bill, Health Care Insurance, Health Care
Reform, House Bill, Obama, Pre-Existing Condition, Public Option, Senate Bill, Specifics, White House, Home
News

Share Print CommentsWASHINGTON — Sixty years is how long Democrats say they've been pushing for
legislation that provides health care access for all Americans. They'll have to wait another three if President
Barack Obama gets a bill to sign this year.

Under the Democratic bills, federal tax credits to help make health insurance affordable for millions of low-
and middle-income households won't start flowing until 2013 – after the next presidential election. But
Medicare cuts and a sizable chunk of the tax increases to pay for the overhaul kick in immediately.

The eat-your-vegetables-first approach is causing heartburn for some Democrats. Three years is a long time
to wait for dessert, and opponents could capitalize on misgivings about the complex legislation to undo what
would be a signature achievement for Obama.

"The real danger is that health reform could be vulnerable to what we see with the stimulus package," said
Democratic health policy consultant Peter Harbage, referring to criticism that Obama's $787 billion economic
plan hasn't stemmed rising unemployment. "There needs to be more focus on what can you do quickly so that
real people will start seeing change sooner, rather than later."

Said Judy Feder, a senior health official in President Bill Clinton's administration: "Just as we are fending off
ideological attacks to get the bill passed, we will be fending them off as we implement the law."

Obama administration officials and Democratic lawmakers say the reason for the three-year wait is the time
it's going to take to set up insurance marketplaces, write consumer protection rules and reconfigure the
bureaucracy to carry out the legislation. It took President George W. Bush's administration two years to
phase in the Medicare prescription benefit, a more modest undertaking.

"It's very important to get the execution right," White House budget director Peter Orszag told The
Associated Press in a recent interview.

There's another reason, less talked about: to make the costs of the plan seem more manageable under
congressional budgeting rules.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/11/wait-for-health-care-bene_n_316556.html