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John Kerry’s Health Care
Plan Works for Working Families
Basic health care is unaffordable for too many people in this nation. The
United States spends more on health care than any other country in the world,
yet nearly 44 million Americans lack medical coverage. Too many employers refuse
to offer affordable health insurance coverage to workers. And even when they do,
employers increasingly are shifting costs to workers, requiring them to pay
higher premiums, deductibles and co-payments. Meanwhile, rising drug prices and
drug company profits are driving up health care costs.
But so far, President George W. Bush’s policies have been bad medicine for
the nation’s health care crisis. The Medicare prescription drug bill Bush
signed into law last year encourages companies to drop retiree health coverage
and doesn’t allow the U.S. government to negotiate price reductions with
pharmaceutical companies. Bush supports a weak Patients’ Bill of Rights that
would allow HMOs and accountants to make medical decisions. His plan would only
expand health care coverage to 2 million people by offering risky and expensive
individual health accounts.
Kerry’s
Plan Would Ensure Health Care Coverage for All
In
contrast, Sen. John Kerry would extend health care coverage to 96 percent of all
people living in the United States by creating incentives for employers to offer
job-based coverage, expanding public child health insurance programs and making
it easier for small employers to provide workers with health coverage through a
new insurance plan modeled after the health plan for members of Congress. Kerry
supports a strong Patients’ Bill of Rights—one that allows doctors to make
medical decisions and patients to have access to the specialists they need. He
pledges to overhaul Bush’s misguided Medicare prescription drug law and
replace it with policies that discourage employers from dropping retiree
coverage and allow the United States to negotiate lower drug prices. Funding for
Kerry’s plan will come from rolling back Bush’s tax cuts for wealthy people
earning more than $200,000 a year.
“With
these reforms, we will make real savings in the cost of health care,” says
Kerry. “We’ll save lives, we’ll save jobs, we’ll save paychecks and
we’ll save businesses. We’ll build healthier households, more prosperous
communities and a stronger
America.”
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