President Obama Takes Health Care Reform to The People

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Taking health care reform on the road today to a town hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin, President Obama reiterated his call for a government-run insurance option as part of his a plan to remake the nation's health care system, saying that a public plan will provide the competition needed to keep private insurance companies "honest and keep prices down." Obama Touts Public Plan at Health Care Town Hall

Obama said that his administration is working on a health insurance exchange that would allow people to "one-stop shop" for a health care plan by allowing consumers to compare benefits and prices between the private and public health care plans.

"One of the options in the exchange should be a public insurance option — because if the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will keep them honest and help keep prices down," Obama said.

Transcript of the President's prepared remarks (edited) Remarks by the President in Town Hall Meeting on Health Care in Green Bay, Wisconsin (video below the fold):

[E]very day in this country, more and more Americans are forced to worry about not just getting well, but whether they can afford to get well. Millions more wonder if they can afford the routine care necessary to stay well. Even for those who have health insurance, rising premiums are straining family budgets to the breaking point — premiums that have doubled over the last nine years, and have grown at a rate three times faster than wages. Let me repeat that: Health care premiums have gone up three times faster than wages have gone up. So desperately needed procedures and treatments are put off because the price is too high. And all it takes is a single illness to wipe out a lifetime of savings.

Now, employers aren’t faring any better. The cost of health care has helped leave big corporations like GM and Chrysler at a competitive disadvantage with their foreign counterparts. For small businesses, it’s even worse. One month, they’re forced to cut back on health care benefits. The next month, they've got to drop coverage. The month after that, they have no choice but to start laying off workers.

For the government, the growing cost of Medicare and Medicaid is the biggest threat to our federal deficit, bigger than Social Security, bigger than all the investments that we've made so far. So if you're worried about spending and you're worried about deficits, you need to be worried about the cost of health care.

We have the most expensive health care system in the world, bar none. We spend almost 50 percent more per person on health care than the next most expensive nation — 50 percent more. But here's the thing, Green Bay: We're not any healthier for it; we don't necessarily have better outcomes. Even within our own country, there are a lot of the places where we spend less on health care, but actually have higher quality than places where we spend more. And it turns out Green Bay is a good example. Right here in Green Bay, you get more quality out of fewer health care dollars than many other communities across this country. (Applause.) That's something to be proud of. I want to repeat that: You spend less; you have higher quality here in Green Bay than in many parts of the country. But across the country, spending on health care keeps on going up and up and up — day after day, year after year.

I know that there are millions of Americans who are happy, who are content with their health care coverage — they like their plan, they value their relationship with their doctor. And no matter how we reform health care, I intend to keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you'll be able to keep your doctor; if you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan. (Applause.)

So don't let people scare you. If you like what you've got, we're not going to make you change. But in order to preserve what's best about our health care system, we have to fix what doesn't work. For we've reached the point where doing nothing about the cost of health care is no longer an option. The status quo is unsustainable. If we don't act, and act soon to bring down costs, it will jeopardize everybody's health care. If we don't act, every American will feel the consequences in higher premiums — which, by the way, means lower take-home pay, because it's not as if those costs are all borne by your employer; that's money that could have gone to giving you a raise — in lost jobs and shuttered businesses, in a rising number of uninsured and a rising debt that our children and their children will be paying off for decades. If we do nothing, within a decade we will be spending one out of every $5 we earn on health care. And in 30 years, we'll be spending one out of every $3 we earn on health care. And that's untenable. It's unacceptable. I will not allow it as President of the United States. (Applause.)

Health care reform is not something I just cooked up when I took office. Sometimes I hear people say, he's taking on too much, why is he — I'm not doing this because I don't have enough to do. (Laughter.) We need health care reform because it's central to our economic future. It's central to our long-term prosperity as a nation. In past years and decades there may have been some disagreement on this point, but not anymore. Today, we've already built an unprecedented coalition of people who are ready to reform our health care system: physicians and health insurers; businesses and workers; Democrats and Republicans.

A few weeks ago, some of these groups committed to doing something that would've been unthinkable just a few years ago: They promised to work together to cut national health care spending by $2 trillion over the next decade. And that will bring down costs. It will bring down premiums. That's exactly the kind of cooperation we need.

But the question now is how do we finish the job? How do we permanently bring down costs and make quality, affordable health care available to every single American? And my view is that reform should be guided by a simple principle: We will fix what's broken and we build on what works. (Applause.)

In some cases there's broad agreement on the steps we should take. So in our Recovery Act that we already passed — hey, buddy — my guy in the cap, he was waving at me. (Laughter and applause.) In the Recovery Act, we've already made investments in health IT — that's information technologies — and electronic medical records that will reduce medical errors, save lives, save money, and still ensure privacy. We also need to invest in prevention and wellness programs to help Americans live longer and healthier lives. (Applause.)

But the real cost savings will come from changing the incentives of a system that automatically equates expensive care with better care. We've got to move from addressing — we've got to address flaws that increase profits but don't actually increase the quality of care for patients.

We have to ask why places like Geisinger Health systems in rural Pennsylvania, or Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City, or communities like Green Bay can offer high-quality care at costs well below average, but other places in America can't. We need to identify the best practices across the country, learn from the successes, and then duplicate those successes everywhere else.

And we should change the warped incentives that reward doctors and hospitals based on how many tests and procedures they do — (applause) — even if those tests and procedures aren't necessary or result from medical mistakes. Doctors didn't get into the medical profession to be bean counters or paper pushers. They're not interested in spending all their time acting like lawyers or business executives. They became doctors to heal people, and that's what we have to free them to be able to do.

We also have to provide Americans who can't afford health insurance more affordable options. That's a economic imperative but it's also a moral imperative, because we know that when somebody doesn't have health insurance, they're forced to get treatment at the ER, and all of us end up paying for it. The average family pays a thousand dollars in extra premiums to pay for people going to the emergency room who don't have health insurance. So you're already subsidizing other folks; it's just you're subsidizing the most expensive care. You'd be better off subsidizing to make sure they were getting regular checkups. We're already paying for it. It's just it's hidden in your premiums.

So what we're working on is the creation of something called the Health Insurance Exchange, which would allow you to one-stop shop for a health care plan, compare benefits and prices, choose the plan that's best for you. If you're happy with your plan, you keep it. None of these plans, though, would be able to deny coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions. (Applause.)

Every plan should include an affordable, basic benefits package. And if you can't afford one of these plans, we should provide assistance to make sure that you can. (Applause.) I also strongly believe that one of the options in the Exchange should be a public insurance option. (Applause.) And the reason is not because we want a government takeover of health care — I've already said if you've got a private plan that works for you, that's great. But we want some competition. If the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it'll keep them honest and it'll help keep their prices down. (Applause.)

Now, covering more Americans is obviously going to require some money up front. We'll save money when they stop going to the emergency room and getting regular checkups, but it's going to cost some money up front. Helping families lower their costs, there's going to be a cost to this. And it comes at a time when we don't have a lot of extra money to spend, let's be honest. When I came in we had a $1.3 trillion deficit. And with the economic recession that we're going through, tax revenues are down — I was talking to Governor Doyle — tax revenues are down, more people are seeking help from the state. So we've got a lot of pressure on our budget.

So that's why I've already promised that reform cannot add to our deficit over the next 10 years. And to make that happen, we've already identified hundreds of billions of dollars worth of savings in our budget — savings that will come from steps like reducing Medicare overpayments to insurance companies and rooting out waste and fraud and abuse in both Medicare and Medicaid. And I'll be outlining hundreds of billions of dollars more in savings in the days to come. And I'll be honest, even with these savings, reform will require some additional up front resources. And that's why I've proposed that we scale back how much the highest-income Americans can deduct on their taxes back — take it back to the rate that existed under the Reagan years, and we could use some of that money to help finance health care reform. (Applause.)

In all these reforms, our goal is simple: the highest-quality health care at the lowest-possible cost. Let me repeat what I said before: We want to fix what's broken, build on what works. As Congress moves forward on health care legislation in the coming weeks there are going to be different ideas and disagreements about how to achieve this goal. And I welcome all ideas; we've got to have a good debate. What I will not welcome, what I will not accept is endless delay or a denial that reform needs to happen. (Applause.)

Because when it comes to health care, this country can't continue on its current path. I know there are some who will say that it's too expensive. I know some people say it's too complicated. But I can assure you: The cost of doing nothing is going to be a lot higher in the years to come. Our deficits will be higher. Our premiums will keep going up. Our wages will be lower. Our jobs will be fewer. Our businesses will suffer.

So to those who criticize our efforts, I ask them, "What's the alternative?" What else do we say to all the families who spend more on health care than on housing or on food? What do we tell those businesses that are choosing between closing their doors and letting their workers go? What do we say to Americans like Laura, a woman who has worked all her life; whose husband has worked; whose family has done everything right; a brave and proud woman whose child's school recently took up a penny drive to help pay her medical bills? What do we tell them? (Applause.)

Here's what I'm going to tell them: that after decades of inaction, we have finally decided to fix what's broken about health care in America. (Applause.) We have finally decided it's time to give every American quality health care at an affordable cost. (Applause.) We have decided to invest in reforms that will bring costs down now. (Applause.) We've decided to bring costs down now and in the future. And we've decided to change the system so that our doctors and health care providers are free to do what they trained and studied and worked so hard to do: to make people well again. That's what we can do in this country right now, at this moment.

So I don't want to accept "no" for an answer. We need to get this down, but I'm going to need your help. That's why I want your thoughts, your questions on this and any other issues.

Thank you very much, Green Bay. God bless you. Thank you. (Applause.)