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On the Issues
Quality, Affordable Health Care
I believe that providing quality, affordable health care for every citizen is one of our most serious domestic challenges. Our nation spends over $2 trillion per year on health care, yet too many of our citizens do not receive the care they need. Some 47 million Americans have no health insurance whatsoever, and even those who have good coverage often fear they will lose it if they leave their job, develop a serious illness, or if rising healthcare premiums outstrip their ability to pay.
The current state of health care has led many Americans – myself included – to reiterate the need to institute universal coverage in some form. In the meantime, Congress has been working within the existing employer-based structure to extend and expand health coverage to more Americans.
We also need to improve upon the existing federal programs that cover the most vulnerable among us: the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and Medicare. SCHIP has played a critical role in extending health care coverage to 248,000 low-income children in North Carolina, and I strongly support reauthorizing the program. But we need to make two major improvements. First, we need to provide enough funding to enroll the 116,000 uninsured children in our state who are eligible for the program but not yet being served. And we must expand the program to cover more children in North Carolina who come from families of modest income and have no insurance.
Unfortunately, President Bush has twice vetoed legislation to do just that, and the House has narrowly failed to override his vetoes. As a result, SCHIP advocates in Congress have been forced to pass a one-year extension of the program which provides some additional funding for states, including North Carolina, to ensure that no children are dropped from coverage. It is possible that there will be another effort in 2008 to expand SCHIP, and I will keep working with the majority of members who want to reauthorize and expand the program to cover more uninsured children.
In addition to improving SCHIP, we need to make sure that the coverage provided to our seniors under the Medicare program is meeting their needs. I am concerned that many Medicare beneficiaries are losing access to vitally important health care services due to the inadequacy of the reimbursement rates. In December 2007, Congress approved legislation, with my support, to block the scheduled 10.1 percent cut in Medicare physician payments and replace it with a 0.5 percent increase through June 30, 2008. We need to look at this problem long-term, and I will be working to replace the current reimbursement formula with one that more fully accounts for costs incurred by providers.
Likewise, we also need to improve the scope of Medicare coverage. I am a cosponsor of legislation (H.R. 1663) to establish parity for mental and physical illnesses and expand access to mental health services for older and disabled Americans. In addition, I support lifting the annual caps on outpatient therapy services and providing access to qualified physical therapists, marriage and family therapists, and licensed mental health counselors.
I also believe that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should be able to take advantage of the purchasing power of the Medicare program to negotiate volume discounts that will result in lower prices for Medicare beneficiaries. As one of its first acts of the 110th Congress, the House Democratic majority approved legislation (H.R. 4) to require HHS to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices in the Part D program. The bill was passed as part of our Democratic “100 hours” agenda. As such, it represents only a first step. Fully effective negotiating authority will probably depend on adding a drug benefit to basic Medicare, as opposed to the present patchwork system of subsidized private plans.
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U.S. House of Representatives
2162 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202.225.1784
Fax: 202.225.2014 |
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Fax: 919.967.8324 |
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