SEARCH: Advanced Search

Health Care

March 09, 2008

Kennedy’s Healthy Year

A Q&A with Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Edward Kennedy

Congress to Go Incremental Rather Than Universal

On the campaign trail, candidates are fighting over major health care plans and who has the best ideas for universal coverage. Meanwhile, Congress is unlikely to pass any major health bill, preferring a bite-sized approach.

Safety Hinges on Improved Regulation

As Congress works to address growing health care concerns, ensuring the safety of our nation’s food and drug supply must be a top priority. This requires a strong Food and Drug Administration — one that’s able to fulfill its mission of protecting the health and safety of the American public.

Give FDA Resources to Make Food, Drugs Safe

You don’t have to go back many years in American history to find a nation in which most families — mine included — personally raised most of what they ate. My grandparents and great-grandparents lived on farms in Central Texas. They raised their own cattle, chickens and pigs, and they cultivated big truck gardens. I can remember in the early 1950s that if we wanted green beans and corn for dinner, I was sent out to pick them.

Insurance Should Cover Mentally Ill

It will be a landmark day when we realize that health is not just about fixing broken bones. It’s about having a healthy, complete individual from head to toe. Millions of Americans suffer from mental illness of some form — conditions that disrupt a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning. Mental illnesses strain families and can contribute to lost productivity, unemployment, substance abuse, homelessness or suicide. Few Americans are untouched by it. No one is immune.

Mental Illness, Addiction Have to Be Treated, Too

On July 31, 1981, I woke up in a jail cell in Sioux Falls, S.D., under arrest as the result of my last alcoholic blackout.

Lack of Health IT Shows Market Failure

Our health care system is in serious trouble. I have heard from countless Rhode Islanders struggling to pay for health care and afraid of losing insurance coverage on which they and their families depend. I have met nurses frustrated and heartbroken that they must spend so much time filling out paperwork and so little time caring for patients. I have talked with families whose lives and health were shaken by terrifying medical errors — misplaced paperwork, mistaken diagnoses — that should have been avoided.

E-Records a Vital Step in Streamlining Health Care

With health care costs skyrocketing and the number of uninsured climbing higher and higher, it is no surprise that, in poll after poll, Americans cite health care as one of their top concerns. This Congress has an obligation to the American people to take action and do something to reduce health care costs and expand access to affordable care.

Eliminating Overpayments a Must

For 43 years, traditional Medicare has been a reliable source of health care for our nation’s seniors and disabled. If not for Medicare, some of our most vulnerable populations would have little, if any, way to access important medical care.

Warning Should Trigger Action on Growing Costs

"Trigger" is not just the name of Roy Rogers’ horse or Willie Nelson’s guitar. In the halls of Congress, a world far removed from the Wild West and country music, it is a word that should make those charged with safeguarding our economy for future generations sit up and take notice.

Democrats Differ on Health Care

Mark Twain said that history may not repeat itself, but it surely does rhyme.

Universal Health Care Requires Paradigm Shift

Health care costs in the United States are rising at an alarming rate. Yet despite the fact that we spend more per capita on health care than any other industrialized country, we produce some of the worst outcomes by a number of important health measures.

Reform Requires True Bipartisanship

Many politicians campaign on platforms of change and the ability to reach across the aisle to get things done in Washington. Americans no longer want to hear the talk; they want to see results. We stand with those who say we have waited long enough for a health care prescription for America.

Focus On Cutting Costs, Providing More Choices

I believe every American should have access to quality, affordable health care. Their options should protect the doctor-patient relationship, provide choice and focus on prevention. This access would provide millions of Americans personal security through the ability to take ownership of their health care.