President Obama's Health and Cancer Care Plans

President Barack Obama

Double funding for cancer research over 5 years, with additional funding for rare cancers; cancers with no effective treatment options; study of health disparities; and efforts to understand how genetics can impact cancer development and treatment.

Increase funding for FDA to approve new oncology products.

Improve coordination across federal agencies responsible for cancer in some capacity (NIH, CDC, FDA, CMS) by requiring the Secretary of HHS, in collaboration with academia, cancer patients and survivors, state and local public health officials, and agency leaders to comprehensively examine the various cancer-related efforts of federal agencies, and provide recommendations to eliminate barriers to effective coordination across federal agencies and between the federal government and other stakeholders.

Ensure affordable insurance coverage for all Americans, including those diagnosed with cancer, through a range of new private insurance options, establishment of a new public insurance plan and tax credits.

End insurance discrimination by guaranteeing that all Americans, regardless of pre-existing conditions like cancer, would be able to purchase any private insurance plan at an affordable and fair price.

Create a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals who wish to purchase a private insurance plan. The Exchange will act as a watchdog group and help reform the private insurance market by creating rules and standards for participating insurance plans to ensure fairness and to make individual coverage more affordable and accessible. Insurers would have to issue every applicant a policy, and charge fair and stable premiums that will not depend upon health status. The Exchange will require that all the plans offered are at least as generous as the new public plan and have the same standards for quality and efficiency. The Exchange would evaluate plans and make the differences among the plans, including cost of services, public.

Require that all children have health care coverage and expand the number of options for young adults to get coverage, including allowing young people up to age 25 to continue coverage through their parents' plans.

Require all health insurance plans (public and private) to cover clinical preventive benefits with minimum (or no) co-pays and deductibles (e.g., required coverage of breast and colorectal cancer screening).

Strengthen collaboration between federal, state, and local governments to expand access to community preventive services and preventive programs in schools and workplaces.

Expand investment in tobacco cessation programs and public education campaigns to raise awareness about carcinogenic effects of tobacco.

Seek to increase participation in clinical trials to 10 percent of adult cancer patients by: requiring coverage of patient clinical trial costs in the new public and private plans offered through the National Health Insurance Exchange; increasing NCI reimbursement for patient participation in clinical research; requesting the NCI Director to identify regulatory barriers that prevent the timely implementation and completion of successful clinical trials; and enforcing Medicare coverage of "routine costs" of participation in clinical trials.

Implement pay-for-performance type measures to reward professionals for providing quality health care.

Require hospitals and providers to collect and publicly report measures of health care costs and quality, including data on preventable medical errors, nurse staffing ratios, and hospital-acquired infections, so individuals are able to compare providers

Implement and fund patient-centered programs, including patient navigator and medical homes to help provide coordinated, comprehensive cancer treatment.

Direct the CDC to develop and carry out an epidemiologic study on cancer survivors to understand their long-term health needs; foster efforts to expand psychosocial supports to cancer survivors, including directing the CDC to identify and replicate successful support group programs for cancer survivors; provide the CDC $50 million in new funding to determine the most effective approaches to navigating through cancer diagnosis and treatment, as well as follow-up care to ensure co ntinued lifelong health.

Expand CDC biomonitoring programs and strengthen the collaboration between the CDC and state public health agencies across the country to increase understanding and improve treatment of individuals negatively affected by environmental factors which cause cancer.

Grow the health care workforce to meet increasing demands for oncologists, nurses, primary care physicians and other medical professionals by: expanding funding for loan repayment; ensuring adequate reimbursement for services; providing additional grants for training curricula; reauthorizing and funding the Nurse Reinvestment Act of Title VIII of the Public Health Act; building infrastructure support to improve working conditions; investing in health information technology; and utilizing part of the doubling in research funding to recruit and train young clinical researchers.

Support advances in personalized medicine to help ensure early detection and treatment of cancer and other diseases.

Ensure that all patients have access to affordable medications by working to increase use of generic drugs in the new public plan, Medicare, Medicaid, FEHBP and prohibit large drug companies from keeping generics out of markets.

"First, I will double cancer research funding. Second, I will provide affordable health care for all Americans. As someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I'll make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick. I'll push them to cover cancer screenings and provide treatment and preventive care. Third, we'll modernize the healthcare system to reduce medical error, lower costs, and improve the quality of patient care. It's time for a government that wages a war against cancer as aggressive as the war cancer wages against us. As President, I will lead that fight."