Issue Position: Ensuring Quality and Affordable Health Care

Issue Position

Issue Position: Ensuring Quality and Affordable Health Care

Health care should not be considered a luxury for anyone - but quality, affordable care remains out of reach for far too many South Dakotans. Medicine in America has moved dramatically toward treating and curing many illnesses through pharmacology and advances in technology and research. I am working to ensure these advances continue, and that rural states like South Dakota receive the full benefit of these advances.

I am committed to improving our health care system and directly addressing the rising cost of health insurance and prescription drugs, the high number of uninsured, and the challenges associated with long-term care. Here are the priorities I take to Congress for ensuring quality, affordable health care for all South Dakotans:

Helping Seniors. I am encouraged that Congress has added a prescription drug benefit under Medicare. However, I support changes to the benefit that will strengthen the Medicare system and do more for seniors, particularly rural seniors, than for pharmaceutical and insurance companies. I strongly support efforts to direct Medicare to use its bargaining power to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs under "Part D," similar to the way the Department of Veterans Affairs negotiates lower drug prices. I also strongly support important rural Medicare provisions that ensure fair payment to hospitals, physicians and other healthcare providers serving South Dakotans.

Lowering the Cost of Health Insurance. Skyrocketing premium costs have left tens of thousands of South Dakotans without health insurance and continue to place a heavy burden on employers who desire to offer this important benefit. Many families cannot even afford coverage for their children. Congress must act now to make health care coverage more affordable and available for all of our citizens. I support efforts to enable small businesses to work together to offer quality, affordable health insurance coverage. I think we also need to treat the self-employed - including farmers and ranchers - more fairly by allowing them the ability to deduct the cost of healthcare premiums from self-employment taxes in addition to income taxes. I also support strengthening successful public health programs, like the Children's Health Insurance Program, by providing more funding to cover children already eligible for coverage, and by improving outreach efforts, including by enrolling needy children through the school lunch program.

Making Long-Term Care Affordable and Accessible. Long-term care insurance is often the only way to meet the expenses of a nursing home without sacrificing one's life savings and other assets in order to qualify for Medicaid. Because there are such widespread misperceptions about the need for and cost of long-term care, I am leading efforts in Congress to raise awareness and help South Dakotans be prepared to address the long-term care needs of their families. I am also working to make long-term care insurance premiums tax deductible - separate from itemized deductions - including for those who pay the premiums for their parents' policies.

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