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Quality, Affordable Health Care
for All
Why
We Need Comprehensive Health Care Reform
- Rising costs make
the current health care system unaffordable for families, businesses
and government.
- Over 47 million
people, including nine million children, are uninsured in America.
- The private health
insurance industry puts profits before people by refusing to cover
preexisting conditions and dropping coverage for sick people.
What
We Stand For
Affordable
Coverage
- Premiums and
out-of-pocket costs based on one’s
ability to pay.
- Government
regulation to prevent insurance companies from denying
coverage or raising rates based on health, history, age or gender.
Comprehensive
Benefits
- A national
standard for comprehensive
health benefits that covers all necessary care including preventive
services and treatment for serious and chronic conditions.
- Low out-of-pocket
costs (like co-pays)
so people can afford necessary medical care while focusing on
prevention, wellness and disease management.
Choice
of a Public Health Insurance Plan
- Individual
decisions between private
and public insurance plan.
- Choice of doctors
and hospitals.
- A guaranteed
backup to ensure quality,
affordable health care coverage for all.
Equal
Access to Quality Care
- Equity in health
care access,
treatment, research, and resources for all people and stronger health
services in low-income communities.
- Risk that is
spread fairly among payers
and that ensures people are not denied coverage or charged higher rates
because of their health history.
A Fix for the Economy
Health care is the biggest component of
our economy and when it is broken, that affects everything.
As long as health care costs far
outstrip inflation, the health care system will eat up a bigger and
bigger share of the nation’s income, placing huge financial stress on
our families, our businesses and our government.
Comprehensive health care reform will
have a profound, beneficial impact on our economy and on our budget
deficit.
A public health insurance option will
pay for itself in the long run by:
- Reducing administrative costs.
Private
insurers spend huge sums of money trying to avoid covering people who
are sick and trying to get out of paying claims. This translates into
huge administrative costs for insurers, doctors and hospitals while
individuals are hounded by bill collectors.
- Emphasizing prevention and
preventing
serious conditions and catastrophic care. Currently tens
of millions of
uninsured people and tens of millions with inadequate coverage –
including high out-of-pocket costs – don’t get preventive care and
delay treatment at the first sign of illness. They then end up in the
system later when they are much sicker and treating them is more
expensive.
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