Cost Containment: Reining In Ever-Rising Health Costs That Strain American Families
(The first topic in today's bipartisan White House health insurance reform meeting is cost containment.)Ever-rising health costs put a strain on all American families. The President’s proposal takes enormous strides to contain costs.
The President's proposal takes on the private insurers and stop company abuses. Starting this year it would:
- Require insurers to disclose and justify their premium increases
- Require them to actually pay out more of your premium dollar in health benefits instead of using those funds for administration, executive compensation and profits
- And when reform is fully implemented, insurers whose rates have gone up too much can be limited from participating in the new coverage arrangements.
The President's proposal strengthens Medicare and extends the program’s solvency by more than nine years by:
- Attacking fraud, abuse and waste in an unprecedented fashion
- Simplifying the bewildering array of insurance paperwork that patients, doctors and nurses have to deal with
- Developing innovative payment systems that will “bend the curve” by rewarding the efficient delivery of high quality, well coordinated, care.
- And at the same time – improving – not cutting – benefits – in particular, filling the “donut hole” in Medicare drug benefits and ensuring continued access to the doctors that seniors know and trust.
Finally, the President's proposal would help make care more affordable by:
- Providing subsidies for premiums and cost sharing for those who can least afford coverage
- Requiring insurers to limit annual and lifetime expenses for those who need care the most
- Setting up exchanges where plans have to compete for business on price and quality, rather than simply cherry picking healthy people in order to turn a profit.