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HEALTHCARE |
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In the United States Senate, I work every day to preserve and improve Minnesota’s proud healthcare tradition. As a whole, I believe our quality of healthcare in Minnesota is something we can all be extremely proud of – but I also believe there are a number of things we must do as we look to the future.
There is a revolution underway in our health care system. People are living longer, healthier, higher-quality lives, and each day scientists learn more about the human body and develop new, innovative therapies to treat it. These advancements in research hold exciting promise for parents of sick children, people with aging parents and everyone who aspires to live illness- and disease-free.
Many of these breakthrough therapies were born in Minnesota — home of the Mayo Clinic, the University of Minnesota and "Medical Alley," one of the largest concentrations of medical device companies in the world. Because of the cutting edge developments and high-quality care found in Minnesota, our state has rightfully earned a reputation as a national healthcare leader.
The challenge is making sure this excellence in healthcare is something all Minnesotans can enjoy. I am pursuing a number of initiatives in the Senate to ensure that rural Minnesotans have the same access to technology and expertise as we do in regional or metro hospitals. I've also been working on reimbursement and payment challenges to ensure that hard working health professionals are being fairly paid for what they do. Likewise, we need to give folks more direct control of their health care. New ideas like Health Savings Accounts and Small Business Health Plans will expand healthcare coverage and choices.
One of the greatest challenges we face as a nation is making health care innovations available to all people, including those on Medicare and Medicaid, as well as the uninsured. I am proud to have taken part in legislation that will help modernize our medical system and take more Americans into the next century of healthcare.
Medicare Prescription Drug Plan (Part D)
When I entered the Senate, one of my top priorities was to help pass a prescription drug benefit for America’s seniors. I am pleased that the promise of the new Medicare program is already benefiting more than 547,000 Minnesota seniors who have signed up for the coverage. Savings to the consumers have been significant.
As a whole, the program offers prescription drug coverage, better preventative care, and improved access to doctors and medical professionals. For seniors, that means reliable, affordable, and guaranteed coverage for prescription drugs now and in the future. A recent study showed that many Medicare beneficiaries were seeing savings of 50-60 percent. I have personally heard stories from some seniors who are now saving literally hundreds of dollars a month on their drugs.
Although there have been some bumps in the road, I remain an unabashed supporter of Medicare Part D. In the months leading up to the May 15th enrollment deadline, I traveled around the state to help clear up some of the confusion regarding enrollment. I have worked to solve problems related to technical glitches that may have caused some additional concerns about the program. I have worked with my colleagues to encourage increased funding for the Area Agencies on Aging, Native American aging programs and State Health Insurance Programs to support them in the critical role they play in the Part D program. Finally, I’ve cosponsored legislation to allow eligible Minnesotans who missed the Part D enrollment deadline to sign up at no additional cost to them.
Rural Access to Doctors and Quality Care
As founder of the Senate Medical Technology Caucus, I am always looking for ways to increase patient access to the newest life-saving technologies. Statistics show that one in five Americans lives in rural areas, but only one in ten physicians practices in rural areas. Moreover, 40 percent of the rural population lives in a medically underserved area. With access to care an average of 30 miles away, rural areas have much to gain from the ability to access healthcare information at a distance.
To improve access to technology and quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries in rural and medically underserved areas, I have introduced the Remote Monitoring Access Act. This legislation will create a new benefit category for remote patient management services in the Medicare physician fee schedule. Under this category, Medicare would cover physician services involved with the remote management of specific medical conditions, such as congestive heart failure and diabetes. This bill also charges the Secretary of Health with the responsibility of developing standards of care and quality for the remote management services provided for each medical condition covered.
The good news is that many new technologies that collect, analyze, and transmit clinical health information are in development or have recently been introduced to the market. The promise of these remote management technologies is clear – reliable information on a patient’s condition can be instantly sent to top medical experts hundreds of miles away, whose expert opinions can then be instantly transmitted back to the local physician or the patient. The potential benefit of these technologies for rural areas in particular is almost unlimited.
Critical Access Hospitals
In Minnesota, we have over 70 Critical Access Hospitals, which essentially serve as regional “hubs” for rural health care. These hospitals need to be able to keep pace with technology and other advancements, and it is important that we do whatever we can to assist them in providing the best possible care to the folks they serve.
Unfortunately, as it stands right now, many rural hospitals in Minnesota and across the country don’t have the personnel capabilities, access, or money to compete with larger hospitals for federal funding – they’re getting squeezed at every angle. It’s hard to keep pace with technological developments that urban hospitals have access to. For this reason, I have introduced the Critical Access to Health Information Technology Act to help Critical Access Hospitals compete for federal health technology grants. Essentially, this bill would give smaller rural hospitals a competitive edge for Health Information Technology grants.
Another important initiative is my Rural Health Services Preservation Act. I’ve been working closely with the Minnesota Hospital Association and Critical Access Hospitals around the state to address concerns they’ve had with reimbursement. Critical Access Hospitals are not being reimbursed in a way that allows them to fully account for their costs of offering services, and these health providers, already stretched thin, are being asked to absorb the difference. The Rural Health Services Preservation Act will ensure that Critical Access Hospitals get reimbursed at the same rate under the Medicare Advantage Programs as they would under Medicare.
Bringing Health Decisions Back to the Individual
Health care spending in America has increased from 5% of GDP in 1960 to 16% in 2004—and is expected to climb to 18.7% in 2014. In recent years, insurance premiums have risen at double digit rates. This increasing burden of health spending on the U.S. economy is unsustainable. Recent census figures have shown us that fewer employers are able to offer health insurance and when they do, they are requiring that employees pay a larger share of the costs. People are more transient, moving more often and requiring greater flexibility and portability in their health care. In addition, in an information age with consumers becoming savvier about their health and about treatment options, people want more choices and more say in their health treatment and financing options.
We in the Senate are working to help individuals who want to take more responsibility for their own health decisions. Health Savings Accounts, tax benefits for health expenses and new technologies like remote monitoring and electronic health records all work together to create a new paradigm for health care.
For example, I have co-authored a bill, the Tax Equity and Affordability Act, to level the playing field between those with generous employer-based health coverage and those without. First, this bill gives workers without employer-based coverage a comparable tax benefit. Secondly, it focuses more assistance on lower-income workers who need it most and who are most at risk of being folded into government run health care programs. Additionally, this bill promotes choice. It does not dictate the types of coverage that individuals can purchase, but allows the consumer to decide what plan is best for them. It allows individuals to own the health care policies they purchase so that they have a direct impact on the products and services that are made available to them. Finally the bill promotes portability – insurance coverage follows the consumer instead of being connected to work status.
I have also been excited about the potential of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). These accounts, created by the Medicare Modernization Act, allow Americans to save, tax-free, for medical expenses. One of the important features of HSAs is that they are completely portable. Should a person lose or change jobs, the account moves with them. Far too many people are only one job loss away from being uninsured, and HSAs address this problem.
The option of setting up an HSA both fundamentally changes and improves the personal financing of health care in America. These accounts make sense and more people are beginning to understand this. In 2005, there were 163,346 Health Savings Accounts in Minnesota. That’s an 89 percent increase from 2004. A testament to the way Minnesotans are often at the forefront in healthcare is the fact that Minnesotans are signing up for HSAs at a rate three to four times the national average.
In addition, I will continue to work for better access to affordable health care through Association Health Plans, which would allow small businesses to band together to purchase health insurance for their employees.
Health insurance, prescription drugs, preventive medicine, and new medical technologies must be available to every person who needs them. I will continue to work hard in the United States Senate to make sure that Minnesota’s quality healthcare tradition continues, and that every Minnesotan can receive the benefit of this care.
A New Vision for Aging
The aging of Baby Boomers, combined with increasing longevity and declining birth rates, is presenting us with unique healthcare challenges. What does this mean for individuals, families, communities and the US as a nation? To me, it means we cannot just maintain the status quo. My proposed Consortium on the Impact of Technology in Aging Health Services will build a vision in which older Americans can stay independent longer – living in their own homes, staying active and mobile, contributing to their communities and working, if they choose, well into their senior years.
While we ask citizens to carefully plan for their retirement by establishing savings for health and living expenses, we have a responsibility to plan for their older years by establishing a national infrastructure that can support this shift in demographics. This bill aims to begin a national conversation that will re-think how the population ages. The bill would create a 17-member consortium comprised of health care providers, technology developers, academic institutions, researchers, and government agencies, tasked with fostering innovation, improving quality of life, realizing cost savings and helping the United States and Minnesota take a leadership role in the expanding global market of aging services technology.
Help for the Hearing Impaired
Hearing loss is one of the most common and widespread health problems affecting Americans today. To help families cope, I have introduced the Hearing Aid Assistance Tax Credit Act, legislation that would provide senior citizens and parents of hearing impaired children with a tax credit, once every five years, of up to $500 toward the purchase of any hearing aid device.
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