Issue Position: Healthcare
Issue Position
Issue Position: Healthcare
Improving the quality of healthcare in Southwest Virginia is critical to ensuring that Southwest Virginians have the highest possible quality of life. Rick Boucher has worked diligently to improve access to healthcare in Southwest Virginia.
Telemedicine
One of the most important projects Rick has initiated is the Telemedicine project, which allows patients to have access to specialists at the University of Virginia Hospital in Charlottesville. Telemedicine provides a means of obtaining diagnostic services and other forms of specialized care for patients in rural settings without the necessity of traveling to distant centers of medical specialization. Through advances in telecommunications technology, medical images including X-rays, lab slides, CAT scans and magnetic resonance images can be transmitted across the telecommunications network to a specialist located hundreds of miles away.
Virginia's Ninth Congressional district currently has more than 50 telemedicine sites. No other Congressional district in the nation has more telemedicine sites than the Ninth District.
Medicare
Congressman Boucher has long supported the expansion of Medicare to include prescription drug coverage. In November 2003, the Congress passed an important first step in prescription drug coverage; however, much still needs to be done to ensure that all senior citizens have access to affordable prescription drugs. Rick will continue to fight to ensure that the additional necessary steps are taken to provide the coverage that our seniors deserve.
Among the important components of the new prescription drug law is the increased funding that doctors and hospitals in rural areas such as the Ninth District will receive. Prior to the enactment of this law, doctors and hospitals in rural areas received reimbursements at a rate lower than those in urban areas. As a result of this, doctors had little incentive to locate medically underserved rural areas, and rural hospitals had difficulty maintaining funding to provide necessary medical services.
Also, the new bill provides medicines essentially for free to thousands of our district's poorest and most vulnerable elderly residents who receive no government help in purchasing medicines today.
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