Iowa Public Television

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  Program: Iowa Press #3506
  Broadcast Date: Oct. 12, 2007
  

• Collection: Iowa Press: The Presidential Candidates

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Sen. John McCain talks about workers needing health care, and his ideas on what the government should and shouldn't do.

This interview took place on October 12, 2007, at Iowa Public Television.

www.iptv.org/campaign08

Henderson: Do you have a solution for what ails the country when it comes to health care and the rising cost of insurance?

McCain: Choice and competition, affordability and availability, and not a big-government solution. We have to change the incentives. We have to have malpractice reform. We have to have portability of health insurance that people can keep. We have to have result-oriented health care. Now we pay practitioners for every procedure. If someone has a chronic disease, we should -- we should, which is 75 percent of health care costs, we should pay them by the year and by the result of their care as opposed to each procedure that they went through.

I picked up the Des Moines Register this morning and see across the headline about the brewing scandal concerning the pharmaceutical companies. That's because there's no transparency. Why didn't we know? Why didn't we know it? Because this information is not available. There's a long list of things that we need to -- steps that we need to take.

But I'm against a single-payer, big-government solution. Take a trip up to Canada or England if you think that that works.

Borg: What would you do first in health care? Or it would be one big, comprehensive package. But what needs doing first?

McCain: I'm not -- it's a series of steps but if I had to say one thing first, I would say health insurance companies have to be able to reward wellness and fitness. If you look at 75 percent of the health care costs in America are to five chronic diseases, wellness and fitness is a very important item.

I would also say malpractice or reform is something that needs to be done, and I would also stress this portability of health insurance.

Today people are scared to do death about losing their job, which is compounded by their ability to keep their health insurance. They lose that employer contribution, as you know, and have to make it up for themselves. They're out of a job. So we ought to give them a minimum health care insurance policy so that at least they're protected from catastrophic or serious medical requirements as they are moving from one job to another.

The change in the information technology revolution is the movement of jobs. People in Michigan -- those folks in Michigan last night, their parents went to work for the automobile company, they stayed there for thirty years, they got a retirement, a pension, and health insurance.

Now, obviously, we know of the churning. Seventy-three workers -- 73,000 workers went on strike for a day or two for general motors. Do you know that that work force was 400,000 not that many years ago?

This is a period of monumental change. We've got to give people confidence, and we've got to give them some belief that their future will be secure.

Tags:

• healthcare
• health
• health insurance
• John McCain
• campaign 2008
• politics
• Republicans
• job market
• economy

Post Date: June 4, 2008