We ask Congress and President to act in the First 100 Days to expand health care and improve the
public’s health: [1]
Extend and expand health coverage and access.
■ Children – Expand SCHIP to cover ages 0 – 25
■ Medicare – Extend coverage and access:
· Lower the eligibility age to 50.
· Eliminate the 24-month wait for Medicare benefits for persons with qualifying disabilities.
■ Medicaid – Increase enrollment and access:
· Increase the federal match in Medicaid funding and minimize cost shifting to patients.
· End the categorical nature of Medicaid eligibility and extend eligibility to everyone living in poverty, and
to all recipients of unemployment compensation.
· Simplify the documentation and application requirements.
· Increase transparency of the state waiver process that is eroding federal standards for Medicaid.
■ Safety-net institutions: Increase funding for public hospitals, and for community
and migrant health centers.
Halt erosion of traditional, public Medicare.
■ Stop the excess payments to Medicare Advantage plans. (In President's Budget)
■ Cancel the 2010 Medicare Comparative Cost Adjustment demonstration. (Speaker Pelosi deferred for 2
years.)
■ Eliminate the arbitrary 45% cap on general revenue funding for Medicare. (The House refuses to implement
it.).
■ Eliminate means-tested (income-based) premiums for Medicare Part B.
Improve access to affordable medicines.
■
Create a public prescription drug benefit within traditional Medicare, requiring CMS to negotiate drug prices.
■ Allow re-importation of prescription drugs. (In President's budget)
Policy
and Program Initiatives for the First Year
Ensure health justice for veterans
■ Eliminate the barriers (financial, administrative and gender) to timely health care for veterans.
Improve the health of the nation
■ Take steps now to link action across government sectors (employment, housing, education,
environment, commerce and trade, health) to address the social and economic conditions and policies that make people sick
and produce health inequities: economic deprivation, discrimination, and adverse conditions at work, in the environment, and
in the neighborhood.[3] Make improving health and reducing health inequities a criterion for all government initiatives.
Build a basis for effective, efficient financing and delivery
of health care
■
Speed up the development of an adequate primary care workforce.
■ Investigate the effectiveness, efficiency, and discriminatory
practices in the health insurance industry.
■
Compare effectiveness of medical treatments and implement best practices.
(In Recovery Act )
■ Propose adequate, stable Medicare financing with cost-growth containment to ensure Medicare’s continued ability
to meet beneficiary needs without being burdensome financially.
■ Enact universal coverage for quality, affordable, publicly accountable health care.
[1] Our nation’s hard-won commitment to parity for mental health
coverage must be implemented throughout.
