Question of the Week: Health Care Reform
These questions are culled from phone calls, letters, faxes and e-mails sent to my Thousand Oaks, Solvang, and Washington offices. Each week I will add another question and answer.
Week of August 7, 2009
• Question: I know you are opposed to H.R. 3200, but are there any health care bills you do support?
→ Answer: I am a cosponsor of H.R. 3400, the Empowering Patients First Act. This bill would make major changes to the health care insurance system without giving the government more power to interfere with patient and physician decisions.
H.R. 3400 includes several provisions that I have long supported, including:
• Allowing small businesses to form associations to purchase affordable health insurance for their employees.
• Extending the income tax deduction for health care premiums to taxpayers who do not purchase coverage through employers.
• Providing advanced refundable tax credits for $2,000 for individuals, $4,000 for couples and $5,000 for a family for taxpayers who make up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level ($32,490 for an individual and $66,150 for a family of four).
• Cutting medical costs by limiting frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits, through caps on non-economic damages and establishing health courts to review claims.
• Establishing grants for states to create high-risk insurance pools to help people with pre-existing conditions find affordable insurance.
• Allowing individuals to shop for insurance across state lines if the premiums in a person’s state of residence exceed 10 percent of the national average.
• Allowing employers to offer discounts for healthy habits.
H.R. 3400 would also help alleviate the shortage of physicians by:
• Reforming the Medicare physician payment system.
• Providing up to $50,000 for student loan repayment after five years of practice.
• Creating a new Health Professional Student Loan program for medical schools with payment deferred until after full residency and any fellowship training program.
• Allowing emergency room physicians a deduction for uncompensated care.
H.R. 3400 would make major changes to the insurance industry by:
• Establishing new requirements for insurance companies, including increased transparency of claim information.
• Establishing a health plan and provider website to provide information on insurance plans and providers.
• Increasing portability of health insurance coverage, giving patients the power to own and control their health care plans.
The bill pays for health care reform through a 1 percent across-the-board cut in nondefense discretionary spending, reducing Medicare and Medicaid waste and fraud, repealing unspent stimulus funding, and medical liability reform.
H.R. 3400 is a good start toward improving our current system, especially helping people with pre-existing conditions purchase affordable health insurance. H.R. 3400 maintains our nation’s long tradition of keeping government bureaucrats out of health care while improving access to health care services and reducing the high cost of medical insurance—not through increased taxes—but through improved efficiencies and spending cuts.
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