The President's health care reform plan. A NAHC analysis. National Association for Home Care.
President Clinton's health care reform plan represents an ambitious effort to expand access to care and restrain the growth in health care costs. Both goals are served by the greatly expanded home care and hospice benefits that the plan would afford. Under the President's plan, home care and hospice benefits are included in the federally guaranteed basic benefits package that would be provided to all Americans and legal residents. In addition, the plan creates a new federal program for long-term home care services for the severely disabled. Medicare benefits are also enhanced to provide coverage for home infusion therapy. The increased reliance on home- and community-based services would bring a paradigm shift away from institutional care toward home-based care for individuals with acute and long-term care needs. The President seeks to achieve these goals by building on the current employer-based system of health insurance. This approach was chosen because it was believed to be the least disruptive of the various financing mechanisms available, but it would require the use of a finely tuned system of subsidies to avoid damaging small employers and the economy. In summary, NAHC believes this program is an excellent starting point for a serious debate of health care reform inasmuch as it meets the three major objectives established by the membership: the plan would keep Medicare intact, require a basic benefits package that includes home care and hospice services, and create a new long-term care program based on home- and community-based care.
D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D018166:Health Care Reform; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000191:economics; D006699:Home Care Services / Q000191:economics*; D007348:Insurance, Health; D008134:Long-Term Care / Q000191:economics; D014481:United States