Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

The Campaign Trail to Health, Pt.2 – Different camps, different views.

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There was, and always has been, a major consensus that medical costs must be reduced. Mr. Cutler, the Obama advisor, suggested that between one-third and one-half of the medical costs could be saved by instituting newer IT support systems for the medical industry. He said that much of today’s costs were wasted on useless activities. McCain's advisor, Mr. Miller had a different take. His focus was on performance. He faults today’s focus on quantity over quality. Miller believes our current structure should change to reward good performance that is based on “measured outcome”. Mr. Miller also alluded to the importance of youth wellbeing, saying our nation needs to “invest in its youth to ensure a young, healthy population in the future.” Cutler moved that direction a little more comprehensively by agreeing that a greater focus needs to be placed on preventive care, as well. There was a time for each of these advisors to communicate each of their respective party’s proposals for discussion. Cutler, for Obama, went first. He explained that Obama’s subsidized health insurance/care plan would be funded by way of allowing the enormous tax cuts implemented by Bush behemoth aimed at eh very rich to expire. He further explained that the Obama plan would give families back around $2,500 every year toward health insurance. Of course, this flies in the face of the McCain camp, so here, Mr. Miller countered that solution as not a ‘fix-all’ by stating that the system we’re using right now is already way overspending. So, just spending more on health insurance/care and changing who pays doesn’t fix that issue. (Parnass, CQ HealthBeat, 6/16).

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