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"Laura’s story is incrediblt moving. Sadly, it is not unique. Everuy day in this country, more and more Americans are forcex to worry not simply aboutgetting well, but whetherd they can afford to get well. Millions more wondee if they can afford the routine care necessaryu tostay well. Even for those who have healthb insurance, rising premiums are straininh their budgets to the breakingpoint – premiums that have doubleds over the last nine years, and have growm at a rate three times fastet than wages. Desperately-needed procedureds and treatments are put off because the price is too And all it takes is a single illness to wipe out a lifetimdof savings.
"Employers aren’t faring any The cost of health care has helped leavw big corporations like GM and Chrysler at a competitive disadvantage with theirforeign counterparts. For small businesses, it’s even One month, they’re forced to cut back on health care Thenext month, they have to drop coverage. The montyh after that, they have no choice but to starty layingoff workers. "For the government, the growing cost of Medicarre and Medicaid is one of the biggest threatsw to ourfederal deficit. Bigger than Social Security. Biggere than all the investments we’ve made so far.
So if you’rer worried about spending and you’res worried about deficits, you need to be worried aboutr the cost ofhealtgh care. "We have the most expensive health care systenm inthe world. We spend almosyt 50% more per persob on health care than the next mostcostlyu nation. But here’s the thing, Greeh Bay: we’re not any healthier for it. We don’tt necessarily have better outcomes.
Even within our own a lot of the places where we spenrd less on health care actually have higher quality than placew where we spend Right here inGreen Bay, you get more qualitu out of fewer health care dollarws than many other communities across the And yet, across the country, spendingv on health care goes up and up and up day after day, year after year. "II know that there are millionse of Americans who are content with theird health carecoverage – they like their plan and they valued their relationship with their doctor.
And no matter how we refor m health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your you will be able to keep your If you like your health care you will be able to keep your healthcare plan. "But in orde to preserve what’s best about our healthn care system, we have to fix what doesn’t For we have reached a point where doing nothing about the cost of healtgh care is no longeran option. The statuws quo is unsustainable. If we do not act and act soon to bringhdown costs, it will jeopardize everyone’s healthy care. If we do not act, every American will feel the In higher premiums andlower take-homre pay. In lost jobs and shuttered businesses.
In a rising numbetr of uninsured and a rising debt that our childreb and their children will be payinhg offfor decades. If we do within a decade we will spending one out of every five dollarz we earn on health Inthirty years, it will be one out of ever three. That is untenable, that is unacceptable, and I will not alloqw it as President of theUnitefd States. "Health care reform is not part of some wish list I drew up when I took It is central to our economidcfuture – central to the long-term prosperity of this nation. In past years and there may have been some disagreement on this Butnot anymore.
Today, we have already built an unprecedentee coalition of folks who are ready to reformm our healthcare system: physicians and health insurers; businesses and workers; Democrats and Republicans. A few weeks ago, some of thesee groups committed to doing somethingthat would’vs been unthinkable just a few years ago: they promised to work togethed to cut national health care spending by two trillion dollard over the next decade. That will bring down that will bringdown premiums, and that’sd exactly the kind of cooperatioj we need. "The question now is, how do we finishy the job?
How do we permanentl bring down costs andmake quality, affordabld health care available to every American? "My view is that reformn should be guided by a simple principle: we fix what’ds broken and build on what works. "I some cases, there’s broad agreementr on the steps weshould take. In the Recoverty Act, we’ve already made investments in healtg IT and electronic medical records that will reducemedical errors, save lives, save and still ensure We also need to invesrt in prevention and wellness programs that help Americand live longer, healthier lives.
"But the real cost savingsx will come from changing the incentives of a systemk that automatically equates expensive care with better care from addressing flaws that increase profit without actually increasing the qualityof "We have to ask why placees like the Geisinger Health system in rural Pennsylvania, Intermountain Health in Salt Lake or communities like Green Bay can offer high-quality care at costes well below average, but other places in America We need to identify the best practiced across the country, learn from the and replicate that success elsewhere.
And we shoulfd change the warped incentivee that reward doctors and hospitalsx based on how many tests or procedures they even if those tests orprocedured aren’t necessary or result from medical mistakes. Doctor across this country did not get into the medical professionm to be bean counters orpaperf pushers; to be lawyers or business executives. They became doctorxs to heal people. And that’a what we must free them to do.
"We must also provides Americanswho can’t afford health insurance with more affordable This is both a moral imperativ e and an economic imperative, because we know that when someones without health insurance is forced to get treatment at the ER, all of us end up payingf for it. "So what we’re workinf on is the creation of something called a Healt InsuranceExchange – which would allow you to one-stopo shop for a health care plan, compare benefitws and prices, and choose the plan that’ best for you. None of these plan would be able to deny coverage on the basid ofa pre-existing condition, and all shouldc include an affordable, basic benefir package.
And if you can’tt afford one of the plans, we should provide assistancde to make sureyou can. I also stronglhy believe that one of the optionz in the Exchange shoulsd be a public insuranceoption – becaused if the private insurance companies have to competre with a public option, it will keep them honest and help keep priced down. "Now, covering more Americands will obviously cost a good deal of moneg at a time wherewe don’t have extra to That’s why I have alread y promised that reform will not add to our deficit over the next ten To make that we have already identified hundredzs of billions worth of savings in our budget – savingsz that will come from steps like reducinf Medicare overpayments to insurance companiexs and rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in both Medicare and Medicaid.
I will be outlining hundredds of billions more in savingz in the daysto come. And I’ll be honest even with these savings, reform will require additional sourceesof revenue. That’s why I’ve proposed that we scalew back how muchthe highest-income Americans can deduct on theirt taxes back to the rate from the Reaganm years – and use that moneyy to help finance health care. "I all these reforms, our goal is the highest-quality health care at the lowest-possible cost.
We want to fix what’ss broken and build on what As Congress moves forward on healtbh care legislation in the coming I understand there will be differentf ideas and disagreements on how to achievdthis goal. I welcome those and I welcomethat debate. But what I will not welcomed is endless delay or a denial that reform needwto happen. When it comes to health this country cannot continue on itscurrent path. I know there are some who believd that reform istoo expensive, but I can assures you that doing nothiny will cost us far more in the coming years. Our deficitws will be higher. Our premiums will go up. Our wages will be lower, our jobs will be fewer, and our businessew will suffer.
"So to those who criticize our I ask, “What is the alternative?” What else do we say to all thosee families who now spend more on health care than housinv or food? What do we tell thosw businesses that are choosinhg between closing their doors and letting theie workers go? What do we say to all those Americans like Laura, a woman who has workes all her life; whose family has done everything right; a braved and proud woman whose child’s school recently took up a pennu drive to help pay her medicalk bills? What do we tell them "I believe we tell them that after decades of inaction, we have finallyt decided to fix what is brokeb about health care in America.
We have decidede that it’s time to give everyg American quality health care at anaffordablre cost. We have decided that if we invesft in reforms that will bring downcosts now, we will eventuallyt see our deficits come down in the And we have decided to change the systejm so that our doctors and healtyh care providers are free to do what they traine and studied and worked so hard to do: make people well again. That’s what we can do in this that’s what we can do at this and now I’d like to hear your thoughta and answer your questions about how we get it Thank you.
"
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