President Bush�s comprehensive health care agenda improves health
security for all Americans by building on the best features of American
health care. Our health care system can provide the best care in the
world, but rising costs and loss of control to government and health plan
bureaucrats threaten to keep patients from getting state-of-the-art
care.
The President believes that everyone should be able to choose a health
care plan that meets their needs at a price they can afford. When people
have good choices, health plans have to compete for their business � which
means higher quality and better care.
Before the American Medical Association, President Bush announced his
bold new proposal for modernizing and strengthening America�s health care
system by giving Medicare recipients more health care choices. The
President�s plan gives seniors more health care choices and helps them
with the high costs of health care and prescription drugs.
To create a health care system that puts the needs of patients first,
the President proposed steps to:
- Help all Americans get affordable health care coverage and ensure
access to doctors
- Help patients get high-quality care every time
- Modernize Medicare with prescription drug coverage that enables
seniors to get the medicines they need, without the government dictating
their drug choices.
- Allow patients the choice of doctors, hospitals, or treatment
centers.
- Provide full coverage for disease prevention such as screenings for
cancer, diabetes and osteoporosis.
- Develop new treatments to keep patients healthy and prevent
complications from diseases and strengthen the health care safety net
The President�s health care agenda is designed to improve the
accessibility, affordability and accountability of health care for every
American � and to make sure that American health care keeps getting
better. The President�s budget backs up his agenda with investments in
prevention initiatives, expanded coverage programs, improved care for
seniors and important medical research.
Offering Health Care Choice by Modernizing Medicare
The President has proposed a framework to modernize and improve
Medicare that builds on principles he outlined in July 2001. He looks
forward to working with Congress on legislation to bring more choices and
better benefits to Medicare this year. The President has committed up to
$400 billion over the next ten years in his FY 2004 budget to pay for
modernizing and improving Medicare. The President�s framework will give
all Medicare beneficiaries access to:
- Prescription drug coverage that enables seniors to
get the medicines they need, without the government dictating their drug
choices.
- Choice of an individual health care plan that best
fits their needs just like Members of Congress and other federal
employees enjoy today.
- Choice of the doctor, hospital, or place they want
for the treatment and care they need.
- Full coverage for disease prevention such as
screenings for cancer, diabetes and osteoporosis.
The President�s plan will make sure that low-income seniors receive
additional financial assistance so they will not have to pay more to
receive better benefits than they currently do under Medicare. For too
long, political pressures have kept our nation from bringing the benefits
of modern health care to Medicare. The President is calling upon members
of both political parties to work together with him to pass legislation
this year.
Every American Should Have Access to a Good
Doctor
President Bush has proposed a framework for addressing the medical
liability crisis that is forcing communities to lose doctors.
- National adoption of proven standards to make the medical
liability system more fair, predictable, and timely. Experience
in many states has demonstrated that these standards can reduce federal
government costs by at least $28 billion per year or more, freeing up
needed funds for making health care more affordable. These standards can
reduce health care costs for all Americans by $60 billion or more, and
improve access to quality health care as well. The President proposes
that Congress take action to:
- Secure the ability of injured patients to get quick, unlimited
compensation for their "economic losses," including the loss of
ability to provide unpaid services like care for children or parents.
- Ensure that recoveries for non-economic damages do not exceed a
reasonable amount ($250,000).
- Reserve punitive damages for cases where they are justified, and
limit punitive damages to reasonable amounts.
- Provide for payments of judgments over time rather than in a
single lump sum, to ensure that appropriate payments are there when
patients need them.
- Ensure that old cases cannot be brought years after an event.
- Reduce the amount that doctors must pay if a plaintiff has
received other payments from an insurer to compensate for their
losses.
- Provide that defendants pay judgments in proportion to their
fault.
- Improvements in health care quality and patient safety
through litigation reform. Patients deserve high-quality health
care without avoidable medical errors and complications, and the
Administration is supporting many efforts to achieve this goal, through
better information and other steps to improve quality. One proven
approach to reducing errors and complications is patient safety and
quality improvement programs implemented by doctors and health care
organizations working together. By sharing information on quality
problems and medical errors, health professionals can determine ways to
avoid errors and complications in the first place. But these efforts are
blocked by fear of litigation. Good-faith efforts to improve quality and
safety are targets for lawsuits based on the new information. The
President has called for legislation to make it possible for health
professionals to work together more effectively to provide the best
possible care for all patients.
Providing Affordable Health Care Choices That Meets
America�s Needs:
- The President believes that everyone should be able to choose a
health care plan that meets their needs at a price they can afford.
- Americans enjoy access to good choices in employer-sponsored health
care plans, but many others do not have good coverage options or are in
danger of losing them.
- The President�s plan proposes to address this problem through over
$117 billion in initiatives to make good health care coverage more
available and affordable:
- The President�s plan lifts the excessive restrictions on Medical
Savings Accounts which will allow many more Americans to set up
tax-free accounts to protect themselves from high out-of-pocket costs.
- The President supports legislation that would make it easier for
small employers to pool together to offer their employees better
health coverage options, like many large corporations are able to
offer.
- The President�s budget proposes $89 billion in new health credits
to make private health insurance more affordable for low- and
middle-income American families who do not have employer-subsidized
insurance.
- The Administration will work with states to strengthen Medicaid and
the State Children�s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP).
- The President�s budget provides $350 million to continue funding
Medicaid for families in transition from welfare to work.
- The President's budget strengthens S-CHIP by making available to
states an estimated $3.2 billion in unused S-CHIP funds that otherwise
will be lost. These additional matching funds will enable all states
to expand coverage to the uninsured.
- The President believes that Americans who need long-term care
assistance should have more control over how they receive the care they
need. The President�s budget proposes to make premium payments for
long-term care insurance fully deductible, to provide a much-needed,
more flexible alternative to �spending down� to Medicaid. The 10-year
cost of this proposal is $20 billion.
- The Bush Administration proposes an additional tax exemption for
persons who take time to care for parents or children who need long-term
assistance.
Improving the Quality of Health Care
- The President strongly supports the passage of a Patients� Bill of
Rights that leaves medical decisions in the hands of physicians, instead
of insurance companies � and urges Congress to reconcile differences and
complete its work this year.
- President Bush will work with Congress to develop fair and
reasonable legislation that will make genetic discrimination illegal and
provide protections consistent with other existing anti-discrimination
laws.
- The Administration continues to take steps to make better
information on medical treatments and the quality of health care
providers available to the public, including new information on nursing
home quality.
- Electronic medical records hold the promise of improving quality of
care for patients and for giving them more control over their health
information, but only with strong medical privacy protections that give
patients the security and confidence they need. The Administration is
implementing new medical privacy protections to do just that.
Increasing Biomedical Research and Strengthening the Health
Care Safety Net
- The President�s plan increases funding for the National Institutes
of Health's (NIH) efforts to support research to improve the
prevention, detection and treatment of diseases.
- The President�s budget includes $5.9 billion for bioterrorism
preparedness, an increase of $4.5 billion � more than three times the
2002 base funding level.
- The President�s budget includes $1.5 billion for Community Health
Centers, a $114 million increase that would continue the Bush
Administration's long-term strategy to add 1,200 new and expanded health
center sites over five years and serve an additional 6.1 million
patients. The increase for fiscal year 2003 will support 170 new and
expanded health centers, and provide services to a million more
patients.
