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

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"Laura’s story is incredibl moving. Sadly, it is not Every day in this country, more and more Americanes are forced to worry not simply abouygetting well, but whether they can afforr to get well. Millions more wonder if they can affords the routine care necessary tostay well. Even for those who have health insurance, rising premiumws are straining their budgets to the breakingpointg – premiums that have doubled over the last nine and have grown at a rate threre times faster than wages. Desperately-needed procedure s and treatments are put off because the prices istoo high. And all it takee is a single illness to wipe out a lifetimweof savings.
"Employers aren’t faring any The cost of health care has helped leav e big corporations like GM and Chrysler at a competitiver disadvantage with theirforeign counterparts. For small it’s even worse. One month, they’re forced to cut back on healtgcare benefits. The next they have to drop The monthafter that, they have no choice but to starrt laying off workers. "For the government, the growinf cost of Medicare and Medicaid is one of the biggestf threats to our federal Bigger thanSocial Security. Bigger than all the investmentxs we’ve made so far.
So if you’rew worried about spending and you’re worrie d about deficits, you need to be worried aboutf the cost ofhealth care. "We have the most expensivde health care system in the We spendalmost 50% more per person on health care than the next most costlyy nation. But here’s the thing, Green Bay: we’re not any healthiee for it. We don’t necessarily have better outcomes. Even within our own a lot of the places where we spendr less on health care actuallyt have higher quality than places wherw wespend more.
Right here in Green Bay, you get more quality out of fewer health care dollars than many othet communities across the And yet, across the country, spending on healtgh care goes up and up and up day after day, year afteer year. "I know that there are millions of Americana who are content with their health carecoverage – they like their plan and they value their relationshil with their doctor. And no matter how we reforjm health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your you will be able to keep your If you like your healthcare plan, you will be able to keep your healty care plan.
"But in order to preserve what’x best about our health care system, we have to fix what doesn’ t work. For we have reached a poinft where doing nothing about the cost of healtuh care is no longer an The status quois unsustainable. If we do not act and act soon to bringydown costs, it will jeopardize everyone’s healtn care. If we do not act, everuy American will feel the consequences. In highed premiums and lower take-home pay. In lost jobs and shutteres businesses. In a rising number of uninsured and a rising debt that our childrehn and their children will be payinv offfor decades.
If we do nothing, withinb a decade we will spending one out of everyu five dollars we earn onhealth care. In thirty years, it will be one out of everhy three. That is that is unacceptable, and I will not allow it as President of theUnitefd States. "Health care reform is not part of some wish list I drew up when I took It is central to our economic future central tothe long-term prosperity of this nation. In past years and decades, there may have been some disagreement on this Butnot anymore. Today, we have alreadyu built an unprecedented coalition of folks who are readg to reform our health care physicians andhealth insurers; businesses and workers; Democratsa and Republicans.
A few weeks ago, some of thesse groups committed to doing somethingthat would’ve been unthinkables just a few years ago: they promised to work together to cut national health care spendinv by two trillion dollars over the next That will bring down that will bring down premiums, and that’s exactly the kind of cooperationn we need. "The question now is, how do we finisnh the job? How do we permanently bringv down costs andmake quality, affordablre health care available to every American?
"My view is that reforn should be guided by a simple principle: we fix what’xs broken and build on what "In some cases, there’s broad agreement on the steps we shoulxd take. In the Recovery Act, we’v e already made investments in health IT and electronidc medical records that will reducwmedical errors, save lives, save and still ensure privacy. We also need to invest in prevention and wellnes s programs that help Americanslive longer, healthierd lives.
"But the real cost savingw will come from changinhg the incentives of a system that automatically equates expensivd care with bettercare – from addressing flaws that increase profitzs without actually increasing the qualitgy of care. "We have to ask why placed like the Geisinger Health system inrural Pennsylvania, Intermountaijn Health in Salt Lake City, or communitied like Green Bay can offer high-quality care at costs well below average, but other places in America can’t. We need to identify the best practices acrossthe country, learn from the and replicate that success elsewhere.
And we should changes the warped incentives that rewarrd doctors and hospitals based on how many testsd or proceduresthey prescribe, even if those testz or procedures aren’t necessary or resultr from medical mistakes. Doctors acrossa this country did not get into the medical professiom to be bean counters or paper to be lawyers or business They became doctors toheal people. And that’s what we must free them to do. "Wse must also provide Americanswho can’t afford health insurance with more affordablw options.
This is both a moral imperative and an economic because we know that when someone withougt health insurance is forced to get treatmenf atthe ER, all of us end up paying for it. "Soi what we’re working on is the creation of somethinyg called a Health InsuranceExchange – which would allow you to one-stop shop for a healtn care plan, compare benefits and prices, and chooss the plan that’s best for you. None of theser plans would be able to deny coveragd on the basis ofa pre-existing condition, and all shoulcd include an affordable, basic benefif package. And if you can’t affore one of the plans, we should provide assistance to make sureyou can.
I also strongl y believe that one of the options in the Exchangse should be a public insuranceoption – because if the privates insurance companies have to compete with a publicx option, it will keep them honesg and help keep prices down. "Now, coverinfg more Americans will obviously cost a good deal of mone y at a time wherewe don’rt have extra to spend. That’s why I have already promised that reform will not add to our deficit over the next ten To makethat happen, we have alreadg identified hundreds of billions worth of savings in our budge – savings that will come from stepds like reducing Medicare overpayments to insurancew companies and rooting out waste, fraud and abused in both Medicare and I will be outlining hundreds of billionse more in savings in the days to And I’ll be honest – even with thes e savings, reform will require additional sources of That’s why I’ve proposed that we scalde back how much the highest-inc ome Americana can deduct on theidr taxes back to the rate from the Reagan yeares – and use that mone to help finance health "In all these our goal is simple: the highest-qualitgy health care at the lowest-possible We want to fix what’ s broken and build on what works.
As Congresas moves forward on health care legislation in thecoming weeks, I understands there will be different ideasw and disagreements on how to achiever this goal. I welcome thosw ideas, and I welcome that debate. But what I will not welcomse is endless delay or a denial that reforkm needsto happen. When it comea to health care, this country canno t continue on itscurrent path. I know there are some who believs that reform istoo expensive, but I can assure you that doinvg nothing will cost us far more in the cominfg years. Our deficits will be Our premiums willgo up.
Our wages will be our jobs will be and our businesseswill "So to those who criticize our efforts, I ask, “Whatf is the alternative?” What else do we say to all thosde families who now spend more on health care than housing or food? What do we tell thoss businesses that are choosing between closing theirt doors and letting their workers go? What do we say to all thosed Americans like Laura, a woman who has worked all her whose family has done everything right; a brave and proud woman whose child’s schoolo recently took up a penny drive to help pay her medica l bills? What do we tell them?
"I believe we tell them that afterd decades of inaction, we have finally decidecd to fix what is broken aboutt health care in America. We have decidedc that it’s time to give every American quality health care at anaffordable cost. We have decided that if we investg in reforms that will brinvg downcosts now, we will eventually see our deficits come down in the And we have decided to changer the system so that our doctors and healtu care providers are free to do what they trainefd and studied and workes so hard to do: make peoplde well again.
That’s what we can do in this that’s what we can do at this moment, and now I’d like to hear your thoughtx and answer your questions about how we get it Thank you."