Health Care

In the United States Senate, I am working in support of a number of initiatives to reduce the number of uninsured Americans, to enhance health care access for those without insurance, and to make health insurance more affordable for those who do have coverage.

I am pleased to report that Congress has recently taken several positive steps in the right direction. Funding for community health centers, which provide health care services to medically under-served areas, has increased in recent years. In addition, Congress, with my support, passed legislation that will allow more affordable generic drugs to more easily come to market and passed legislation to create health savings accounts to make it easier for Americans to save for future healthcare expenses. Moreover, for those older Americans that lack insurance coverage for prescription drugs, legislation was recently signed into law to update the Medicare program to include a prescription drug benefit.

Despite these advances, however, I recognize that more work needs to be done. Therefore, I remain supportive of additional measures to increase health care access and improve health care quality. For example, Congress must seriously examine proposals to create a refundable tax credit for the purchase of health insurance. Congress should also pass mental health parity legislation to enhance mental health insurance coverage for millions of Americans.

In 2008, I will continue to seek solutions to the dilemma confronting the millions of Americans without health insurance coverage, and the millions more attempting to cope with ever increasing health care costs.