Securing the Future of American Health Care (New Eng Jour Med)
Obama's statements are the only ones published to date. ~ pinto
Securing the Future of American Health Care
The editors asked the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, to describe their health care platforms and their visions for the future of American health care. Their statements follow.
Barack Obama
September 26, 2012
From the moment I took office, the central challenge we have confronted as a nation has been to recover and rebuild from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We've taken extraordinary steps to repair the immediate damage and lay the foundation for an economy built to last. And a critical first step on this journey has been taking action to restore health care as a basic pillar of middle-class security.
Because of you, America is blessed with the world's most talented health care professionals, who do a heroic job serving and saving our citizens. But for years you have faced a health care system that was increasingly fractured. Insurance companies had unchecked power to dictate care and cap and cancel your patients' insurance. Tens of millions of Americans were left uninsured and underinsured. Health care costs were growing at an unsustainable rate, and our delivery system rewarded quantity of care over quality of care. You were spending more of your time on insurance forms and appeal letters — and less time doing what you trained to do: care for patients. But after a century of trying, a broad coalition of doctors, nurses, hospitals, businesses, AARP, and patients helped me sign into law the Affordable Care Act.
Supporters and detractors alike refer to the law as Obamacare. I don't mind, because I do care. And because of Obamacare we're moving forward toward a health care system that broadly provides health security.
For the majority of Americans who get health insurance through their employer, the law won't change that, but it will make their coverage more secure and affordable. Today, 105 million people have seen a lifetime cap on their coverage lifted, so your patients no longer face the tragedy of approaching a lifetime limit in the middle of a round of chemotherapy or an episode in the ICU. Most of your patients can now get preventive care without paying deductibles and copays, care that you know saves lives, from early colon- and breast-cancer screenings to cardiovascular tests and flu shots. Because of new limits on insurance overhead costs, 13 million Americans got more than $1 billion in rebates — and by 2019, economists believe, family premiums will be about $2,000 less.
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http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1211514?query=TOC
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