"We need to fix our health care system, so that no one falls through the gaps. We must help all Americans get the quality health care they need, when they need it." - Al Gore

Al Gore believes we must use our prosperity to address one of the day's great challenges: achieving quality, affordable health care coverage for all of America's families. That means taking steps, both practical and bold, that move us step-by-step towards universal health coverage for everyone in America - the children, the elderly, and their families. It means offering new options for affordable, quality health insurance for those working for themselves or for small businesses. It means protecting the health of our seniors by putting Medicare in a new off-budget "lock box" where politicians cannot spend it. It means expanding Medicare to help seniors and people with disabilities afford prescription drugs - so they no longer are forced to choose between paying for the medicine they need and paying for food or rent. It means fighting for a strong, enforceable Patients' Bill of Rights that would take decisions away from insurance companies and HMOs and give medical decisions back to patients and their doctors. It means protecting Medicaid and strengthening community health centers to protect our most vulnerable populations. It means launching major new initiatives to fight diseases such as cancer and HIV/AIDS. And it means protecting women's reproductive health -- including the right to choose.

EXPANDING ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE COVERAGE

• Give Every Child Access to Affordable High Quality Health Care:
• Ensuring Affordable Health Insurance: Al Gore would ensure that all children have access to affordable health insurance by 2005 by expanding eligibility under the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to children up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level and allow uninsured children above 250 percent of the federal poverty level to buy coverage under CHIP or Medicaid if their parents don't have job based coverage with a new 25 percent tax credit to make this coverage more affordable.
• Holding States Accountable for Signing Up Eligible Children for Health Insurance: Gore would take new steps to eliminate cumbersome barriers to child enrollment in health insurance. He will advocate new options for schools and child care centers to enroll kids on the spot. He will work to eliminate asset tests that intimidate eligible families from enrolling in health insurance and keep children enrolled by requiring states to increase the minimum eligibility period to one year, rather than every six months as some states require. He will reach more eligible children by encouraging states to link their children's health insurance programs to their school lunch programs. Gore would also make it easier for families to sign up for child health care by allowing families to mail in applications. Gore's plan would provide bonuses for states that enroll uninsured children and hold those who don't accountable.
• Expanding Health Care Coverage to Working Families: More than 85 percent of children on CHIP and Medicaid have uninsured parents. To help the seven million uninsured parents of these children, Gore would expand CHIP's affordable health insurance to parents - allowing states to access higher federal matching payments to cover the parents of children enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP.
• Providing Affordable Health Care Options for Americans Ages 55 to 65: Americans aged 55 to 65 are the fastest growing group of uninsured people in the country. More than three million currently lack health insurance - and more than 60 percent of them are women. Gore proposes to allow Americans aged 55 to 65 to buy health coverage under Medicare with a 25 percent tax credit that would make this coverage more affordable.
• Making Health Insurance More Affordable and More Accessible for Small Businesses: Small businesses typically pay higher premiums for benefits, and administrative costs may consume as much as 40 percent of premium dollars. Gore would make health insurance more affordable for small businesses and their employees with a 25 percent tax credit for the premium costs of each employee in a small business that joins a purchasing coalition - in which businesses join together to negotiate for affordable health insurance options for their employees.
• Maintaining and Strengthening Health Care Delivery Systems Serving the Uninsured: Gore would strengthen community health centers, public hospitals, academic medical centers and other safety-net providers that treat millions of Americans. Strengthening these centers would allow them to develop comprehensive systems of care, develop links to financial and telecommunications systems, and fill the service gaps that exist in many communities - especially in the areas of primary health care, mental health services, and substance abuse services.

STRENGTHENING MEDICARE

One of Al Gore's top priorities is to take Medicare off budget. Specifically, Gore is proposing to create a new off-budget "Medicare lock box" so that Medicare payroll taxes can be used only to strengthen Medicare, and pay down the national debt.

• Medicare Lock Box: Al Gore proposes to take Medicare off-budget, and create a "Medicare Lock-Box." He would assure that all payroll taxes collected for Medicare ($400 billion over the next ten years) are used to help fund Medicare, through savings and the use of debt reduction and that they cannot be used for spending or tax cuts.
• Extending the Life of Medicare: In addition to protecting Medicare surpluses from being spent on tax cuts or government spending, Gore's lock-box plan extends the life of the Medicare Trust Fund until at least 2030 by devoting the interest savings from debt reduction to Medicare solvency.
• Improving Medicare with a Prescription Drug Benefit: In Congress, Al Gore fought against the pharmaceutical industry to make prescription drugs more affordable. As President, Al Gore will expand Medicare to help seniors and people with disabilities afford prescription drugs so they no longer are forced to choose between paying for the medicine they need and paying for food or rent. Under Gore's plan, seniors would have 50% of the prescription drug benefit cost covered, up to $5,000 annually and a new catastrophic prescription drug benefit. Gore's plan also provides cost-sharing protections for low-income beneficiaries.
• Strengthen Medicare Through Competition: Al Gore's plan would also inject true price competition among managed care plans into the system - without coercing seniors out of traditional coverage. Managed care plans would be paid for covering Medicare's defined benefits, including a new drug benefit, and would compete to draw seniors based on co-pay cost and quality. Such competition makes it easier for seniors to change coverage if they wish - and helps strengthen Medicare's solvency. Any beneficiary could stay in traditional fee-for-service plans, if they wish.
• Strengthen Medicare Through Cost Savings: Gore's plan also gives traditional Medicare new purchasing authority for competitive pricing within the Medicare program, incentives for beneficiaries who use high quality physicians who charge reasonable prices, coordinates care for beneficiaries with chronic illnesses, and utilizes other best-practice purchasing mechanisms.

PROTECTING PATIENTS

• Fight For A Strong, Enforceable Patients' Bill of Rights: Al Gore is a strong supporter of the Patients' Bill of Rights that would take critical health care decisions away from insurance companies and HMOs and give medical decisions back to patients and their doctors. The bill would ensure critical protections - such as access to specialists and emergency room services - when and where the need arises. The bill would also ensure that doctors could tell patients about all of their options - not just the cheapest. Gore would ensure patients have: the right to a fair appeal if they disagree with their health plan, access to the specialists they need, guaranteed coverage of emergency room care when and where the need arises, and the right to hold health plans accountable for their actions.
• Assuring Medical Privacy and Ending Genetic Discrimination: Gore would fight for strong medical privacy protections to ensure that medical information is secure and confidential. With the completion of the Human Genome Project, it is increasingly important to assure people that genetic information is used to improve health rather than discriminate against individuals. Gore would fight for legislation to ensure that health insurers and employers cannot discriminate based on genetic information.

MAKE LONG-TERM CARE MORE AFFORDABLE

Because of illness or disability, currently about five million Americans require long-term care, with the majority of these individuals receiving uncompensated care from relatives and friends. Gore is proposing a plan to help with the costs and challenges of eldercare in America by providing tax credits for Americans with long term needs and their caregivers, reforming Medicaid to help cover care at home and in community settings in addition to nursing homes, and encouraging states to expand the availability of adult day care, respite care and home care services.

• Supporting Families with Long-Term Care Needs with a $3,000 Tax Credit: Al Gore proposes a $3,000 tax credit which would compensate families for a wide range of formal and informal long-term care needs such as home care, adult day care and other respite services.
• A National Family Caregiving Support Initiative: Recent studies have found that services like respite care can relieve caregiver stress and delay nursing home entry. Al Gore proposes a National Family Caregiving Program that supports families who care for elderly relatives with a chronic illness or disability. It enables states to create "one-stop-shops" that provide quality respite care, such as adult day care and home care, critical information about community-based long-term services that best meet families' needs, and counseling and support.

FIGHTING DISEASE

Al Gore supports initiatives to improve research, prevention, and treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinsons disease, diabetes, heart disease, and HIV/AIDS. He has proposed a new cancer initiative that will take advantage of new opportunities in research and double our investments in the fight against cancer.

• Fighting the Battle Against Cancer: Al Gore believes that we must fight the battle against cancer to win. He advocates doubling funding for cancer research and a new "fast-track" Medicare coverage proposal which would have an expedited approval for cutting-edge prevention and detection benefits. Al Gore's plan would also launch a new national initiative for early detection and treatment of colon cancer. Gore has fought to allow Federal employees to take time off to get cancer screenings, and his new initiatives would urge all private employers to implement similar policies. Gore has also proposed a new Quality Cancer Care Investment Fund to help convene scientists, patient representatives, and others; to develop new 'cancer care guidelines'; and to assist health care professionals and patients in making the best treatment decisions. Gore's plan to fight cancer would also focus on cancer prevention, promoting healthy lifestyles and reinvigorating the commitment to stop children from smoking. Tobacco is still the largest preventable cause of cancer, and causes about 30 percent of all cancer deaths. Most Americans begin to smoke when they are children.
• Al Gore would double our investment in cancer research over five years - as part of a similar commitment to all medical research. This investment, will help assure scientists have the resources to develop new cutting edge treatments, prevention, and detection tools -and make those tools available to patients, their families, and caregivers through implementation of a new patient empowerment initiative. Al Gore will increase basic research specifically to find more efficient preclinical testing protocols, because many of the breakthroughs in the years ahead will rely on insights from genomics. And he will make similar increases in funding for biomedical research to fight other diseases - from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to diabetes and HIV/AIDS.
• Fighting the Battle Against HIV/AIDS: Al Gore believes that we must address the growing crisis of HIV/AIDS, in this nation, in Africa, and around the world. Under the leadership of the Clinton-Gore Administration, we have already increased HIV/AIDS research at the National Institutes of Health by 50 percent; tripled Ryan White funds; and increased drug assistance for people with HIV/AIDS by 450 percent. And our Administration has just proposed significant increases in funding for prevention, medical and pharmaceutical treatment and other critical support services for people living with HIV and AIDS. As President, Al Gore will continue to provide leadership from the White House in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

HELPING FAMILIES COPE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS

Through Tipper Gore's leadership, the Clinton-Gore Administration took landmark steps to help families cope with mental illnesses. As First Couple, Al and Tipper Gore will work to implement new measures - recently announced by Tipper - to:

• Assure Full Mental Health Coverage for Children: Gore would see that every child has access to full mental health coverage by requiring private insurers to offer full mental health parity for children and applying it to the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
• Ensure No Parent Is Forced to Give Up A Child To Get Mental Health Services: Studies have found that some parents have given up children to the child welfare services to ensure the children received mental health services. Gore would work to ensure that no parent has to give a child over to the child welfare system to get mental health treatment.
• Invest in Community Mental Health Services while Ensuring Accountability: Gore would expand the availability of community mental health services, while ensuring that community-based mental health programs are based on evidence-based treatment.
• Reach Underserved Populations, Including the Homeless: As many as 30 percent of the nation's homeless - including homeless veterans - require treatment for mental illness. Gore would expand the National Health Service Corps and the Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) to help more underserved people.

IMPROVING MEDICAID

• Strengthen Medicaid: Al Gore believes we should strengthen Medicaid by making it easier for states to expand coverage to home and community-based services. To eliminate Medicaid's historical bias towards nursing homes, Gore would enable states to expand their programs to cover community based care as well as nursing home residents with income up to 300 percent of the Social Security Income (SSI) limits, without requiring a complicated and frequently time-consuming Federal waiver.
• Improve Enrollment in Medicaid: For many low-income working families, the complication of food stamp and Medicaid enrollment is a major barrier that leaves many families without much needed health and nutrition assistance. One barrier is that states are prevented from aligning their definitions of income for food stamps and Medicaid. Al Gore has called for a new initiative that will allow states to conform these definitions - enabling states to have a single application and increase the likelihood that eligible families would enroll in both programs.

• Al Gore believes that there is no challenge more fundamental than protecting women's reproductive health. The next President will likely appoint three justices to the Supreme Court, possibly more, which could have a critical impact on a woman's right to choose.
• Al Gore will fight to guarantee women the right to choose and make abortion safe, legal, and rare while making significant investments in family planning and education.
• Freedom of choice also means freedom from fear in making that choice, and we must not allow a woman's right to choose to be taken away by those who resort to violence. Also, no nurse or doctor should ever have to be afraid to go to work to provide patients with the care they seek. We cannot bow to those who would chip away at these freedoms through legislation, intimidation, legal challenges, and illegal protests.

Source: Al Gore for President 2000 Web Site