I believe every American deserves to have access to affordable and reliable healthcare. While two-thirds of the population have health insurance coverage, mostly through benefits offered to them by their employer, there are nearly 45 million uninsured Americans. Some of these individuals work for small businesses that cannot afford to offer insurance like larger employers do; some make a conscience decision not to purchase insurance because they are young and healthy and do not want to spend the money on it; and others have just fallen through the cracks.
Programs such as Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) extend health coverage to low and middle-income families, elderly, blind and disabled. In recent years, states have increased outreach efforts to better educate eligible beneficiaries about the availability of these programs. For the uninsured that are below the age of 65, but whose incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid or S-CHIP, the federal government must expand several methods to help ease the financial burden of health care. Such proposals include a simplified set of medical savings accounts, medical expense deductions, and flexible spending accounts. By lowering the after-tax cost of insurance, these tax benefits help extend coverage to more people.
Congress must put individuals in control of their health care, making consumers more cost-conscious by deciding how they will spend their own money and make healthcare more affordable by reducing the cost of premiums. I believe broader availability of these types of programs will help to reduce the number of uninsured and lower the cost of health insurance.
Not only are health care consumers struggling with insurance issues, but our health care providers are facing a real crisis as well. Skyrocketing malpractice insurance premiums are threatening the stability of the best health care delivery system in the world. Physicians are being forced out of our great state, and other states facing similar situations with astronomical increass in the cost of medical malpractice insurance. I believe without federal legislation, this problem will continue to affect more and more areas of this country. As a member of the Medical Malpractice Crisis Task Force, I am supportive of legislation which will provide reasonable limits on punitive damages while also providing for compensation for 100 percent of plaintiffs' economic damages. This includes medical costs, lost wages, future lost wages, rehabilitatation costs, and any other economic losses suffered as the result of a health care injury.