Talking Points on Health Reform

1. Talking Points on Health Reform

2. “Giving the American People More Control – Not Insurance Companies or Government” “I don’t believe we should give the government or the insurance companies more control over health care in America.  I believe it’s time to give you – the American people – more control over your own health insurance.”

3. Talking to the 85% with Insurance -Describing the Plan If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.  If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. • Holds Insurance Companies Accountable; • Gives Americans More Insurance Choices; and • Brings Down Costs For Everyone. 

4. I: Holds Insurance Companies Accountable • End the worst practices of insurance companies: • “Uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions will be able to purchase affordable health insurance for the very first time in their lives;” • “Insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions;” • “And they will no longer be able to arbitrarily and massively raise premiums for millions of Americans;” • “Banned from dropping your coverage when you get sick.”

5. If Reform Fails, Americans Concerns Focus on Insurance Companies

6. Beyond Politics - Fundamental Disagreement “Despite all that we agree on and all the Republican ideas we’ve incorporated, many Republicans in Congress just have a fundamental disagreement over whether we should have more or less oversight of insurance companies.” • Anthem Blue Cross in California, Illinois, Virginia • Goldman Sachs • Personal Stories about families and small businesses

7. “Common-Sense Rules of the Road” for Insurance Companies:Strongest Rebuttal to “Government Takeover” “It isn’t government control to set new common-sense rules of the road for insurance companies to protect consumers from their abuses. The plan gives patients and doctors more control over health care decisions, not insurance companies, and cracks down on practices like denying coverage for pre-existing conditions and dropping patients when they become sick.”

8. II: Gives Americans More Insurance Choices • “It sets up a new competitive health insurance market giving tens of millions of Americans and small business owners the purchasing power that big businesses and unions enjoy and the same choices as every member of Congress;” • “If you still can’t afford the insurance in this new marketplace, we will offer you tax credits to do so – tax credits that add up to the largest middle class tax cuts for health care in history. It’s the middle-class that gets squeezed, and that’s who we have to help;” • “It protects Medicare for America’s Seniors.”

9. III: Brings Down Costs For Everyone • “Incorporated most of the serious ideas from across the political spectrum about how to contain the rising cost of health care;” • Helps small businesses so they don’t have to choose between hiring and health care – More Jobs. • “We go after the waste, fraud and abuse in our system, especially overpayments to insurance companies;” • But we do this while protecting Medicare benefits, and extending the financial stability of the program by nearly a decade. • CBO: $1 trillion of deficit reduction over next two decades

10. Responding to Attacks • “It’s time to start over from scratch and come up with real reform that Democrats and Republicans can support.” • “President Obama is trying to use reconciliation to get around Senate rulesto ram his health care bill through Congress.” • “The American people oppose this reform. They don’t want it.” • “There’ll be no benefits for 4 years.”

11. Responding to “Start Over” We should vote “Starting over again is just a prescription for another year of debate that’s meant to stop reform, not advance it. Insurance companies aren’t starting over with 40 percent premium increases and denying people coverage for pre-existing conditions. After years of debate, all the ideas are on the table and it’s time we pulled the best ideas together and answer the problems Americans face.” Q44

12. Responding to “Reconciliation” Reconciliation is OK “Congress has been debating health care reform for years and the American people deserve an up or down vote. We shouldn’t hide behind rules to prevent us from going on record and casting a vote for or against reform. This is about giving Americans what they’re entitled to: a clear vote showing what people stand for and believe and where the majority vote rules.” Q42

13. Responding to American People Oppose: American People Want Us To… Kaiser: January Tracking Poll, 1/18/10

14. Responding to No Benefits in 4 Years:Immediate Benefits This Year… • Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage; • Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children  in all new plans; • Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool; • Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans; • Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans; • Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs; • Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions; • Require plans to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26; • Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing; • Relief on the Donut Hole.