SENATOR RANDY WHITE SUPPORTS HEALTH CARE REFORM, BASED ON FACTS...NOT ON MISINFORMATION
Over the next several months we are going to be bombarded by advertising to defeat meaningful health care reform. The insurance industry, along with other powerful special interest groups will try once again to defeat any real change in health care and protect the status quo and their profits.
There are 245,000 uninsured West Virginians and 46 million Americans without health insurance. Every week, thousands file for bankruptcy because of health care bills from medical necessary injuries and disease. These are not the poor, but your average American, the family next door because of their inability to afford a health care plan.
American businesses each year find it more and more difficult to afford the cost of providing a health insurance plan for their employees. The cost of health care makes them less competitive in the global marketplace.
We all pay for the uninsured through higher insurance premiums to cover the costs of uncompensated expenses in the health care industry. However, we can reduce the increasing costs of health care through modernizing medical records , preventive care, and increase productivity. We can provide affordable health care for every American.
Affordable health care for every man, woman, and child in this country is possible without eliminating your choice as to which doctor, medical procedure, or hospital facility. Don't be fooled by slick TV ad's poised to mislead and distort the truth.
The following links will help you in West Virginia to join the debate and increase your understanding of the issue:
http://www.wvahc.org/ West Virginians for Affordable Health Care
http://institute.ourfuture.org/files/Jacob_Hacker_Public_Plan_Choice.pdf Our Future.org
These links along with the following two posted blogs/articles on this website will help you understand the powerful forces for and against health care for all. Please learn all you can. This is the greatest opportunity in a generation to provide affordable health care for ALL.
5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT OBAMA'S PUBLIC HEALTH INSURANCE OPTION
The choice of a public health insurance plan is crucial to real health care reform. But right now, it's being smeared by conservatives and insurance-industry front groups. Here's what you really need to know:
1. Choice, choice, choice. If the public health insurance option passes, Americans will be able to choose between their current insurance and a high-quality, government-run plan similar to Medicare. If you like your current care, you can keep it. If you don't--or don't have any--you can get the public insurance plan.2
2. It will be high-quality coverage with a choice of doctors. Government-run plans have a track record of innovating to improve quality, because they're not just focused on short-term profits. And if you choose the public plan, you'll still get to choose your doctor and hospital.3
3. We'll all save a bunch of money. The public health insurance option won't have to spend money on things like CEO bonuses, shareholder dividends, or excessive advertising, so it'll cost a lot less. Plus, the private plans will have to lower their rates and provide better value to compete, so people who keep their current insurance will save, too.4
4. It will always be there for you and your family. A for-profit insurer can close, move out of the area, or just kick you off their insurance rolls. The public health insurance option will always be available to provide you with the health security you need.5
5. And it's a key part of universal health care. No longer will sick people or folks in rural communities, or low-income Americans be forced to go without coverage. The public health insurance plan will be available and accessible to everyone. And for those struggling to make ends meet, the premiums will be subsidized by the government.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Health Care Reform...Not Misinformation
Over and over again, I hear from West Virginians that we need real health care reform that provides every American with access to quality, affordable care. That is why Congress and President Obama are so focused on this issue.
Of course there are folks in the insurance and hospital industries, from the medical profession, and both political parties who will have different ideas about how to achieve our goal. But I was shocked when I read a memo from Republican strategist Dr. Frank Luntz laying out plans to dismantle any effort to give all Americans access to quality health care. Dr. Luntz, the man who developed language designed to promote preemptive war in Iraq and distract from the severity of global warming, is at it again -- this time with a messaging strategy designed to sink our historic opportunity for health care reform.
Let's be clear: this is not a strategy to push certain ideas about health reform. It is a strategy intended solely to kill reform efforts altogether. In his own words, Dr. Luntz has stated, "You're not going to get what you want, but you can kill what they're trying to do."
Not surprisingly, since the American public is strongly in favor of fixing the broken health care system, the Luntz strategy is predicated on deception.
In his memo, Dr. Luntz lays out multiple ways that opponents of health care reform can trick and manipulate the American public. One strategy that stood out to me is to call efforts to reform our broken health care system a "bailout for the insurance industry." This is ridiculous. This statement is developed to serve the same interests who stopped at nothing to derail health care reform in the 90's, who blocked health care coverage for low-income children, and whose top Medicare priority for 15 years has been transferring money from seniors and taxpayers to the insurance industry.
When support for a prescription drug benefit in Medicare became too powerful to ignore, President Bush and his allies created the convoluted system we now have. Rather than simply add a prescription drug benefit to the tried, true, and popular Medicare program as Democrats wanted, they devised a giveaway for insurance companies. For years Dr. Luntz's clients have virtually abdicated health care policy making to the insurance industry; the last thing it needs is a bailout.
Today though, even the insurance industry is engaged in constructive negotiations about how to repair the health care system. Unfortunately for the vast majority of Americans who support reform, however, Dr. Luntz's new game plan to stop change is being embraced by leaders in the Republican Party. In a briefing where Dr. Luntz presented his strategy to Republican House members, Rep. Mike Pence from Indiana, the chairman of the House Republican Conference, made it official by saying, "Frank is back."
So expect a massive misinformation campaign coming to a health care debate near you. Opponents using Dr. Luntz's doublespeak will argue for a "balanced, common sense approach" to health care but what they really want is to keep the system the way it is. They'll say that a public plan will not be "patient centered," but their real goal is to block accessible health care for every American. They'll say reform will deny Americans "choice" even when every American will be allowed to keep their health insurance and their doctor. They'll claim that the "quality of care will go down," while callously ignoring the fact that millions of Americans have no health care at all and millions more are denied the medications and procedures they need.
What we are seeing, yet again, is that while Dr. Luntz and his clients may have excellent polling data, they are utterly clueless about what the American people want.
But, I have to give Dr. Luntz credit on one front: he points out that Republicans need to appear to be on the "right side of reform" or they lose the health care argument. The problem is that you can't fake support for reform. You're either for improving the quality and affordability of health care or you're against it. You're either for expanding coverage to every American or you're against it. At the end of the day, no matter what talking points they use, each member of Congress is going to have to vote for or against improving our broken health care system.
With small businesses and families being buried by rising costs, with 47 million uninsured, millions more underinsured and American companies losing ground against their global competitors, it is evident to anyone that our health care system is broken. There are Republicans and Democrats, insurance executives and patient advocates, physicians and hospital representatives all working to meet one of America's most pressing challenges. We certainly do not all agree on what a reformed health system should look like or how to get there, but there are people on all sides who are negotiating in good faith. The country deserves that debate on the merits, not poll-tested attack lines intended to prolong the broken system we have today.
Health Care Reform...Yes, We Need It!
Last week Republicans on Capitol Hill held a strategy summit on how to defeat key parts of the president's health care plan. At one point, Republican pollster Frank Luntz declared, "You're not going to get what you want, but you can kill what they're trying to do."1
Luntz wrote a confidential memo that laid out the Republican strategy: Pretend to support reform. Mislead Americans about the heart of Obama's plan, the public health insurance option. Scare enough people to doom real reform. Since most people don't know much about the public health care option, these lies could take root if we don't fight back.
Harvard Professor David Cutler argues that health system modernization has the potential to save the federal government nearly $600 billion in health spending over the next decade, and $9 trillion over the next 25 years. He concludes that these savings will not only more than offset the cost of covering all Americans, but also will play a critical role in restoring long-term fiscal balance.
Cutler, a leading health care economist and expert in projecting long-term health costs and savings, conservatively estimates the productivity payoff from enacting health system modernization measures that enjoy bipartisan support, such as electronic medical records, comparative effectiveness research, prevention, measuring results, paying for value, and consumer involvement.
His findings demonstrate how much passage of health reform will do to brighten the prospects for long-term fiscal responsibility and economic growth: * Health reform will spark a productivity boom in health care: Cutler projects that within four to five years of enactment, health system modernization will increase productivity growth in health care by 1.5% to 2% per year.
These productivity improvements -- which are comparable to the rate of productivity growth already seen in any other economic sectors -- will lead to dramatic savings for the federal government and private sector alike. * Productivity growth can cut in half the rise in projected Medicare/Medicaid spending: Productivity-driven reductions in health spending will significantly improve the long-term federal budget outlook by decreasing projected increases in Medicare and Medicaid, which currently account for about 4% of GDP. Where baseline estimates project Medicare and Medicaid spending to rise to 9% GDP by 2035, health reform will reduce that projection to only 6.5% of GDP. *
Health reform is entitlement reform: Over the long term, bending the Medicare/Medicaid health care cost curve from 9% to 6.5% will produce tremendous savings for the federal budget and American taxpayers. The projected savings over 10 years are $585 billion. The projected savings over 25 years are a staggering $9 trillion.
In other words, by enacting health reform, the Obama administration and this Congress have the chance to achieve sweeping long-term deficit reduction on the same scale as the massive deficits and indebtedness wrought by the previous administration.
This first-ever joint report from the DLC and the Center for American Progress underscores the strong consensus for passing health reform to make our people and our economy stronger. To give Americans better value for their money, achieve long-term deficit reduction, and restore long-term fiscal balance, the nation needs to enact health reform now.
The potential savings from health care modernization are enormous, and so are the costs of doing nothing. As David Cutler rightly concludes, "Wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on inefficient health care is a luxury we cannot afford."
Luntz wrote a confidential memo that laid out the Republican strategy: Pretend to support reform. Mislead Americans about the heart of Obama's plan, the public health insurance option. Scare enough people to doom real reform. Since most people don't know much about the public health care option, these lies could take root if we don't fight back.
Harvard Professor David Cutler argues that health system modernization has the potential to save the federal government nearly $600 billion in health spending over the next decade, and $9 trillion over the next 25 years. He concludes that these savings will not only more than offset the cost of covering all Americans, but also will play a critical role in restoring long-term fiscal balance.
Cutler, a leading health care economist and expert in projecting long-term health costs and savings, conservatively estimates the productivity payoff from enacting health system modernization measures that enjoy bipartisan support, such as electronic medical records, comparative effectiveness research, prevention, measuring results, paying for value, and consumer involvement.
His findings demonstrate how much passage of health reform will do to brighten the prospects for long-term fiscal responsibility and economic growth: * Health reform will spark a productivity boom in health care: Cutler projects that within four to five years of enactment, health system modernization will increase productivity growth in health care by 1.5% to 2% per year.
These productivity improvements -- which are comparable to the rate of productivity growth already seen in any other economic sectors -- will lead to dramatic savings for the federal government and private sector alike. * Productivity growth can cut in half the rise in projected Medicare/Medicaid spending: Productivity-driven reductions in health spending will significantly improve the long-term federal budget outlook by decreasing projected increases in Medicare and Medicaid, which currently account for about 4% of GDP. Where baseline estimates project Medicare and Medicaid spending to rise to 9% GDP by 2035, health reform will reduce that projection to only 6.5% of GDP. *
Health reform is entitlement reform: Over the long term, bending the Medicare/Medicaid health care cost curve from 9% to 6.5% will produce tremendous savings for the federal budget and American taxpayers. The projected savings over 10 years are $585 billion. The projected savings over 25 years are a staggering $9 trillion.
In other words, by enacting health reform, the Obama administration and this Congress have the chance to achieve sweeping long-term deficit reduction on the same scale as the massive deficits and indebtedness wrought by the previous administration.
This first-ever joint report from the DLC and the Center for American Progress underscores the strong consensus for passing health reform to make our people and our economy stronger. To give Americans better value for their money, achieve long-term deficit reduction, and restore long-term fiscal balance, the nation needs to enact health reform now.
The potential savings from health care modernization are enormous, and so are the costs of doing nothing. As David Cutler rightly concludes, "Wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on inefficient health care is a luxury we cannot afford."
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