Obama Lays Out Plan To Provide Affordable Health Care Coverage For All

Obama Lays Out Plan to Save American Families up to $2500,  Provide Affordable Health Care Coverage for All 

Iowa City, IA- During a speech at the University of Iowa today, Barack Obama rolled out a plan to lower health care costs and ensure affordable, high-quality health care for all Americans. 

Under the Obama plan, the typical family will save up to $2,500 every year through:

1. Health IT Investment, which will reduce unnecessary and wasteful spending in the health care system that results from preventable medical errors and inefficient paper billing systems.
2. Improving prevention and management of chronic conditions.
3. Require competition in the insurance industry to reduce administrative costs and lower premiums for individuals  and investigate the increasing monopolization of the insurance industry.
4. Providing reinsurance for catastrophic coverage that will reduce insurance premiums.
5. Making health insurance universal, which will reduce spending on uncompensated care. 

Obama’s coverage plan will make available a new national health plan that will allow individuals without access to affordable insurance coverage.  The plan focuses on the following key parts:

1. A new public health plan that will give individuals the choice to buy affordable health coverage that is similar to the plan available to federal employees. The new public plan will be open to individuals without access to group coverage through their workplace or current public programs.   
2. A National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals who wish to purchase an insurance plan for themselves.  The Exchange will act as a watchdog group and help reform the private insurance market by creating rules and standards for participating insurance plans to ensure fairness and to make individual coverage more affordable and accessible 
3. Requiring all employers to make a meaningful contribution towards health coverage for their employees.
4. Mandating all children have health care coverage and expanding the number of options for young adults up to age 25 to continue coverage through their parent’s plans.
5. Obama will expand eligibility for the Medicaid and SCHIP programs and ensure that these programs continue to serve their critical safety net function.   
6. Building on the successful efforts of states to take the lead in reforming the health care system.  Under Obama’s plan states can continue to experiment, provided they meet the minimum standards of the national plan.