Issue Position: Healthcare

Issue Position

Issue Position: Healthcare

"Healthcare is one of the most expensive items in the family budget and the one that families can least afford to be without. We must make healthcare more affordable for working families."
- Congressman Etheridge

Healthcare has become a burden on working families. A record number of Americans do not have health insurance, and the percentage of people without health insurance coverage is growing at a faster rate in North Carolina than in most of the rest of the country. Currently, more than 1.3 million non-elderly North Carolinians lack health insurance coverage. The rising cost of health insurance has made it more difficult for employers to offer and individuals to afford health insurance coverage. Even when people have health insurance, they are paying more and getting less.

In the first 100 days of the new Democratic Congress, Congressman Etheridge supported two bills that would improve healthcare in this country. H.R. 4, Negotiating Lower Prescription Prices under Medicare Part D would allow the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate the price of prescription drugs to lower costs for Medicare beneficiaries. This legislation corrected one of the fundamental flaws in the law that created Medicare Part D.

The new Congress also passed H.R. 3, The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007, a bill that would allow federal funding for stem cell research that gives hope to 100 million Americans and their families afflicted by debilitating or life-threatening diseases. For Congressman Etheridge and many other North Carolinians, this was not only an important policy matter, put personal as well. With close friends and mentors suffering from Alzheimer's disease and Lou Gehrig's disease, he voted to allow the ethical advance of research to relieve human suffering.

We need real solutions to reduce the number of uninsured children and families, and to improve access to health care for all Americans. Congressman Etheridge voted to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which provides health care to 120,000 young North Carolinians through North Carolina's Health Choice. This expansion would have provided cost-effective and high-quality health services to another 90,000 children in North Carolina. He also supported increased funding for Community Health Centers, which provide health care services to nearly 400,000 North Carolinians in rural and medically underserved areas.

On October 3, 2008, Congress passed, and the President signed into law the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act. This requires those insurers or group health plans that do choose to cover mental health to do so on an equal basis with other covered health needs. This will ensure that those in need can get the treatment that is medically necessary, without creating an undue hardship on employers or insurers.

With the cost of healthcare rising faster than our wages, health insurance remains a luxury for too many Americans. We need to reform managed care, both private and government plans, to ensure that working families and seniors receive affordable, high-quality care and that doctors can make the best medical decisions. Financial considerations should not keep individuals from receiving the health care they need, or prevent doctors from providing it.

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