Health Care: Reform; Reproductive Rights; Stem-cell and Alzheimer's research

Reform

I believe that health care is a right, not a privilege or a commodity.

Health-care reform must be truly comprehensive and must serve all American citizens. This will be achieved when it is based on a single-payer system such as Medicare – which has been so effective for so long.

The current health-care system imposes the equivalent of a hidden tax that everyone pays to cover the health care costs of the uninsured. Moreover, we pay these costs in the least effective and most costly way by directing the uninsured to emergency-room care. Instead, we must direct our resources more efficiently toward universal coverage that provides for preventive care and timely treatment.

The health care-reform legislation passed in the U.S House of Representatives and currently being debated in the U.S. Senate represents important steps in a difficult political process. But it is, in my view, only the first steps toward the comprehensive reform – including cost containment – that we need, as follows:

• Ultimately the success of health-care reform will require broad participation of all age groups, including the young and healthy. Thus, health-insurance reform should ultimately mandate coverage for all Americans, with exceptions made for those who cannot afford it.
• I support a government-sponsored public option for markets that lack choice of multiple private insurance carriers. Effective health-care reform must ultimately compel insurance companies to compete and be subject to regulation and market forces. This will go a long way toward curbing the uncontrolled growth in health-care spending – for which all Americans ultimately pay, whether or not they have health insurance.
• As part of any system that relies on private health insurance, carriers should be required to offer only standardized policies so that consumers can compare apples to apples when selecting a carrier. These policies should be offered for the same premium rate to everyone within a given geographic area and without any adjustment to price based on occupation, pre-existing conditions, gender or age.
• The anti-trust exemption for health insurers should be repealed.
• The excessive administrative costs imposed by health insurance companies must be eliminated, and those savings should be used to fund the costs of care.

Reproductive Freedom

I fully support every woman’s right to her own reproductive destiny and to make her own health decisions, including but not limited to reproductive freedom.

The federal government should support education on all aspects of reproductive health, consistent with President Obama’s “common ground” vision. These areas include family planning and comprehensive programs for young people that emphasize not only abstinence and prevention but also provide them with the range of information they need to make healthy choices about sexual behavior.
 

Stem-cell research

I support federal funding of all research and development that will enable the United States to remain the world leader in science and technology and to build its economy. Stem-cell research is an example of such technology.

Stem-cell research and other constructive biomedical technologies should not be singled out as immoral or wrong. Stem-cell research enables the treatment of illnesses, it prolongs lives and it can improve the quality of life. Government should not restrain such progress. Stem-cell research will advance science and technology, expand our biomedical knowledge and help us to remain globally competitive in this area.

I fully support President Obama’s executive order of March 2009 “to remove these limitations on scientific inquiry, to expand NIH support for the exploration of human stem-cell research, and in so doing to enhance the contribution of America's scientists to important new discoveries and new therapies for the benefit of humankind.” 

Alzheimer’s Disease research

As senator I will act to increase federal funding for research toward a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease. Today, as many as 5.3 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s. By 2050, it is projected that more than 16 million Americans will have the disease.

Alzheimer’s patients and their families suffer the difficult and often heartbreaking consequences of this disease. However, if left unchecked, Alzheimer’s will also impose dire consequences on our health-care and social-service systems, which currently fund treatment and services for Alzheimer’s patients at a rate of approximately $148 billion each year.
 Like other forms of dementia, Alzheimer’s triples health-care costs for those 65 and older. The institutional care that is often eventually required can deplete a patient’s assets before he or she is eligible for state Medicaid programs, which then shift the burden to taxpayers.