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Health Care

I believe every American should have access to quality, affordable health care. Minnesota is already a leader in quality of care and the percentage of citizens with health insurance, and there is much that the rest of the nation can learn from Minnesota about quality and access. But Minnesotans also face higher health care costs than ever before - costs that have far outpaced the growth in family incomes.

Many of our businesses, particularly small businesses, can no longer afford the costs of health insurance, even though they want to cover their employees. Employees are forced to pay a larger share of the premiums - or they get no health insurance at all. As a result, more and more uninsured people are forced to seek basic care in emergency rooms, the most expensive and inefficient place to deliver medical care. This raises the bill for the rest of us. And more and more Minnesotans with health insurance struggle to pay escalating deductibles and copays.

I believe that for far too long, the health care debate in Washington has been dominated by the giant drug companies and the big insurance companies. When our health care policies are written for the insurance companies and the drug makers instead of America's families, we all lose out.

Business-as-usual in health care policymaking needs to change -- too much is at stake.

Since coming to the Senate, I have focused on these health care priorities:

Make health care more accessible:

• Expand health care coverage for more Minnesotans and Americans.More than 45 million Americans are uninsured, including 8 million children. I have worked in the Senate to extend coverage to more children through reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP) and to protect Medicaid from excluding populations that can benefit most from quality preventive care. As a co-sponsor of the Keep Children Covered Act of 2007, I fought to make sure that state SCHIP programs have adequate funding. This is important for Minnesota, which has been very effective in using its SCHIP dollars to extend coverage.
• Provide fair and equal access for mental health and chemical dependency treatment. I helped secure passage of legislation to provide insurance parity for mental health coverage for millions of Americans. The legislation, signed into law in 2008, fulfills the dreams of Paul and Sheila Wellstone. For the first time, this law will provide justice for millions of Americans living with mental illness who face unfair discrimination in their access to affordable health care treatment.
• Strengthen Medicaid. The Medicaid program provides health insurance for our families, children and seniors who need health care the most. I sponsored legislation to block efforts by the Bush Administration to drastically cut payment for vital (and fiscally-sound) Medicaid "case management" services which help children and seniors obtain necessary medical and community services.

Make health care more affordable:

• Crack down on excessive costs. In order to make health care more affordable, we need to reduce administrative waste. Over 30 percent of each health care dollar is being spent on paperwork and administration. That money should be going to medical care, not paper pushers. We must modernize our health care system and to this end, I cosponsored the Wired for Health Care Quality Act, which will facilitate the use of electronic health records to cut down on excessive administrative costs and reduce medical errors.
• Reform and strengthen Medicare. To ensure that Medicare continues to provide the quality care that Americans deserve, we must bring costs under control and reform it to reward efficient, high-quality care. With harmful cuts looming to Medicare services, I cosponsored the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, which aimed to avert those payments cuts and institute reforms to reward doctors and hospitals for delivering high-quality care. Earlier in 2008, we passed this legislation with a large bipartisan majority and overrode the President's veto. I also fought to end the geographic payment disparities that penalize high-quality, low-cost states like Minnesota. In 2005, Medicare spent more than $15,000 on the health care of a typical beneficiary living in Miami, but for patients living in Minneapolis, it spent only about $7,000. If we reform Medicare so it's buying the best care at the best price, we can improve the quality of care for our seniors and save huge sums for taxpayers.
• Fight price gouging by pharmaceutical companies. Pharmaceutical companies appear to be targeting outrageous price increases at selected drugs used by vulnerable populations or for rare diseases. Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota brought one example to my attention: a drug known as Indocin I.V. For many years the drug has been crucial in treating a heart condition in premature babies. But after Ovation Pharmaceuticals acquired the rights to the drug, the company quickly increased the drug price from $100 to $1,875. I asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate Ovation for anticompetitive practices and price manipulation and together with Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), I then called for a broad Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation into prescription drug pricing. Acting on this complaint, the FTC is now taking legal action in U.S. District Court in Minnesota, charging Ovation with violating federal antitrust laws and artificially inflating the price of the two drugs.

Move health care forward:

• Invest in science. In Minnesota, we believe in science. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is our nation's primary entity for biomedical research, and I supported increased funding of the NIH so our scientists can concentrate on finding life-saving cures and not on finding money to do their research. I also introduced, and Congress passed into law, the Paul Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Act to strengthen research and determine best care practices for people suffering from muscular dystrophy.
• Utilize technology. Information technology is transforming all aspects of our modern society, and it holds the same promise for the health care industry. I have sponsored legislation that would give health providers the resources they need to establish secure and effective health IT systems that will reduce administrative costs and bring health care into the 21st century.

As Minnesota's U.S. Senator, I will not only continue to fight for these priorities, but for the broader health reform our country deserves. I will work to:

• Make quality, affordable health care a reality for all Americans. We must expand health insurance coverage and make that coverage meaningful rather than riddled with high deductibles and exclusions. But we cannot do so without simultaneously tackling a health care payment system that rewards volume rather than quality services and preventive care. As Senator, I will work to pass health care reform legislation that dramatically expands coverage and redesigns the perverse incentives in our health system that drive up health spending and make our current system unaffordable.
• Empower Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for seniors. When the Medicare Part D program was written into law, an army of lobbyists from the pharmaceutical industry triumphed over America's taxpayers and seniors in the halls of Congress and secured a prohibition against government negotiation for lower prices. That prohibition is a sure prescription for inflated health care costs. We must make changes so that Medicare can negotiate the best prices for our seniors.
• Promote affordable care by paying for value, not volume. Growing research tells us that Medicare could substantially reduce costs and improve health care quality by tying its spending to medical outcomes. I will continue to fight to make that happen, building on my co-sponsorship of the Geriatric Assessment and Chronic Care Coordination Act, which would reimburse health care providers who coordinate patients with chronic disease.
• Improve health care access in rural Minnesota. If you look at a map of Minnesota, large portions of the state are without any specialist physicians, mental health practitioners, or pharmacists. Rural communities also face a critical shortage of emergency medical personnel. That's why this year I introduced the Veterans-to-Paramedics Transition Act, which would accelerate and streamline the transition to civilian employment for returning veterans who already have field emergency medical training. I will build upon this work to provide incentives for health professionals to live and work in underserved parts of our state.
• Support stem cell research to seek new cures. Stem cell research promises to be the pathway for a new generation of life-saving cures, offering hope to millions of Americans and their families. I voted in favor of the bipartisan Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007, which would expand the number of embryonic stem cell lines accessible to federally-funded scientists who are seeking new treatments and cures for severe medical conditions such as juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, spinal cord injuries and certain types of cancer. Under a new Administration we will push to pass this vital legislation.