President Obama Addresses AMA on Need for Health Care Reform
In
an address before the American Medical Association in Chicago,
President Barack Obama made the case for his plan to reform the
nation’s health care system. Throughout his hour-long address,
President Obama touched on several glaring issues and rolling out was
there to give you some of the president’s most prominent points.
–gavin philip godfrey
Comparing the Health Crisis to the Auto Industry
“A big part of what led General Motors and Chrysler into trouble in
recent decades were the huge costs they racked up providing health care
for their workers — costs that made them less profitable and less
competitive with automakers around the world. If we do not fix our
health care system, America might go the way of GM — paying more,
getting less and going broke. When it comes to the cost of our health
care, the status quo is unsustainable.”
Embracing New Technology to Track Medical Records
“It simply doesn’t make sense that patients in the 21st century are
still filling out forms with pens and papers. As Newt Gingrich has
rightly pointed out, ‘We do a better job tracking a FedEx package in
this country than we do tracking patients health records.’ You
shouldn’t have to tell every new doctor you see about your medical
history or what prescriptions you’re taking, you shouldn’t have to
repeat costly tests.”
Injecting Quality Into the Health Care System
“It’s a model that rewards the quantity of care rather than the quality
of care that pushes you — the doctor — to see more and more patients
even if you can’t spend much time with each and gives you every extra
incentive to order another MRI or EKG, even if it’s not necessary. It
is a model that has taken the pursuit of medicine from a profession — a
calling — to a business … you didn’t enter this profession to be bean
counters or paper pushers. You entered this profession to be healers
and that’s what our health care system should let you be.”
On the Need for Health Care Reform in America
“The reform is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. When I hear people say,
‘Why are you taking this on right now, you’ve got all these other
problems?’ I keep reminding people I’d love to be able to defer these
issues, but we can’t. I know there’s been much discussion on what
reform would cost and rightly so. This is a test of whether we —
Democrats and Republicans alike — are serious about holding the line on
new spending and restoring fiscal discipline … let there be no doubt —
the cost of inaction is greater. If we fail to act — benefits will
erode further, [and] the rolls of the uninsured will swell to include
millions more Americans.”
