John McCain on Health Care

John McCain believes that controlling costs is key to making health care more affordable, saving Medicare and Medicaid and protecting health benefits for retirees. He sets down three primary goals: paying only for quality care, offering diverse insurance choices responsive to individual needs, and restoring a sense of personal responsibility. He advocates market solutions, such as allowing companies to provide insurance nationwide. He believes individuals should have a variety of plans to choose from and would offer tax credits and health savings accounts to help pay for them. He favors allowing safe prescription drugs to be imported and more generic drugs to be on the market to control drug costs.

Health Insurance: Private/Government

• Provide a variety of insurance choices – nationwide and across state lines -- for people to choose from. The policies would be portable, following the individual, not the job.
• Offer tax credits of $2,500 ($5,000 for families) to help pay for insurance coverage.

Medical Costs

• Allow families to be in charge of what they pay for.
• Encourage greater competition and allow insurers to operate nationwide.
• Require caps on medical malpractice suits.
• Promote market solutions such as walk-in clinics in retail outlets, and shift some care to nurse practitioners since they're less expensive than doctors.
• Require transparency to compare medical outcomes, costs, and prices.
• Individuals need to be more responsible for their own health to help prevent chronic diseases.

Health Savings Accounts

• Encourage the availability of health savings accounts.

Drugs: Costs/Importation

• Use the federal government's bulk purchasing power to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs for the Medicare Part D program. The Veterans Administration currently does this, but current Medicare law prohibits government negotiation with pharmaceutical companies.
• Allow consumers to safely import prescription drugs.
• Make generic drugs more readily available.