Going to try this, not sure I can stay on but will do what I can:
First time he ever did this.
We are all experts on health care because we all use it.
3 statements — true or false?
us spends more money on care than other countries
does not get better outcomes
14k per day lose their health care
press 1 if all three are true or 2 if any of the three statements is fase
wait for results – fear that they’ll be forced to another plan
No. Talks about the exchange large purchasing pool. Like the Fed health benefits program works.
18% all three statements true
82% thought that at least one was false.
1st question Clifford How we pay for this? His wife answered. She is scared of what will be taken from her she is 80, husband 83. More explanation so they are not so fearful Lots of misinformation.
Pharma has kicked in 80M to close the donut hole for the Medicare Part D. Says this fills in half the donut hole.
Waste fraud and abuse elimination
2nd Robert for Wilmington wants to know about tort reform and why we haven’t heard it.
Says Delaware has done alot of work for this reform.
More state driven than fed driven.
Knows about caps, not sure this is a good idea,
Other states have good ideas to look at and adopt
Sorry Works
Health Courts possibly
3rd (did not get name) Compassionate Care Act Hope he (Carper) is willing to defend it because it is needed and useful. Notes medical tourism from here. Very supportive of the public option and the the way other countries deal with insurance.
Carper — something in place that keeps insurance companies are honest whether it is public option or co-ops. Suggests the entire Fed Employee Health Benefit plan be opened up to everyone to increase the purchasing pool. Says that overhead are 3% per premium. Some repubs not interested in this. Health exchange would be similar to this to keep the overheard to 3%. Goes through the trigger option as a fallback.
4th Dave from Newark. Does not want illegal aliens to be able to join the plan. Carper says that the plan does not cover undocumented folks and no plan to.
5th Harry and Linda from Newark. Question about rationing — (Van Jones is a radical communist!!!) many wingnut talking points. Wants to know why they believe that the gov won’t ration.
Carper notes that there is rationing now. Guy disagrees saying his mom had medical issues and no one rationed her care (she had Medicare for cryin out loud!) Carper does push back on this — that insurance companies decide what care people get all of the time.
6th somebody from Magnolia Tim Murray — doesn’t want things to change too much. Does not want 51 votes (1). Wants repubs to participate so everyone is represented.
Carper talks about reconciliation process. Finance still working on this — 3 Dems 3 repubs talked with Olympia Snowe who is still working and thinks that this should be a bipartisan bill.
7th A Doctor calling asking about cost control. Wants a phased approach to see spending cuts first before doing all of this.
Carper compares process to immigration reform — multiple steps and decided not to do that approach. This process needs to rein in costs (it is bankrupting companies and states), extend coverage to everybody. Talked about Geisinger, Mayo Cleveland non-profits who are doing such a great job. Primary care, wellness, chronic disease management, no fee for service, excellent results for less money. Wants to incentivize that for Medicare.
I asked a question! Asked how you get serious competition — one that gets the insurance companies to rethink their business model without a public option.
Says that it will work just like the Fed plan. Sys that the fall back public plan hasn’t been used and still claims that there is competition and successful. Drug plan under budget.
9th someone from Selbyville asking about deminishment of his Medicare benefits with this plan and also asks about a costly arrangement for renting a nebulizer.
Carper says no just provide better care, better outcomes, cover more people. Talks about the VA system and that this is more functional than lots of what we have.
10th from Harrington (?) Asking about pre-existing conditions. Can’t leave your job if you have a pre-existing condition, we have single payer via Medicare and we have socialized medicine via the VA. Also wants Dems to do better about countering the lies on Fox News.
Carper likes going on Fox (the lions den) and says that you can only set the record straight when you can. Thinks that medicare could learn something from the VA system. Talks about the exchanges again — this time talks abut this as a REGIONAL exchange — but pre-existing conditions won’t be germane in this exchange. One page insurance forms.
11th Irene from Wilmington wants to know if he has read the bill (?) . Explains that there are lots of bills plus the President’s proposal. He won’t read all of the bills. Will read the Finance bill.
12th from Seaford — if illegals don’t get covered how will they be handled (wasn’t on the call). Wants to send message that we are not paying for health care for undocumented workers but this does not stop people from going to the emergency room.
13th — explain co ops. Says that thes are not unlike credit unions (?). Some successful some not. Puget Sound successful — says that Geisinger, Mayo Intermountain Health, Cleveland are good models (even tho they are NOT coops Tom). Invokes VA as one of these models.
14th from Shelbyville — wants to know about the cost of the program and the deficit. How to pay for it when we pay 1B per year to China, 1B for medicare and we are cutting $500M from Medicare.
Invokes his Treasurer’s hat. Ran up as much new debt in the last 8 year as we did in the previous 208 years. admits not sustainable. Says that medical costs are a major portion of the GDP and more growth is not sustainable. Doug Elemendorf — house bill increases defict, others did not. (This is a glib answer) GM Chrysler in bankruptcy in no small part because of medical costs. Goes back to the nonprofit models to control the costs.
15th Reverend Cherry (?) from Dover wants to know why people are so afraid of Living Wills. She just got hers done a few days ago and want to know why this is such an issue. Carper asked her to explain what the process she went thru was, but she could not hear. Carper says his mom had one and explains how this works — that you are making your end of life choices now, when you are clear thinking and not leaving the decision to family of doctors or nurses. Says that death panels are CRAZY.
16th from New Castle from C. Whitfield re: the military in this process. She sells insurance. She thinks that we need tort reform first. Says that there are enough doctors in the military system, 2 months to get a prescription refilled, have to go to other bases at expense of time to get to doctors and services. Walter Reed problems.
Carper — Walter Reed not a VA but nothing to make anyone proud. Do not have enough primary care doctors anywhere including the military. Continues to talk about how good the VA is — electronic health record. Goes back to talk about his mom — she had 5 doctors providing various services and the absence of an electronic health care would have let her have much better coordinate d care. Gates has ordered electronic health records for active military ASAP. Not so good of an answer.
17 C. Pruitt from Milton — wants to know about uninsured people crowding emergency rooms. She has TriCare and VA and she is happy with it. Wants to reduce the number of people going to emergency rooms since everyone with insurance pay for the people in emergency rooms because they have no insurance. Carper says this is true. That people with insurance pay about 1K per year to cover uninsured costs. Talks about the Insurance Exchange again.
18 R. Henry in Smyrna This may be the last question. How can this new coverage be deficit neutral. Carper says that the President says we cannot increase the deficit so they have been working on this. Carper won’t vote for this if it increases the deficit or if it does not begin to control costs.
He is wrapping up. Says that he is trying to share the correct info and get past the misinformation. Says there are about 1000 people on this call. Thinks that he may do this again within the week.
Says that everyone will not be happy, but he wants to pass something that will be of the greatest use to the most number of people.
OK it is over and I am exhausted. This is hard work! Anyway, I left a voicemeail message to ask about whether he would commit to voting for the public option. I should have asked that, but I really want to know how he thinks that a health exchange would provide the competition needed to start bringing down insurance costs.