What I got from Obama in Colorado--I paraphrase
Stimulus
Medicare
- 1/3 Went to Tax Cuts---to persons and small business
- 1/3 Emergency Relief---things like unemployment insurance, cobra more.
- 1/3 Reinvestment-things like transportation projects
Medicare
- No rationing of services
- Save Money by
- Reducing subsidies to insurance companies
- Fixing problems currently in system.
- Example: If under Medicare you get bad service and have to return, the government gets billed twice. Incentives for giving good care, and penalties for giving bad care
- If you qualify now…you will qualify in the future.
- Save costs by improving how individual doctors work, to make it more efficient and cost effective. Made a suggestion about sending tests out to additional specialists, to reduce the overall number of pointless costly tests.
- Improve preventive care…that saves big money in the long run.
- 2/3 by eliminating subsidies to Insurance companies.
- 1/3 might come from increasing taxes to those earning over $250K
- Notes that the previous administration pass a prescription drug bill that ran into 100’s of billions of dollars----but never paid for it, just rolled it over. We can’t get something for nothing…and yes, it will have a cost.
- No. A government option plan would still be paid for by the user, NOT the taxpayers. Most people likely to remain with their current providers.
- Incentives for smarter care to reduce costs and maintain profits
- The Savings of preventative medicine will help save money across the board, and especially in emergency care.
- Many small businesses want to provide care, but cannot get affordable coverage because of their small workforce. They would be able to buy into the public option, which because of the larger numbers covered, would reduce the cost to the employer.