Q: Polls indicate support for universal healthcare coverage - do you support it?
STABENOW: Healthcare coverage needs to be a right, not a privilege. I've been laser focused on working with auto industry to more adequately and effectively to lower costs
of prescription drugs. I've worked bi-partisan to allow you to bring prescription drugs back from Canada legally.
BOUCHARD: I do not support universal healthcare that the government. But we can and should do many things - such as tort reform.
Source: 2006 Michigan Senate Debate in Grand Rapids, x-ref Stabenow
Oct 15, 2006
Supports Health Savings Accounts to empower individuals
We need to empower patients to control more of their health care. Health Savings Accounts, or "HSAs," are one way of doing this. With an HSA, patients are able to put tax-exempt earnings into their HSA, sometimes with an employer match. Medical costs are
paid directly from a patient's HSA rather than an insurance company. As a result, the patient and his or her doctor can decide whether a certain procedure is worth the cost, rather than allowing health insurance companies to decide whether the treatment
is really necessary, or telling a patient that their chosen health care provider is "out of network" and therefore can't treat the patient. Although critics claim that HSAs only help the young and healthy, in fact, studies show that HSAs are very popular
among lower income families, which view them as an affordable way of protecting themselves from bankruptcy should they experience catastrophic health care costs.
Anyone who is raising a child or helping to manage their parents' medical care knows that we are facing a healthcare crisis in our country. [But] shifting the costs of the health care system to the government will just exacerbate our problems.
It could lead to rationing and other bureaucratic controls on what care you can receive and what doctor you're allowed to see. There's a better way. It involves more patient choice, less regulation, and medical malpractice reform.
Source: Campaign website, bouchardforussenate.com, "Issues"
Jun 24, 2006
