We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state, and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
For people who have health insurance, we can provide health insurance reforms that make the insurance they have more secure. And we can do that mostly by using money that every expert agrees is being wasted and is currently in the existing health care system.
Instead of forcing everyone to buy health insurance, Congress should pass a law protecting the uninsured from being charged more than the insurance companies are for a given service.
We Americans, or half of Americans, think health care is a commodity. Other countries view health care as a social service that should be collectively financed and available to everyone on equal terms. My wife and I just interviewed the German minister of health, and it was an exhilarating experience, because it was a totally different language. It was obviously important that everyone should have the same deal in health care.
The premise of insurance is to spread the risk. It's the premise of homeowner's insurance, of car insurance, and of health insurance. It's one reason why it's important to have insurance when you're healthy, so that when you get sick, you won't go sign up just when you get sick, because that increases the cost for everyone.
The result was, of course, that today, tragically, more than 40 million Americans don't have health insurance, and for many, not having health insurance means they don't have access to good health care.
High-quality health care is not available to millions of Americans who don't have health insurance, or whose substandard plans provide minimum coverage. That's why the Affordable Care Act is so important. It provides quality health insurance to both the uninsured and underinsured.
Health insurance needs to be affordable and available for everyone, not just the wealthy. I will always fight to improve the access, level of care, and affordability of health care.
As a physician and a U.S. senator, I have warned since the very beginning about many troubling aspects of Mr. Obama's unprecedented health-insurance mandate. Not only does he believe he can order you to buy insurance, the president also incorrectly equates health insurance coverage with medical care.
We should work to de-link health insurance from employment so if you lose your job, your health insurance goes with you and it is personal, portable and affordable.
Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it.
People are ready to say, 'Yes, we are ready for single-payer health insurance.' We are the only industrialized country in the world that does not have national health insurance. We are the richest in wealth and the poorest in health of all the industrial nations.
Health insurance in Germany continues with no change if you lose a job. We do know very well that people who become unemployed are at an increased risk of becoming ill, and therefore becoming unemployed is about the worst time to lose health insurance. So therefore, everyone who loses a job remains in exactly the same insurance system he is in.
Once you do lose a job, there are not a lot of social supports for you. You lose health insurance because we have this absurd system in America where health insurance is usually tied to employment. Your income dips. And that's when you get into selling the house.
If you like the health insurance that you have you should be able to keep it, but if you don't like the health insurance you have, you should be able to choose something else.
What we should be focusing on - and finding solutions for - is ensuring that every American has health care in this country, no matter what level, no matter what age. No one should die because they can't afford health insurance. No one should go bankrupt because they can't afford it.