Principles for Health-Care Reform

2009-12-01

  1. Guarantee by law that everyone has access to affordable health care, from prevention, to treatment, to end-of-life care

    • Eliminate health-care discrepancies between race, ethnicity, sex, age, income, education, urban, rural, and other socio-demographic and geographic factors

    • Require health insurance for all Americans

    • Create affordable coverage options

    • Include basic consumer protections in all health plans, including clear and easily understandable policies, so that the patient is able to discern how coverage is provided

    • Ensure that physicians are not burdened by the administrative costs of a health-care plan (both in terms of time and monetary resources)

  2. Provide every individual with access to comprehensive and preventive care

    • Provide patients with comprehensive care, including patient education, the provision of financial and treatment planning advice, and counseling

    • Recognize the need for comprehensive preventive and long-term care practices, including screening, patient education, psychological services, nutrition, exercise physiology, etc.

    • Provide access to both primary care physicians and specialists

  3. Support quality of care

    • Support evidence-based medicine when available; however, this support is not to the exclusion of valid clinical research or clinical judgment where evidence does not exist (e.g., rare and pediatric disorders)

  4. Protect and invest in research

    • Continue support of clinical and academic research in both the government and private sectors

    • Recognize that research and clinical care are connected and that research enhances the quality of care

  5. Ensure that every physician is paid appropriately

    • Support adequate payment for cognitive physicians

    • Guarantee that reimbursement is given for preventive care (i.e. preventive care includes patient education, psychological services, nutrition, and exercise physiology)

  6. Increase federal support of health information technology (IT)

    • Support funding for health IT to create a higher quality of care for patients by supplying patients with better information and easier access to their health-care records and history

    • Ensure federal support for a universal health IT that will make care between different providers seamless and will allow for true portability of lifetime medical records

    • Implement health IT to create cost effective care that reduces administrative expenses

    • Support innovative and alternative methods for health IT as technology continues to grow

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