Bob Kerrey on Health Care Former Democratic Senator (NE)

Maintain Medicare as defined

A: Medicare must be maintained as defined and certain benefits for retirees. Medicare and Medicaid are much larger problems and cannot be fixed outside the context of overall health care reform. The Affordable Care Act provides essential protection for Americans who purchase health insurance and it is a market-oriented law that will help working families in Nebraska by making it easier for them to purchase health insurance. However, it does almost nothing about the underlying cost of care to individuals, businesses, and state, local and federal governments.

Supports ObamaCare even though he knows it's unpopular

Fischer spoke about possible changes to Social Security, while noting many lawmakers won't take a stand on the topic. "We need to look at means testing. We need to look at (raising) the eligibility age," she said.

Voted YES on including prescription drugs under Medicare.

Voted NO on limiting self-employment health deduction.

Voted YES on increasing tobacco restrictions.

Voted YES on Medicare means-testing.

Voted YES on blocking medical savings acounts.

Establish "report cards" on HMO quality of care.

Promote Universal Access and Quality in Health Care
That more than 40 million Americans lack health insurance is one of our society’s most glaring inequities. Lack of insurance jeopardizes the health of disadvantaged Americans and also imposes high costs on everyone else when the uninsured lack preventive care and get treatment from emergency rooms. Washington provides a tax subsidy for insurance for Americans who get coverage from their employers but offers nothing to workers who don’t have job-based coverage.

Markets alone cannot assure universal access to health coverage. Government should enable all low-income families to buy health insurance. Individuals must take responsibility for insuring themselves and their families whether or not they qualify for public assistance.

Finally, to help promote higher quality in health care for all Americans, we need reliable information on the quality of health care delivered by health plans and providers; a “patient’s bill of rights” that ensures access to medically necessary care; and a system in which private health plans compete on the basis of quality as well as cost.

Goals for 2010
• Reduce the number of uninsured Americans by two-thirds through tax credits, purchasing pools, and other means.
• Create a system of reliable “report cards” on the quality of care delivered by health plans and providers.

Collect data on birth defects and present to the public.

Directs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to carry out programs to:
• collect and analyze, and make available data on the causes of birth defects and on the incidence and prevalence of such defects;
• operate regional centers for the conduct of applied epidemiological research on the prevention of such defects;
• provide information and education to the public on the prevention of such defects;
• collect and analyze data by gender and by racial and ethnic group9/6/2004
• collect such data from birth and death certificates, hospital records, and such other sources; and
• (3) encourage States to establish or improve programs for the collection and analysis of epidemiological data on birth defects and to make the data available.