Hillary Clinton pens plan for university & quality healthcare — 13 key points on how the candidate aims to transform the industry

Practice Management

In New England Journal of Medicine, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton answered the journal's question concerning her healthcare plans. The question included:

•    What specific changes in policy do you support to improve access to care, improve quality of care and control health care costs for our nation?

 

Here are 13 key points on Ms. Clinton's plans for healthcare:

 

1. If elected president, Ms. Clinton notes she will continue to provide accessible and quality healthcare to all Americans, a goal she says she has strived for throughout her political career.

 

Building upon the Affordable Care Act
2. In order to achieve this goal, Ms. Clinton believes the nation needs to build upon President Obama's ACA. In her article, Ms. Clinton cites recent Census Bureau data stating less than 10 percent of Americans are uninsured, which proves the ACA is an important stepping stone to achieving universal healthcare.

 

3. Ms. Clinton plans to improve the ACA by expanding Medicare in the current 19 non-Medicaid expansion states. Additionally, as president, she would work to improve tax credits to make coverage affordable and push forth measures to truncate prescription drug costs.

 

4. To make healthcare more affordable, Ms. Clinton said the government needs to increase payer competition and launch an "aggressive" campaign geared toward boosting outreach and enrollment. Ms. Clinton writes, "And finally, we need to ensure the availability of a public option choice in every state, and let Americans over 55 buy into Medicare. Taken together, these policies will increase competition, choice, affordability and the number of Americans with insurance."

 

Make healthcare affordable for every American
5. To achieve this second goal, Ms. Clinton said she would offer a refundable tax credit up to $5,000 per family to offset high out-of-pocket costs. She also plans to set a mandate on payers to limit out-of-pocket prescription drug costs to $250 a month on covered medications.

 

6. In an effort to address high prescription drug costs, Ms. Clinton states she will work to get rid of competition barriers by "streamlining approval of high-quality biosimilar and generic drugs." Such proposals to achieving this goal include having pharmaceutical companies justify their prices, eliminating "pay-to-delay" practices as well as letting Medicare directly negotiate for better prices.

 

7. Finally, Ms. Clinton writes she will "aggressively weed out fraud, waste and abuse in any federally subsidized program by incorporating nonpartisan ideas from such expert groups as the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission."

 

Integrated healthcare delivery
8. Ms. Clinton will strive for an integrated healthcare system in which providers treat the whole patient and can provide the best care possible. To achieve this goal, she first plans to use providers' expertise to help streamline and improve private and public payers' policies that promote high quality and less costly healthcare.

 

9. Additionally, Ms. Clinton wants to eliminate the stigma surrounding mental healthcare and address lack of access to primary healthcare, dental care and mental healthcare by forming partnerships between healthcare systems, public health departments and community-based organizations.

 

10. Ms. Clinton wants to ensure women have the right to make personal health decisions and will fight any and all efforts to restrict access to "quality, affordable reproductive healthcare and defend access to affordable contraception, preventive care and safe and legal abortion — not just in principle, but in practice."

 

11. She writes she will work on reforms that advocate for all providers to spend more time with patients.

 

Eradicating diseases
12. As president, Ms. Clintons says she will work to ensure both the scientific community and regulatory systems are striving for innovation and will boost funding for biomedical research across all diseases. She writes, "We must maintain a continued commitment to the cancer moon shot so we can provide healthcare providers with new tools and treatments for their patients."

 

13. Ms. Clinton concludes the article by stating healthcare for Americans should be neither a partisan nor a divisive issue. She says, if elected president, "I will work tirelessly with anyone dedicated to improving our families' health and ensuring that the promise of affordable, quality healthcare is achieved for all Americans.

 

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