Hillary Clinton Campaign Press Release - Clinton Campaign Announces "Iowa Impact Report" of Hillary's New Health Care Plan

Hillary's American Health Choices Plan will cover 270,000 uninsured Iowans; Save Average Families $2,200 a Year

DES MOINES, IA – Today, the Iowans for Hillary campaign released a report that documents how Hillary Clinton's American Health Choices Plan would affect Iowa.

"As I travel the Hawkeye state I meet numerous families who are struggling to deal with the rising costs of health care," said Senator Hillary Clinton. "This is a moral crisis in Iowa and in America and that is why I have been the leading advocate for universal care for over a decade. My plan recognizes that we all have different needs and offers a menu of choices so that every American can choose which plan best fits their family."

For more information about Hillary Clinton's health care plan, please visit www.hillaryclinton.com/healthcare.

Iowa's Health Choices:

Hillary Clinton's Plan to Ensure Affordable, Quality Health Care for All Iowa Residents

On Monday, September 17, Hillary Clinton unveiled the third part of her plan to ensure that all Americans have affordable, quality health insurance. Her American Health Choices Plan will provide quality, affordable health care to all Americans – including the 270,000 uninsured Iowa residents and the tens of thousands of Iowa workers with coverage who fear they could be one pink slip away from losing their health coverage. [U.S. Census, 2007]. For Iowa residents with health insurance, the plan builds on the current system to give businesses and their employees greater choice of health plans – including keeping the one they have – while lowering cost and improving quality.

Quality, Affordable Coverage for ALL Iowa Workers and Families

The American Health Choices Plan will ensure quality, affordable health care for all Americans by lowering costs, improving quality, and providing new choices for health coverage:

• If you are one of the 1,930,000 Iowa residents that are currently covered by an employer-sponsored or individual plan, Senator Clinton's plan provides you with flexibility and choice—you can keep the plan that you have, you can choose from a menu of quality private plans just like those offered to Members of Congress, or you can opt for a public plan option similar to Medicare. [Kaiser Family Foundation, 2006].

• If you are one of the 270,000 Iowa residents that have no health insurance—including 39,000 children [1][1] —Senator Clinton's plan will finally ensure that you can get quality, affordable health care. Iowa has seen a 45% increase in the number of uninsured since President Bush took office. [U.S. Census, 2007]. Senator Clinton's plan will help reverse this trend by providing new refundable tax credits to help cover the cost of high-quality health coverage for all Iowa residents. Those credits will guarantee that securing quality health care never becomes a crushing burden for Iowa families, by guaranteeing that premiums never rise above a certain percentage of family income.

• If you are one of the 357,000 Iowa seniors on Medicare, Senator Clinton's plan will retain your coverage while making prescription drugs more affordable and easier to obtain. [Kaiser Family Foundation, 2006].

• If you are one of the 350,000 Iowa residents receiving public insurance, Senator Clinton's plan will fix the holes in the safety net to ensure that the most vulnerable populations receive affordable, quality care. This includes the more than 37,000 children enrolled in SCHIP—a program Senator Clinton helped create in 1997, and continues to fight for in the Senate. [Iowa Fiscal Partnership, 2007: includes Hawk-I and the Medicaid expansion component of SCHIP].

Lower Costs and Greater Security for Iowa Families

All Iowa residents will benefit from lower costs and greater security under Senator Clinton's plan. Like families across the country, Iowa residents have been squeezed by skyrocketing health costs—family premiums are up 44% since 2000. [HHS]. Senator Clinton's plan will provide needed relief by bringing down premiums for working families. Senator Clinton has a comprehensive plan to reduce health care costs by modernizing our health care infrastructure that will result in tangible savings for Iowa families. According to a recent estimate by the Business Roundtable, AARP and SEIU, Senator Clinton's plan to institute a paperless health information technology system could save $165 billion per year—or $2,200 for a typical family.

In addition, Senator Clinton will lower costs and increase security by putting an end to insurance company discrimination. Today in America, insurance companies spend tens of billions of dollars per year figuring out how to avoid costly beneficiaries. Senator Clinton's plan creates new standards that all insurers must follow to ensure that no American is ever again discriminated against by being denied coverage, refused renewal of an insurance policy, unfairly priced out of the market, or charged excessive insurance premiums. Health plans will compete on cost and quality rather than avoiding patients who need insurance the most—ending discrimination and putting money in families' wallets.

Lower Costs and Increased Competitiveness for Iowa Businesses

Senator Clinton recognizes that rising health care costs are affecting the ability of Iowa businesses to compete in the global marketplace and create good, high-paying jobs here in the U.S. Her American Health Choices Plan makes health care more affordable for businesses by ending cost-shifting, increasing insurance options, providing relief for retiree health care costs, and by assuring quality and value in our health care system.

• Lower Costs and Shared Responsibility for Iowa's Large Employers: Senator Clinton's American Health Choices Plan makes health care more affordable for businesses by ending cost-shifting, increasing insurance options, and assuring quality and value in our health care system. Since every American will have health insurance coverage under the plan, businesses will no longer be required to pay the hidden health care "tax" of financing health care services to the uninsured. In addition firms will have more options—they may continue providing health care coverage through existing arrangements, or may purchase coverage for employees through the new Health Choices Menu. In return, the plan will require large firms to provide health insurance or contribute to the cost of the system.

• New Tax Credit for Iowa Small Business: Recognizing that small businesses are a driving force in new job creation, the Clinton plan provides financial incentives for small businesses to purchase health insurance coverage for their employees. Many small businesses in Iowa are struggling to do their part—only 37% provide health care coverage for their employees today. [Kaiser Family Foundation, 2006]. Yet health premiums for those Iowa small businesses that do provide coverage are up 40% since 2000. [HHS, 2006]. The American Health Choices Plan recognizes the pressure these small businesses face, and provides a new tax credit to help offset the cost of providing coverage. For the 37% of small firms that currently offer coverage, the new tax credit will help them continue coverage, and for the 63% who don't, the credit will make it more attractive and more possible than ever before to provide health care for their employees.

• Retiree Health Legacy Initiative: For employers with workforces that face unusually high health care costs due to a high ratio of retirees, the American Health Choices Plan will provide a tax credit for qualifying private and public retiree health plans to offset a significant portion of catastrophic expenditures that exceed a certain threshold.

Concrete Steps to Address Iowa's Nurse Shortage

Iowa faces an acute shortage of registered nurses, where nurses rank last in salaries among the states and earn 24% less than the national average. [Iowa Policy Project, 9/2/2007; BLS, State Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates, 5/2006] That shortage appears to be growing—Iowa was short 2,300 nurses in 2005 and is predicted to be short more than 9,100 in 2020. [Iowa Department of Health, Status of the Nurse Workforce in Iowa February 2006] Extreme nurse and nurse faculty shortages can endanger patient care. Senator Clinton's plan to emphasize quality in the health care workforce will address this shortage by increasing funding for nurse residencies, providing short-term funding to nursing schools to boost enrollment and establishing innovative training and mentoring programs to improve retention over the long-term.