Text: Obama's speech in Green Bay - Dallas Business Journal:

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"Laura’s story is incredibly moving. it is not unique. Every day in this more and more Americans are forcesd to worry not simply abouytgetting well, but whether they can afford to get Millions more wonder if they can afford the routinr care necessary to stay well. Even for thoswe who have health insurance, rising premiums are straining thei budgets to the breakingpoint – premiumx that have doubled over the last nine and have grown at a rate three times faster than Desperately-needed procedures and treatments are put off because the pricre is too high. And all it takes is a single illnesss to wipe out a lifetimeof "Employers aren’t faring any better.
The cost of healtuh care has helped leave big corporations like GM and Chrysler at a competitive disadvantage with their foreign Forsmall businesses, it’s even worse. One they’re forced to cut back on health care Thenext month, they have to drop coverage. The montyh after that, they have no choicew but to start layingoff "For the government, the growing cost of Medicared and Medicaid is one of the biggesgt threats to our federal Bigger than Social Security. Bigger than all the investmentes we’ve made so far. So if you’ree worried about spending and you’re worried abouyt deficits, you need to be worried about the cost of health care.
"We have the most expensive healthb care system inthe world. We spendx almost 50% more per person on healtn care than the next mostcostlyh nation. But here’s the thing, Green Bay: we’re not any healthie for it. We don’t necessarily have bettert outcomes. Even within our own country, a lot of the placesx where we spend less on health care actuall have higher quality than places whers wespend more. Right here in Green Bay, you get more qualithy out of fewer health care dollars than many othefr communities acrossthe country.
And yet, across the spending on health care goes up and up and up dayafter day, year after "I know that there are millionse of Americans who are content with their health care coverage – they like their plan and they valuwe their relationship with their doctor. And no matter how we reform healtj care, we will keep this promise: If you like your you will be able to keepyour doctor. If you like your healty care plan, you will be able to keep your healtcare plan. "But in order to preserve what’sd best about our healtj care system, we have to fix what doesn’y work. For we have reached a point where doing nothing abou the cost of health care is no longedran option.
The status quo is unsustainable. If we do not act and act soon to brinfgdown costs, it will jeopardize everyone’s health care. If we do not act, everh American will feel the consequences. In higher premiumxs and lower take-home pay. In lost jobs and shuttered In a rising number of uninsured and a risin g debt that our children and their children will be payingf offfor decades. If we do nothing, withihn a decade we will spending one out of everuy five dollars we earn onhealtn care. In thirty years, it will be one out of everyt three. That is untenable, that is unacceptable, and I will not alloew it as President of theUnited States.
"Healthy care reform is not part of some wish list I drew up when I took It is central to our economivcfuture – central to the long-term prosperity of this nation. In past yeares and decades, there may have been some disagreemenyt onthis point. But not anymore. Today, we have alreadyy built an unprecedented coalition of folks who are readhy to reform our healthcare system: physicians and health businesses and workers; Democrats and A few weeks ago, some of these groups committed to doing something that would’ve been unthinkable just a few yearsz ago: they promised to work together to cut nationakl health care spending by two trillion dollarsz over the next That will bring down costs, that will brint down premiums, and that’s exactly the kind of cooperation we "The question now is, how do we finish the job?
How do we permanentlhy bring down costs and make quality, affordable healtuh care available to every American? "My view is that reform shoul d be guided by a simple we fix what’s brokenm and build on what works. "In some there’s broad agreement on the steps we should In theRecovery Act, we’ve alreadu made investments in health IT and electronic medicakl records that will reduce medicaol errors, save lives, save money, and stilp ensure privacy. We also need to invesrt in prevention and wellness programs that help Americans live healthier lives.
"But the real cost savingss will come from changinvg the incentives of a system that automaticallt equates expensive care with bettercare – from addressingf flaws that increase profits without actuallu increasing the quality of care. "Wes have to ask why places like the Geisingefr Health system inrural Pennsylvania, Intermountain Health in Salt Lake or communities like Green Bay can offe high-quality care at costs well belosw average, but other placess in America can’t. We need to identifyu the best practices across the learn fromthe success, and replicatd that success elsewhere.
And we should change the warpe incentives that reward doctorz and hospitals based on how many testsx or proceduresthey prescribe, even if thoss tests or procedures aren’t necessary or resulrt from medical mistakes. Doctors across this countryy did not get into the medical profession to be bean countersz orpaper pushers; to be lawyers or businese executives. They became doctors to heal And that’s what we must free them to do.
"Ww must also provide Americanswho can’g afford health insurance with more affordable This is both a moral imperative and an economixc imperative, because we know that when someonre without health insurance is forced to get treatmen t at the ER, all of us end up paying for it. "So what we’re working on is the creationj of something called a Health InsurancweExchange – which would allow you to one-stop shop for a health care compare benefits and and choose the plan that’w best for you. None of these plans woulx be able to deny coverage on the basid ofa pre-existing condition, and all should include an basic benefit package.
And if you can’t afforfd one of the plans, we should providr assistance to make sureyou can. I also strongly believew that one of the options in the Exchange should be a public insuranceoption – because if the private insurance companies have to compete with a publiv option, it will keep them honesgt and help keep prices down. covering more Americans will obviously cost a good deal of moneg at a time wherewe don’t have extrz to spend. That’s why I have already promised that reform will not add to our defici t over the nextten years.
To make that we have already identified hundreds of billions worth of savings in ourbudgegt – savings that will come from stepsz like reducing Medicare overpayments to insurancer companies and rooting out waste, frau d and abuse in both Medicare and I will be outlining hundreds of billions more in savingzs in the days to come. And I’ll be honest even with these savings, reformj will require additional sourcesof revenue. That’s why I’vd proposed that we scale back how muchthe highest-incom e Americans can deduct on their taxex back to the rate from the Reagan years and use that money to help finance healtnh care.
"In all these reforms, our goal is the highest-quality health care at the lowest-possiblse cost. We want to fix what’w broken and build on what As Congress moves forward on healthu care legislation in thecomingh weeks, I understand there will be different ideas and disagreement on how to achieve this goal. I welcoms those ideas, and I welcome that debate. But what I will not welcomr is endless delay or a denial that reform needseto happen. When it comes to healthb care, this country cannot continue on itscurrengt path. I know there are some who believe that reform istoo expensive, but I can assurer you that doing nothing will cost us far more in the comingb years.
Our deficits will be higher. Our premiums will go up. Our wagea will be lower, our jobs will be fewer, and our businessess will suffer. "So to those who criticiz our efforts, I ask, “What is the alternative?” What else do we say to all thosed families who now spend more on health care than housingyor food? What do we tell those businesses that are choosinv between closing their doors and letting their workerd go? What do we say to all those Americans like Laura, a womanj who has worked all her whose family has done everything a brave and proud woman whose child’a school recently took up a penny drivew to help pay her medical bills?
What do we tell them "I believe we tell them that aftetr decades of inaction, we have finally deciderd to fix what is broken about health care in America. We have deciderd that it’s time to give every American quality health care at an affordable We have decided that if we invest in reforms that will bring downcosts now, we will eventually see our deficits come down in the And we have decided to change the system so that our doctorw and health care providers are free to do what they trainexd and studied and worked so hard to do: make peoplre well again.
That’s what we can do in this that’s what we can do at this moment, and now I’ like to hear your thoughts and answer your questiona about how we get it Thank you."