Menstuff® has compiled the following information on health care issues.
Answers to 10 Key Health-Care Issues Facing
America
Megan Hauck, the deputy policy director for the Bush/Cheney campaign, presented Bush's views.
Please click on the question that concerns you to jump to that answer.
1) What do you consider the biggest health-care
challenge today?
2) What are your plans to correct the problem?
3) Do you have any plans to help control the rising
costs of prescription drugs?
4) What are your plans to lower the cost of health
insurance?
5) What are your plans for helping the
uninsured?
6) Do you have a plan to help employers afford employee
health plans?
7) What is your plan to protect the solvency of
Medicare?
8) What will your plans cost, and how will you pay for
them?
9) What is your stance on drug reimportation?
10) What is your stance on stem cells?
1. What do you consider the biggest health-care challenge today?
It is vitally important that health care be accessible and affordable for every American. Rising health-care costs have too often taken patients out of the health-care decision-making process. Today, too many lawsuits without merit are being filed against doctors and hospitals, forcing them to practice defense medicine, driving good doctors out of practice, and increasing health-care costs for everyone.
2. What are your plans to correct the problem?
President Bush supports commonsense reforms to the medical liability system that reduce the number of frivolous lawsuits and control excessive jury awards. The president's proposal for reform would ensure that injured persons are fully compensated for their full economic losses, while reasonably limiting non-economic damages to $250,000. It would also reserve punitive damages for cases where there is egregious conduct, ensure that old cases cannot be brought years after an event, and provide that defendants pay judgments in proportion to their fault. While everyone who has a legitimate claim must have their day in court, no patient has ever been healed by frivolous lawsuits. Frivolous lawsuits and excessive jury awards are a national problem, and the crisis deserves a national solution. The Department of Health and Human Services recently determined that medical liability reforms could extend heath insurance to 2.6 to 5.1 million additional Americans.
In addition to fighting for medical liability reforms, the president's health-care agenda also includes promoting health information technology that will improve health care quickly, save lives, and save money. President Bush has set up an ambitious goal that Americans will have electronic medical records within a decade because he believes that America's health-care system can benefit from an information infrastructure that provides patients and doctors with complete and accurate medical records. This technology will reduce unnecessary treatments and reduce red tape.
3. Do you have any plans to help control the rising costs of prescription drugs?
President Bush was proud to sign the Medicare Modernization Act this year, which for the first time is providing all 40 million Medicare beneficiaries with a voluntary prescription drug benefit. This drug benefit will give seniors their choice of various plans to help them afford the cost of their medicines.
Seniors are seeing immediate relief with Medicare prescription drug cards, which are cutting 16% to 30% off retail prices of most brand-name medicines and 30% to 60% off the price of generics, and providing an annual $600 subsidy to low-income seniors.
Beginning in 2006, for a low monthly premium of about $35, seniors can choose among plans to have Medicare pay 75% of the cost of all prescription drugs up to $2,250 a year and 95% of catastrophic drug costs. Our 12 million low-income seniors will see the greatest benefits, with 100% coverage of prescription drug costs with a $1 to $5 co-pay. For the first time, we are giving seniors the peace of mind that they will not have to face unlimited expenses for their medicine.
4. What are your plans to lower the cost of health insurance?
Health care should be accessible and affordable for all Americans regardless of their ability to pay, and the Bush administration is keeping its commitment to help our most vulnerable populations get the care that they need.
Our working families also need affordable health care, and through a comprehensive approach, we are improving access to services, including for those Americans with limited means. We established new health savings accounts so that Americans under the age of 65 with low-cost health coverage can save for routine out-of-pocket expenses and future medical costs in a tax-free account. President Bush proposed refundable tax credits of up to $1,000 for individuals and $3,000 for families that will make coverage more affordable for millions of low-income Americans without access to employer-sponsored care. To address rising health care costs for small businesses and their workers, the president has proposed association health plans to allow small businesses to join together and negotiate on behalf of employees for more affordable health coverage, like large employers and unions do.
5. What are your plans for helping the uninsured?
The Bush administration has made health insurance more accessible and affordable for more Americans. We passed health savings accounts (HSAs) so that Americans can pay for routine medical expenses and save for future medical expenses in a tax-free account. HSAs have a good track record of expanding coverage to the uninsured: 25% of people who purchased an early version of HSAs in 2001 were previously uninsured for six months or more. Through the expansion of community health centers, we are serving 3 million more patients than in 2001, and the president has committed to a five-year plan to open and expand 1,200 new community and rural health centers to serve an additional 6.1 million people. In a new term, the president will propose to guarantee a new health center in every poor county in need in America.
We have approved Medicaid and SCHIP changes that will extend eligibility to 2.6 million more Americans.
6. Do you have a plan to help employers afford employee health plans?
To reduce the burden of health care costs on small business owners and employees, the president has proposed the creation of Association Health Plans so small businesses can pool together to negotiate lower health care costs and provide health insurance to their employees. These plans will allow small businesses to band together and negotiate on behalf of their workers just like large corporations and unions do. President Bush wants to expand the AHP program so that people purchasing health-care coverage can purchase it from membership groups such as a charitable organization or church as well as their employer.
7. What is your plan to protect the solvency of Medicare?
Medicare is the binding commitment of a caring society, and it is a commitment the president intends to keep. He wants our seniors to know that Medicare will always be there for them. He has worked to strengthen this program, improve its benefits, and ensure its stability.
The new Medicare law President Bush signed, in addition to offering more choices and better benefits, includes new safeguards to preserve this program for new retirees. It has created a new fiscal analysis requirement to help us address the future of Medicare's finances. Beginning with the 2005 report, the Medicare trustees will be required to inform both Congress and the president if spending growth becomes excessive so that Congress can act expeditiously on these funding warnings.
8. What will your plans cost, and how will you pay for them?
The president's health care proposals will cost $156.2 billion over 10 years, $105 billion of which is already included in the 2005 budget. Through effective medical liability and the reduction of health-care fraud and waste, we will save millions of dollars in health-care costs, which are burdening the system.
We will pay for these health-care proposals while reducing the deficit. The president's fiscal year 2005 budget proposal will cut the deficit in half over the next five years.
9. What is your stance on drug reimportation?
The president believes that his primary responsibility is to protect the safety and well-being of the American people. As such, the security of our drug supply is a priority. Any drug importation plan must guarantee Americans the safety and effectiveness they currently have under the gold-standard of the Food and Drug Administration. The president appointed the surgeon general to lead a federal taskforce to determine how that importation could be done safely. Since 2001, President Bush has worked to lower the costs of medicines for all Americans by passing a new Medicare drug benefit to cut seniors' drug costs in half. We have also closed loopholes to speed safe and effective generic drugs to market, saving American consumers $35 billion in drug costs over 10 years.
10. What is your stance on stem cells?
President Bush has strongly supported medical research to find new treatments and cures for diseases. As part of this effort he decided to provide federal funding, for the first time, to research using human embryonic stem cells. He determined, however, that federal funds should not encourage the further destruction of human embryos, adhering to the principle adopted by Congress in 1996 that human embryos merit respect as a form of human life and federal dollars should not encourage their destruction.
Since 2001, the Bush administration has provided $35.5 million for
research. In 2003 alone, the National Institutes for Health funded
118 separate research projects using human embryonic stem cells. The
policy places no limits on private funding of embryonic stem cell
research. Last year, the NIH funded $190 million in adult stem cell
research.
Source: my.webmd.com/content/article/95/103272.htm
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