Talking Points on Health Reform

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Talking Points on Health Reform
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Giving the American People More Control Not
Insurance Companies or Government

• I dont believe we should give the government or
  the insurance companies more control over health
  care in America.  I believe its time to give you
  the American people more control over your
  own health insurance.
•  

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Talking to the 85 with Insurance -Describing
the Plan

• If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. 
  If you like your doctor, you can keep your
  doctor.
• Holds Insurance Companies Accountable
• Gives Americans More Insurance Choices and
• Brings Down Costs For Everyone. 

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I Holds Insurance Companies Accountable

• End the worst practices of insurance companies
• Uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions
  will be able to purchase affordable health
  insurance for the very first time in their
  lives
• Insurance companies will be banned forever from
  denying coverage to children with pre-existing
  conditions
• And they will no longer be able to arbitrarily
  and massively raise premiums for millions of
  Americans
• Banned from dropping your coverage when you get
  sick.

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If Reform Fails, Americans Concerns Focus on
Insurance Companies
Concern greatly/somewhat concerned
Insurance companies still drop coverage for people who are sick 89
Costs would keep skyrocketing for small businesses 88
Higher and higher premiums for working Americans 87
Fear of losing coverage if you switch jobs 87
Insurance companies still deny coverage on basis of pre-existing conditions 87
More than 30 million Americans without access to affordable coverage 76
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Beyond Politics - Fundamental Disagreement

• Despite all that we agree on and all the
  Republican ideas weve incorporated, many
  Republicans in Congress just have a fundamental
  disagreement over whether we should have more or
  less oversight of insurance companies.
• Anthem Blue Cross in California, Illinois,
  Virginia
• Goldman Sachs
• Personal Stories about families and small
  businesses

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Common-Sense Rules of the Road for Insurance
CompaniesStrongest Rebuttal to Government
Takeover
It isnt government control to set new
common-sense rules of the road for insurance
companies to protect consumers from their abuses.
The plan gives patients and doctors more control
over health care decisions, not insurance
companies, and cracks down on practices like
denying coverage for pre-existing conditions and
dropping patients when they become sick.
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II Gives Americans More Insurance Choices

• It sets up a new competitive health insurance
  market giving tens of millions of Americans and
  small business owners the purchasing power that
  big businesses and unions enjoy and the same
  choices as every member of Congress
• If you still cant afford the insurance in this
  new marketplace, we will offer you tax credits to
  do so tax credits that add up to the largest
  middle class tax cuts for health care in history.
  Its the middle-class that gets squeezed, and
  thats who we have to help
• It protects Medicare for Americas Seniors.

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III Brings Down Costs For Everyone

• Incorporated most of the serious ideas from
  across the political spectrum about how to
  contain the rising cost of health care
• Helps small businesses so they dont have to
  choose between hiring and health care More
  Jobs.
• We go after the waste, fraud and abuse in our
  system, especially overpayments to insurance
  companies
• But we do this while protecting Medicare
  benefits, and extending the financial stability
  of the program by nearly a decade.
• CBO 1 trillion of deficit reduction over next
  two decades

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Responding to Attacks

• Its time to start over from scratch and come up
  with real reform that Democrats and Republicans
  can support.
• President Obama is trying to use reconciliation
  to get around Senate rules to ram his health care
  bill through Congress.
• The American people oppose this reform. They
  dont want it.
• Therell be no benefits for 4 years.

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Responding to Start Over

• We should vote
• Starting over again is just a prescription for
  another year of debate thats meant to stop
  reform, not advance it. Insurance companies
  arent starting over with 40 percent premium
  increases and denying people coverage for
  pre-existing conditions. After years of debate,
  all the ideas are on the table and its time we
  pulled the best ideas together and answer the
  problems Americans face.

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Responding to Reconciliation

• Reconciliation is OK
• Congress has been debating health care reform
  for years and the American people deserve an up
  or down vote. We shouldnt hide behind rules to
  prevent us from going on record and casting a
  vote for or against reform. This is about giving
  Americans what theyre entitled to a clear vote
  showing what people stand for and believe and
  where the majority vote rules.

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Responding to American People Oppose American
People Want Us To
Elements of Reform More Likely to Support Less Likely to Support
Tax Credits to Small Business 73 11
Insurance Exchanges 67 16
Keep What You Have 66 10
Ban Pre-Existing Condition Denials 63 24
Medicaid Expansion 62 22
Dependent Coverage through 26 60 22
Close Medicare Donut Hole 60 21
Subsidy Assistance to individuals 57 24
Kaiser January Tracking Poll, 1/18/10
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Responding to No Benefits in 4 YearsImmediate
Benefits This Year

• Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase
  coverage
• Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for
  children  in all new plans
• Provide immediate access to insurance for
  uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of
  a pre-existing condition through a temporary
  high-risk pool
• Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they
  get sick in all individual plans
• Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual
  limits on benefits in all plans
• Require premium rebates to enrollees from
  insurers with high administrative expenditures
  and require public disclosure of the percent of
  premiums applied to overhead costs
• Ensure consumers have access to an effective
  internal and external appeals process to appeal
  new insurance plan decisions
• Require plans to cover an enrollees dependent
  children until age 26
• Require new plans to cover preventive services
  and immunizations without cost-sharing
• Relief on the Donut Hole.