Progressive Economic Narrative: Health Care

Transcription

1 Progressive Economic Narrative: Health Care 1. What s Wrong with the Economy? Today the middle class is getting crushed and closed off. Working and middle-class families are struggling, while the super-rich and giant corporations get richer at the expense of the rest of us. American families are working harder and getting paid less, falling behind our parents' generation. Gone are the days when we all believed we had an opportunity to get ahead. Big corporations cut our wages and benefits and shipped jobs our overseas. They put profits before the best interests of workers, communities and the country as a whole. Too many Americans can t find good jobs and too many jobs don t pay enough to support a family. Today, more and more jobs have no health insurance. And workers who do get health insurance on the job are paying higher premiums for shrinking benefits. Today - if you lose a job, if you choose to or are forced to retire early, if you want to start a small business you can t get health affordable health insurance. And if you ve been sick, you may not be able to get health insurance at all. Health insurance companies are making record profits, paying their CEOs millions while denying care to people with pre-existing conditions, charging more if you are sick, and hiking deductibles and co-payments. Small businesses can t find affordable health insurance, making it difficult too often impossible to get decent health care for themselves and their employees. And now some in Washington want to take away the health security we do have. They want to privatize Medicare our national health insurance system for seniors forcing seniors to take a health insurance company voucher instead of keeping Medicare. They want to slash Medicaid, cutting vital benefits to struggling working families and people with disabilities. And they want to repeal Obamacare 1 just as it is beginning to reign in insurance company profits, ensure kids can stay on their parents insurance policies and reduce costs for seniors and small businesses. They want to return us to day when insurance companies can deny care because of preexisting conditions and losing your job will mean losing your health care. 1 You may notice we use the term ObamaCare throughout this document and not Heatlh Care Reform or ACA. We suggest we should say ObamaCare With Pride: President Obama is proud of ObamaCare, as he should be. We should celebrate his leadership in making access to affordable health care a right in the United States. People aren't sure what health care reform is, let alone The Affordable Care Act. ObamaCare they know, so let's trumpet it as a major accomplishment, to defend and build upon. 1

2 2. What does a successful economy look like? The American middle-class is the engine of our economy. We all do better when we all do better. The true measure of our economic success is the well-being of our families and the productivity of our nation, not the stock market and corporate profits. Our economic success is driven by innovating and investing in the future so that every American has a good job, can educate their kids, support and care for their families, have affordable health care and retire with security. Workers who earn good pay and have decent benefits, who can shop at local businesses and support and care for their families, keep the economy moving forward. Making good health care affordable is key to the economic security and success of families, business and our nation. - Families who can afford health insurance and health care will have more to money to educate their children, pay their mortgage or rent, save for their retirement and shop at local businesses. - Medicare our national health insurance system for seniors has meant that Americans can look forward to health care security into their retirement. - Making health insurance more affordable for small businesses will give them more to invest in growth and make it easier to attract employees. - Getting health insurance costs under control for our nation will make us more competitive in the global economy and free up more resources to invest in the nation s future and lower the deficit. 3. What is the role of government? A strong middle class doesn t happen by accident it s created by decisions we make together. We can invest in the future and build a large and prosperous middle class by the decisions we make together. Decisions to invest in people, provide health and retirement security, and to boost businesses that do the right thing starting with creating good jobs in America. The Affordable Care Act ObamaCare is one decision that our nation made to restore a strong middle class and guarantee health security for American families. 2

3 - Starting in 2014, ObamaCare will mean that almost every American has access to good, affordable health coverage. In 2014, even if you don t get health insurance at work, you ll be able to pay for health insurance on a sliding scale so premiums are affordable, and no insurance company will be able to turn you down because of a pre-existing condition or charge you more if you have been sick. More working families will be covered through Medicaid. - ObamaCare has already begun to reign in health insurance companies and improve benefits. Health insurance companies can no longer drop you if you are sick or stop paying if you have very costly care. Businesses and consumers will get $1.3 billion in rebates in 2012 because ObamaCare limits what insurance companies can spend on profits and administration. Soon every health insurance policy will have to cover prescription drugs and provide free check-ups and other preventive care. - Seniors in Medicare are now paying less for prescription drugs and getting free check-ups and preventive care thanks to ObamaCare. - Small businesses are getting tax-credits to help them buy insurance and in 2014 small businesses will be able to get lower insurance premiums thanks to new small-business markets that will give them the purchasing power of big business. - ObamaCare is helping young people just entering the job market, with 2.5 million young adults under the age of 26 keeping insurance under their parents health plans. - Nationally, thanks to changes started by ObamaCare, health care costs are starting to go down as hospitals and doctors are working together to provide better care, instead of profiting from care people don t need. Medicare and Medicaid are programs we created that have keep a promise of health security for seniors and other most in need for 30 years. This year they are again under attack. The Ryan Republican budget would: - Turn Medicare into a voucher program, forcing many seniors to pay sharply higher premiums to stay in traditional Medicare and keep their current doctors. - Increase Medicare s age eligibility from 65 to 67 increasing out of pocket costs by $4,300 a year for nearly 1 million seniors 3

4 - Increase costs to new Medicare beneficiaries pay by more than $1,200 by 2030 and $5,900 by Gut Medicaid the largest provider of long-term care coverage for seniors by shifting costs to cash-strapped states. 4. What s the political problem? To build a strong middle class, we need our elected representatives to work for all of us. Our government should ensure opportunity for every working family, not just those with the most money and power. We re not broke, we ve been robbed By the Wall Street speculators who wrecked our economy and got bailed out. By the corporate lobbyists who bought our democracy out from under us. By the super-rich who paid politicians to cut their tax rates in half while their incomes went up 500%. By the health insurance company CEOs who are making millions off of record profits by hiking our premiums while cutting our benefits. We need our elected officials to work for the interests of all of us, and to set rules that prevent the rich and powerful from crashing our economy, crushing the middle class and wrecking our democracy. We need our elected officials to take a stand against the insurance companies that are making tens of millions of dollars in secret contributions to run ads against ObamaCare, so that the American people don t know that health insurance companies are behind the attacks. We need our elected officials to keep the promise of Medicare, instead of rewarding health insurance lobbyists and CEO campaign contributors by replacing Medicare with limited vouchers for health insurance companies. Our democracy only works when all of us have an equal voice in making the rules we all live by. That s why we need to tear down barriers to voting and limit corporate lobbying and big money campaign contributions. 5. What do we believe? We are fighting together for an America that works for all of us, including the promise of quality, affordable health care. It s up to us to fight together for an America that works for all of us: good jobs, strong families and communities, shared prosperity. We are going to hold our elected representatives responsible for protecting and expanding the middle class. That means saying no to those who would repeal ObamaCare, allowing health insurance companies to continue to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Saying no to those who would block Americans from finally getting the security of 4

5 decent, affordable health coverage in And saying no to those who would privatize Medicare, with vouchers to private insurance companies, and who would slash Medicaid. Americans have done this before. We created Social Security and Medicare, so that every American senior has health and retirement security. We established Medicaid so there is a health care safety net. We passed the Affordable Care Act to take a major toward making quality, affordable health care a right. This is who we are. This is what America is all about. 5