FRANK LAUTENBERG
QUESTION 3 RESPONSE
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We are facing a health care crisis in our country. More than 47 million Americans, including 1.3 million people in New Jersey, are uninsured and millions more struggle to afford even basic insurance. These Americans often cannot afford to see a doctor when they get sick or, worse, when they need treatment for life-threatening diseases. Too often, uninsured or underinsured individuals and families do not get preventative care like vaccinations and cancer screenings and, too often, they end up in crowded emergency rooms when sick or facing medical emergencies. This is why I support universal health care. I believe every American should have affordable access to quality health care.

A universal health care system is not only the right thing to do, it is also good public policy. Individuals without health insurance are more likely to postpone or forego needed health care, end up hospitalized for preventable health problems or be diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Each of these problems help drive up health care spending, costing the health care system billions of dollars each year. In fact, last year, New Jersey spent $1.3 billion on charity care to cover uninsured residents. Even with this charity care, nine hospitals in New Jersey have closed in the last two years largely because they were unable to cover the cost of providing care to the uninsured patients.

The majority of the uninsured are working families who do not earn enough income to afford private insurance but earn too much to be eligible for government programs. I believe a successful universal health care system should expand on successful programs, like the Children’s Health Insurance Program, that help insure tens of thousands of children in New Jersey and across the country. That’s why, last year I supported an expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program that would have provided health insurance to an additional three million children. I voted twice to override President Bush’s veto of this successful program’s expansion and defeated attempts that would have terminated existing health insurance coverage for 3,200 New Jersey children.

My opponent, on the other hand, supports a health care plan that would remove incentives for employers to provide health insurance, forcing more middle-income patients to buy health insurance on their own. The plan he supports could allow insurers to exclude patients with preexisting conditions and force families with serious health problems to face significantly higher premiums. Finally, the plan he supports won't make any real dent in the number of families in need of coverage and could result in insurance companies offering fewer patient services.

I have long-fought to increase coverage for children, seniors and families in our state. That’s why, in addition to my work on children’s health insurance, I so strongly support continued access to life-saving prescription drugs. In fact, during the Medicare prescription drug debate, the Bush Administration and their Republican allies in Congress would have eliminated New Jersey’s successful PAAD and Senior Gold prescription drug programs. These programs are critical to our state, providing prescription drugs to more than 200,000 New Jersey seniors. I fought to allow New Jersey to keep its more-generous drug plans – and won – helping those seniors keep their coverage.

I also believe any universal health care system should help families purchase health insurance. I support legislation to allow families access to insurance through the same program that covers federal employees and Members of Congress. I also support health care reforms to allow small businesses to come together to purchase health insurance for their employers and provide tax credits to make it easier for them to cover the cost of insurance.

Any proposed universal health care system must also focus on prevention. I have worked throughout my career to focus on preventing health problems before they happen. One clear example of that focus on prevention is taking on the tobacco companies that have tried to prey on our children for too long. That’s why I wrote the law banning smoking on airplanes, which protected individuals from secondhand smoke and started the smoke-free revolution we see in restaurants, office buildings and thousands of other places across the state and the country. I followed up that landmark legislation by banning smoking in all federally-funded locations serving children. Preventing children from starting to smoke and limiting exposure to second-hand smoke are important steps in improving our nation’s health.

I also support proposals that prevent people from being denied health insurance coverage simply because they have a pre-existing condition like diabetes or cancer. These patients, already trying to cope with their illness, should not have to worry about whether they can afford to get care. In fact, I recently introduced the Children’s Health Protection Act, to prohibit employers and insurers from limiting health insurance coverage to children with a pre-existing condition.

I support paying for this affordable health care system by not continuing President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Instead of giving tax breaks to the wealthy, I support using this money to provide affordable health care to all American families.

We need to do all we can to improve health care delivery in this country and I’m fighting to help deliver quality care and to make that care more affordable – and accessible to everyone.