Denny Heck on Health Care

Common-sense solutions to extend the solvency of Medicare

• We need to look at Medicare in the context of the broader healthcare system. The US spends far more on healthcare as a percentage of GDP than any other Western nation. We could be delivering healthcare in a much more efficient manner and with lower costs.
• Delivering the same or better quality healthcare at a reduced cost sounds far-fetched at first. However, there are a number of common-sense reforms that can do just that:
• Better disinfection practices in hospitals will reduce the costs associated with in-hospital illnesses
• More continuing education for doctors will keep them up-to-date on the most efficient and effective medical practices
• A greater emphasis on preventative medicine would reduce the number of patients that ever even need medical attention

Opposes repealing ObamaCare.

Project Vote Smart infers candidate issue stances on key topics by summarizing public speeches and public statements. Congressional candidates are given the opportunity to respond in detail; about 11% did so in the 2012 races.

Project Vote Smart summarizes candidate stances on the following topic: 'Health Care: Do you support repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act?'

GOP can't beat ObamaCare, so they pretend it's a "disaster".

Heritage Action Summary: This vote would fully repeal ObamaCare.

Heritage Foundation recommendation to vote YES: (2/3/2015): ObamaCare creates $1.8 trillion in new health care spending and uses cuts to Medicare spending to help pay for some of it. Millions of Americans already have lost, and more likely will lose, their coverage because of ObamaCare. Many Americans have not been able to keep their doctors as insurers try to offset the added costs of ObamaCare by limiting the number of providers in their networks. In spite of the promise, the law increases the cost of health coverage.

Secretary of Labor Robert Reich recommendation to vote NO: (robertreich.org 11/22/2013): Having failed to defeat the Affordable Care Act, Republicans are now hell-bent on destroying the ObamaCare in Americans' minds, using the word "disaster" whenever mentioning the Act, and demand its repeal. Democrats [should] meet the Republican barrage with three larger truths:

1. The wreck of private insurance: Ours has been the only healthcare system in the world designed to avoid sick people. For-profit insurers have spent billions finding and marketing their policies to healthy people--while rejecting people with preexisting conditions, or at high risk.
2. We could not continue with this travesty of a healthcare system: ObamaCare is a modest solution. It still relies on private insurers--merely setting minimum standards and "exchanges" where customers can compare policies.
3. The moral imperative: Even a clunky compromise like the ACA between a national system of health insurance and a for-profit insurance market depends, fundamentally, on a social compact in which those who are healthier and richer are willing to help those who are sicker and poorer. Such a social compact defines a society.

Legislative outcome: Passed House 239-186-8; never came to a vote in the Senate.