outlined in his SOTU address, with some exceptions.
Health care Affordability
The United States currently has 46 million uninsured individuals, almost 3 million of whom live in New York. Many of these individuals cannot afford to purchase private health insurance due to annual double-digit increases in insurance premiums. Spiraling health insurance costs also burden small businesses and employers, who are increasingly unable to offer health insurance benefits. Companies that are able to provide benefits find it necessary to pass more of the cost of insurance on to their employees. In 2003, two-thirds of companies with 200 or more employees responded to increasing costs by requiring their employees to pay more for their own coverage and dropping coverage for particular services.
Ok that's the problem. We know health care is too expensive and so does Hillary. Good.
One solution to making health care more affordable is to allow uninsured individuals to buy into existing health insurance programs. I support efforts that would allow families to buy into the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which would help 5.3 million uninsured parents gain access to insurance and lower prices for health care services. I also support efforts to help small businesses provide insurance to their employees using mechanisms such as tax credits and large, voluntary purchasing groups.
This is essential half of what bush said in his SOTU address. It would have the US government subsidize private insurance companies through tax credits. Not good. The more the insurance companies charge, the more tax subsidies they receive. This would drive up the cost of health insurance. The other half (not the bush part) is "buying into CHIP" This may help some, but what if it's unaffordable. And that would still leave 41 million Americans without insurance, instead of 46 million.
I am deeply concerned about skyrocketing prescription drug costs. The price of medications is rising faster than inflation, consuming a larger and larger portion of the incomes of seniors, the chronically ill, and low-income individuals. The increasing cost of these drugs means that many New Yorkers face tough choices about their health, and may do without medications in order to pay for other basic necessities, like food and housing. I believe that we need to make prescription drugs more affordable. I am working on legislation to improve the Food and Drug Administration’s process for approving generic biologic drugs, such as those used to treat cancer. I also believe that we need to make drug re importation safe and legal.
So she wants to apparently speed up approval of new generic drugs. This is also a bush proposal. Re importation of drugs is fine, it means we let Canada and Mexico do our negotiations with the drug companies for us, instead of negotiating with the manufacturers ourselves.
Her plans are pretty short on any kind of detail or specifics. And her plans don't really sum up where we would be at, if everyone of her recommendations are passed into law. How many then, after these efforts would still be without affordable health care? And how much would health care costs rise for those who do have coverage?
It's kind of frustrating for me. Hillary is running for President, yet what her ideas would accomplish and how they would accomplish those goals are pretty unclear. For instance, people could buy into CHIP. What would that cost for people? What would the coverage be? If someone had dental surgery and then experienced an auto accident, would they have to pay the rest out of pocket?
I disagree with the Edwards proposal because it doesn't effectively deal with the costs. Yet, he at least provides a detailed and specific way that he would go about providing every American with access to health care, even if it were at an extremely high price tag.
Hillary doesn't give anywhere near the specifics that the Edwards plan does. So how could I know if I support her solutions on this very important issue?
I'm going to look at her other issues and solutions. I hope they are a little more specific than her plans for health care.
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