Affordable Quality Health Care For All

The health care system in the United States continues to be in a state of crisis. By 2006, the number of Americans without health insurance has risen to over 47 million. Health care costs are still escalating, increasing pressures on workers, businesses and government. This has led to cutbacks in coverage and increases in co-payments, deductibles and premiums for many working families. Medicare premiums have also risen. While Bush twice vetoed medical coverage for low income children, Miller also voted against this coverage until the insurance companies were fully subsidized.
Unfortunately, the Bush administration, GOP congressional leaders and Representative Miller have done little or nothing to address these serious problems in our health care system. Not only are they not helping solve health care problems, they sometimes make them worse! Example: at one time the administration proposed to tax medical health care benefits provided to families as if it were income.
Representative Miller's voting record on Health Care is particularly egregious. This is because Representative Miller has voted to support the policies of the Bush Administration. Miller voted AGAINST requiring negotiating perscription costs for Medicare part D, (Jan 2007). Miller voted to DENY non-emergency treatment for those unable to afford the Medicare co-pay, (Feb 2006). Miller voted to LIMIT medical malpractice damages to $250,000 or less, (May 2004). Miller voted to LIMIT prescription drug benefits for Medicare recipients, (Nov 2003). Finally, Representative Miller voted NO on expanding research to more embryonic stem cell lines, (Jan 2007) and NO on allowing human embryonic stem cell research. (May 2005). The advance of Stem Cell research has shown great promise in alleviating the suffering from many serious and expensive diseases.
Medical costs continue to increase and the number of insured citizens continues to decrease. This means that more people delay seeking medical attention when conditions are easily treated. As the conditions become worse, the costs to treat them grow astronomically. A minor infection that goes untreated can result in the need for surgical procedures. Ignoring a high blood pressure condition which could be treated with medication for as little as $150/year rises to over $50,000/year when dialysis is required. When an American is uninsured, the costs are covered by tax dollars. Additionally, emergency room care for the uninsured is part of the ever-increasing costs to those who are covered by medical insurance.
Older manufacturing companies continue to suffer from the burden of “legacy” health care costs. All too often these costs have contributed to bankruptcies, plant closings and job loss. Under those conditions, retirees lose their coverage when they need it the most. The cost of medical insurance for employees and retirees and their families costs GM an estimated $1500/vehicle. Our current system places our manufacturing base at a severe disadvantage, compared to any other industrialized country in the world.

Every industrialized nation in the world, except the U.S., uses a universal health care system to provide medical care for its citizens. The current system places the burden of health care costs on the employers that provide health insurance, by forcing them to pay for their own and the uninsured. By providing access to preventative care, the reliance on preventable emergency room care would be decreased. Suffering would decrease, also. Preventative care would reduce the overall costs while improving the quality of today’s health care systems.
Core health care coverage would be specified by taking into account evidence-based science and expert consensus regarding the medical effectiveness of treatments. The core coverage would include wellness and preventive services, primary care, acute care, prescription drugs, patient education, treatment and management of health problems provided across a full range of inpatient and outpatient settings.
As your Congressman, I would work to ensure that every American citizen would have access to affordable medical care from birth to the end of life.
I would reject any proposals to impose a tax cap on workers’ health care benefits. These proposals represent a big tax increase on middle-class working families, and would inevitably undermine comprehensive health care benefits.
I would support measures to address the “legacy” health care cost problem facing older manufacturing companies, their workers and retirees. It is necessary to preserve health care benefits for older workers and retirees, and improve the competitiveness of older manufacturing companies to prevent the loss of more manufacturing jobs in this country.