Liberal in the Land of Conservative

As your U.S. Senator I will work to create a system that’s goals are to:

• Provide universal coverage
• Keep people healthy through preventative health care and early detection and cure of diseases – before they become chronic problems
• Keep people affordably insured for their lifetime – from job to job, and through retirement, and forever eliminate the term “pre-existing condition”
• Reduce error and waste by making a single, electronic record of a patient’s history accessible to those who need it, when they need it, but with the highest level of security to protect our privacy
• Provide everyone with cost-effective medical, prescription and mental health insurance coverage at an affordable price, and which allows people to choose their provider and purchase more options

We will make this cost-effective because we will:

• Use the collective buying power of all Americans and their
  employers to provide quality insurance at an affordable price.
• Strengthen existing programs such as Medicare which covers seniors, SCHIP which covers children, and the VA that covers veterans.
• Require drug companies to negotiate with Medicare.

Health care reform depends on a willingness to confront the powerful health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. I support a national single payer health care system that will:

• Provide universal coverage;
  
  
• Control costs and end the for-profit health care system;
  
  
• Focus on prevention;
  
  
• Offer parity for physical and mental health needs;
  
  
• Anticipate chronic health care needs;
  
  
• Respond effectively to public health emergencies; and,
  
  
• Be funded through progressive taxation.

We need to go to universal health care.

A single-payer system would be the most effective in terms of reducing administrative costs, and I would be thrilled to support such a system. But I believe that today’s political environment requires a creative and flexible approach to covering every American. Here’s mine:

• I would require every state to cover every one of its citizens, and the federal government to provide funding to fulfill that requirement. Each individual state would be free to offer a variety of options, as long as they add up to universal coverage, giving us 51 laboratories (if you count DC) to figure out which system works best.
• I would add one constraint: each state must cover every child 18 and under with a single-payer system similar to Medicare.
• And speaking of Medicare, I would fight to make Medicare a true single-payer system. Right now, we overpay insurance companies, who then turn around and cherry-pick only the healthiest seniors to cover. That’s not fair and we should change it.

But universal coverage isn’t enough. We must also address the quality and cost of care. I think we should start with the following measures:

• Medicare should be allowed to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies for lower prices on prescription drugs.
• Simple, secure, electronic medical records would cut down on errors and streamline care.
• We should establish safe staffing levels for nurses – when the people on the front lines of health care tell us that they need reinforcements to maintain their high standards of care, we should listen.
• We should pass Paul Wellstone’s bill ensuring full mental health parity.