Braley Action on Healthcare Reform:

Providing Affordable Healthcare Reform

We need to be diligent about creating a healthcare reform plan that is affordable for taxpayers.  We can save billions of dollars in healthcare expenses if we can:  

Reduce overuse of medical services.  Address the problem of overutilization of care, which creates unnecessary costs of hundreds of billions of dollars and can lead to harmful medical errors.

Emphasize prevention and quality care.  Shift the American health care system towards one that incentivizes high quality care, prevention, nutrition, and wellness.

Reform Medicare Part D. Seek rebates for all Medicare beneficiaries from pharmaceutical manufacturers.      

Improving Quality of Care

While Iowa consistently ranks as having some of the best healthcare in the nation, our current system reimburses heatlhcare providers based on the number of people they see, not on the quality of patient outcomes. This provides an incentive for providers to order more procedures, not better procedures.  

We need to design a health care system that incentivizes quality of care, rather than quantity.    We should reform Medicare to pay providers for services based on quality, not quantity.  Also, we should create health information technology interoperability is a major way in which we can increase both the quality and the efficiency of our healthcare system.  We can have programs that encourage care coordination, such as the “medical home” concept, which ultimately leads to better and more efficient health care.    

Expanding Access to Healthcare

Currently there are many areas of the United States where there is a shortage of doctors and available care.  Sections of my Access to Frontline Care Act (HR 2891) are included in the healthcare reform bill. 

Specifically, these sections create a new “Frontline Health Providers Loan Repayment Program” to help recruit a variety of health care providers to underserved areas (including Iowa) and improve patient access to care.   

For more information on the Access to Frontline Care Act, please see: http://tinyurl.com/koxuhe  

Healthcare reform also needs to be done in a common-sense, easy-to-understand way..  You shouldn’t have to be a doctor to understand the forms insurance companies send you.  That’s why sections of my Plain Language in Health Insurance Act (HR 3051), introduced last month, are included in the healthcare reform bill.  Specifically, these sections:  

• Require the federal government and health insurers participating in a new federal health insurance exchange to write all plan documents; claims policies, practices, and amounts; financial disclosures; and other information in plain language.

• Require the website of the health insurance exchange be written in plain language.

Preserving Choice of Health Insurance Plans

I was one of the first House members to outline a specific planfor a public health insurance option to be included as part of a healthcare reform bill. 

The CHOICE Act, HR 2668, ensures that Americans have the option to choose a public health insurance plan, one of the choices that would be available as part of a national health insurance marketplace approved by Congress.  This bill drives down health costs by encouraging more free-market competition between insurers.  Furthermore, the bill protects consumer choice in health insurance by putting a public health insurance plan on a level playing field with private insurers, requiring the public plan to meet the same requirements as private insurers participating in a national insurance marketplace.  The bill also requires the public plan to fund itself through plan premiums and not taxpayer dollars.  

For more information on the CHOICE Act, please see: http://tinyurl.com/mp2lfk