Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., asked his Senate colleagues to “do something, do anything” to fix the health care crisis in America. Enzi made his case on the Senate floor and reiterated his 10 Step Health Care plan to make health care and health insurance more affordable and accessible to Americans.
Click the links above to watch video and listen to audio of Enzi's floor statement.
Enzi unveiled his 10 Steps to Transform Health Care in America plan on July 12, 2007. Below is the press release first announcing the senator's plan and detailing each of the 10 steps.
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July 12, 2007
Enzi unveils 10 Steps to Transform Health Care in America
Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today unveiled "Ten Steps to Transform Health Care in America," legislation that builds on numerous health care proposals to expand access to health insurance and health care providers while improving the quality of health care in the United States.
"Today I am introducing a bill that proposes 10 Steps to stabilize and reform the nation’s health care system," Enzi said. "This 10-step proposal reflects ideas and concepts from a host of proposals already introduced—it encapsulates the best of the best ideas and puts forward new, innovative approaches. The hallmark of this proposal is to provide more options, more choices, and more control to every American."
"With 46.1 million Americans living without health insurance, we cannot continue to allow partisan politicking to stand in the way of real reform. I am ready for the challenge. We must begin a national debate to examine the whole health care system, and together we must put forward a bold and comprehensive solution that addresses our health care crisis now. That’s what the Ten Steps does – it is a comprehensive solution to a very big problem."
Enzi’s proposal builds on the bipartisan work in the last Congress to allow market-based pooling, and equalizes tax treatment of health insurance for all Americans. It proposes new market-based solutions that will enable uninsured working families to purchase private health insurance. The bill will expand choices and coverage and give individuals real control over their health care. It also includes provisions to enhance health care quality and reduce costs.
"I always believe that we can agree on 80 percent of the issues and on 80 percent of each issue, and that if we focus on that 80 percent we can do great things for the American people," Enzi said. "I believe that if we work together on these proposals we can find that 80 percent. The introduction of this bill is the first step forward in the process."
Senator Michael B. Enzi 1. Eliminates unfair tax treatment of health insurance for all Americans, thereby expanding choices, coverage, and control over your health care 2. Increases affordable options for working families to purchase health insurance through a standard tax deduction 4. Provides cross-state pooling to reduce health care costs and increase accessibility for small business owners, unions, associations, and their workers, members, and families 6. Emphasizes preventive benefits and helps individuals with chronic diseases so
9. Increases access to primary care in rural and frontier areas by helping future providers and nurses pay for their education, and gives seniors more options to receive care in their homes and communities
10. Decreases the sky-rocketing cost of health care by restoring reliability in our medical justice system through State-based solutions
TEN STEPS TO TRANSFORM HEALTH CARE IN
Building on Market-based Solutions and Strengthening Current Insurance Programs
3. Ensures affordable health insurance to low-income individuals through a refundable, advanceable, assignable tax-based subsidy
5. Blends the individual and group market to extend important HIPAA portability protections to the individual market so that insurance security can better move with you from job to job
7. Gives you the choice to convert the value of your Medicaid and SCHIP program benefits into private health insurance, putting you in control of your health care, not the Federal government
8. Saves lives and money by better coordinating health information technology to improve health care delivery
