On June 15, 2009, President Obama gave his most extensive remarks to date detailing his vision for health care reform to the American Medical Association in Chicago.
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Health Care is one sixth of the U.S. Economy. The cost of our health care is a threat to our economy, as well as an escalating burden on U.S. families, and businesses, and a real challenge to the federal budget. People should not have to worry and suffer with health care issues in a nation as wealthy as the U.S. Health Care premiums over the last decade have doubled at a rate of 3 times faster than wages, as out of pocket cost for health care continue to soar. Health Care costs have forced many Americans to skip checkups and forego some of the prescriptions they made need. In some cases, a single illness can wipeout a lifetime of savings.
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Doctors are also strained with having to spend a large percentage of time with paperwork and explaining insurance claims, reducing the amount of time to actually care for patients. The current health care system incentivizes doctors to perform more tests and services, even if not necessary, to increase profits. Some doctors also perform extra tests and services to avoid being legally vulnerable. Rewarding the quantity of care rather than the quality of care, has taken the pursuit of medicine from a profession to a business.
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Small business owners struggle as well, having to lay-off valuable workers because health care costs are so high. Over one third of small businesses in recent years had to reduce benefits, and one third of small businesses have dropped workers coverage all together since the early 1990’s. Large companies have suffered as well when it comes to health care. The big part of what lead GM and Chrysler into trouble in recent decades were the huge cost of health care provided for their workers, cost that made them less profitable and less competitive with auto makers around the world.
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Health Care Reform at this point is a necessity. The cost to reform health care will be great, but inaction on Health Care Reform will be more costly, not just in dollars and cents, but in lives and quality of life. President Obama stated, “When it comes to our health care, the status quo is unsustainable. Health Care is the single most important thing we can do for Americans long term physical health”.
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The fear of change in Health Care Reform is that one might lose what works about the U.S. health care system, while trying to fix what does not work. Presidents have called for health care reform for nearly a century. Teddy Roosevelt called for it, Harry Truman called for it, Richard Nixon called for it, Jimmy Carter called for it, and Bill Clinton called for it. While significant individual changes have been made in health care, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children Health Care Insurance Program, effort at comprehensive health care reform that covers everyone and brings down cost, have largely failed. Part of the reason for failure of a comprehensive health care reform is mostly due to doctors, insurance companies, businesses, workers and others, could not agree on the need for reform, or how it should be implemented.
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Fierce opposition has used fear tactics to associate health care reform with socialized medicine and a government takeover of health care, which is not the case.
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Left of Center
