PRIORITIES: Quality
The Doctors Caucus is committed to ensuring that our nation’s health care remains the best in the world. Many foreign countries look to our shores when they are sick and in need of care. Our country produces roughly 80% of the world’s medical advances and is seen as the model for quality in the world. Consumer-driven reforms that put the patient more in charge of their own health care decisions can support the reforms in health care that we all know must happen without decreasing the quality of care in the process.
PRIORITIES: Access
The Doctors Caucus is committed to ensuring that all Americans have access to quality health care. Doctors believe that chronic illness and cost are two main barriers between patients and quality coverage. Consumer-driven health reforms that seek to put the patient and their physicians in control of how care is accessed can greatly increase a patient’s access to quality health care. Allowing patient’s the freedom to choose a plan that fits their needs – regardless of where they reside – and encouraging the creation of more affordable products for all patients, regardless of age or illness, can help us achieve a more efficient and less costly health care system. Reforming our health care system in a way that equalizes opportunities to purchase health care for all Americans – regardless of means or illness – will ensure that cost and illness are no longer barriers to quality health care in this country.
PRIORITIES: Affordability
The Doctors Caucus is committed to increasing the affordability of health care for all Americans. We all know that the cost of health care is climbing faster than inflation and wages. This increase makes health care less affordable for an increasing number of Americans each year. It is increasingly hard on those who are sick or live on fixed incomes. If our country does not address this increase, it has the potential to add millions more Americans to the ranks of the uninsured in the near future. Physicians understand that the more choices of care and coverage that patients have in front of them, the more that competition can reduce the cost of health coverage. In addition, reducing waste and fraud in our health care system and increasing its efficiency through – among other things – the adoption of Health Information Technology has the potential to save our system billions and transform it into a system for the 21st century.
PRIORITIES: Portability
People should be allowed to take health coverage with them when they change jobs, and not lose insurance when they are ill or have a preexisting condition.
PRIORITIES: Choice
Americans should have the choice to purchase plans across the country – currently, health insurance shopping is limited to within a state’s boundaries, while there are sizeable cost disparities between states. Americans should have the choice to join groups – small businesses or individuals should be allowed to purchase insurance as a large group to increase purchasing power and demand lower costs. Americans should have the choice to purchase a healthcare plan that meets individual needs – choice is now limited as states mandate what insurance companies have to cover. Different states have different requirements that end up driving up costs. Americans should have the ability to choose their doctor and healthcare coverage – not have their options dictated to them by the government.
