First Obama-Romney 2012 Presidential debate: on Health Care

Jill Stein: Medicare Part D is a giveaway for pharmaceutical companies

STEIN: Both Obama and Romney-Ryan are both aiming for essentially for the same targets. For Medicare, they are both aiming for Medicare to be reduced to about 2.2% of GDP. A sign that things are not really different between these two corporate-sponsored candidates. They're both proposing about $700 billion in Medicare cuts. We can fix this. One thing we can do right now is to fix Medicare Part D so that it's no longer a boondoggle, a giveaway for pharmaceutical companies and to allow bargaining and negotiation to get bulk purchasing and bring down the cost.

ANDERSON: The solution to Medicare is to provide Medicare for everybody. To make it a single payer system.

Jill Stein: Affordable Care Act is neither Affordable nor Caring

STEIN: I live in the state of Massachusetts. So, I've seen RomneyCare or ObamaCare--take your pick--the Affordable Care Act actually in the flesh is neither affordable nor caring, because it provides stripped-down plans which are fairly expensive unless you are in a very low income. If you are making less than $20,000 a year as a family, you're covered. And it actually has expanded care for the very poor, and that is a good thing. But if you're in the $20,000-$40,000 bracket, near-poor, these plans cover about 70% of your costs; yet you are paying approximately 10% of your income for them. So, it's not affordable for families. You're not fully covered. The proof of the pudding here is that when people get sick in Massachusetts now, they go into medical bankruptcy just as much as they did before we had the Affordable Care Act.

Rocky Anderson: Just get the for-profit insurance companies out of the way

ANDERSON: The solution is to provide Medicare for everybody. To make it a single payer system. You look around the world--Canada, Taiwan--they have a single payer, basically, Medicare-for-all system. We are paying more than double the average of the rest of the industrialized world per-capita for health care costs. A large part of that is because we're relying upon the for-profit insurance industry to provide health care for most people. We need to get rid of that. We can control costs. We can make it affordable, provide better services, and we can do it for all. You just get the for-profit insurance companies out of the way, and all of the burdensome paperwork and the different billing systems and all the rest, that end up costing over a third of what we pay for what's supposed to go toward our medical care.

Rocky Anderson: ObamaCare & RomneyCare are both "insurance companycare"

ANDERSON: We're talking here about ObamaCare and RomneyCare. I would call that "insurance companycare" because they're the ones who wrote it. They joined up with a very conservative foundation years ago to develop this plan, to make the American people buy this perverse product. We are the only country in the world that depends upon for-profit insurance companies for the majority of our coverage for health care, for those were lucky enough to have it.

STEIN: I live in the state of Massachusetts. So, I've seen RomneyCare or ObamaCare--take your pick--the Affordable Care Act actually in the flesh is neither affordable nor caring.

Barack Obama: Shifting Medicaid to states means some people don't get help

ROMNEY: I would like to take the Medicaid dollars that go to states: you're going to get what you got last year, plus inflation, plus 1%, and then you're going to manage your care for your poor in the way you think best. Don't have the federal government tell everybody what kind of training programs they have to have and what kind of Medicaid they have to have. Let states do this.

OBAMA: Governors are creative. But they're not creative enough to make up for 30% of revenue on something like Medicaid. What ends up happening is some people end up not getting help.

ROMNEY: If a state gets in trouble, well, we can step in and see if we can find a way to help them.

Barack Obama: We reduced senior Rx prices & pushed preventive care

ROMNEY: That's $1 for every $15 you've cut. They're smart enough to know that's not a good trade. I want to take that $716 billion you've cut and put it back into Medicare. By the way, we can include a prescription program if we need to improve it. But the idea of cutting $716 billion from Medicare to be able to balance the additional cost of ObamaCare is, in my opinion, a mistake.

Barack Obama: I don't think Medicare vouchers are the way to go

OBAMA: I think it's important for Governor Romney to present this plan that he says will only affect folks in the future. And the essence of the plan is that you would turn Medicare into a voucher program. It's called premium support, but it's understood to be a voucher program.

Q: And you don't support that?

OBAMA: I don't. And let me explain why.

ROMNEY: Again, that's for future people, not for current retirees.

OBAMA: The idea, which was originally presented by Congressman Ryan, your running mate, is that we would give a voucher to seniors and they could go out in the private marketplace and buy their own health insurance. The problem is that because the voucher wouldn't necessarily keep up with health care inflation, it was estimated that this would cost the average senior about $6,000 a year.

Barack Obama: Voucher system puts seniors at mercy of insurance companies

OBAMA: Medicare has lower administrative costs than private insurance does, which is why seniors are generally pretty happy with it. And private insurers have to make a profit. Nothing wrong with that. That's what they do. And so you've got higher administrative costs, plus profit on top of that. And if you are going to save any money through what Governor Romney's proposing, what has to happen is, is that the money has to come from somewhere. And when you move to a voucher system, you are putting seniors at the mercy of those insurance companies. And over time, if traditional Medicare has decayed or fallen apart, then they're stuck.

Barack Obama: Boards of experts identify best practices & keep costs down

OBAMA: When Governor Romney talks about this "unelected" board that we've created, is a group of health care experts, doctors etc., to figure out, how can we reduce the cost of care in the system overall? So what this board does is basically identifies best practices and says, let's use the purchasing power of Medicare and Medicaid to help to institutionalize all these good things that we do.

ROMNEY: In order to bring the cost of health care down, we don't need to have a board of 15 people telling us what kinds of treatments we should have. We instead need an incentive: performance pay, for doing an excellent job, for keeping costs down,

OBAMA: This board that we're talking about can't make decisions about what treatments are given. That's explicitly prohibited in the law.

Barack Obama: ObamaCare says insurance companies can't jerk you around

ROMNEY: I sure do. It's expensive. It has killed jobs.

OBAMA: Well, four years ago, it wasn't just that small businesses were seeing costs skyrocket, but it was families who were worried about going bankrupt if they got sick. If they had a pre-existing condition, they might not be able to get coverage at all. If they did have coverage, insurance companies might impose an arbitrary limit. And let me tell you exactly what ObamaCare did. Number one, if you've got health insurance, it doesn't mean a government takeover. You keep your own insurance. You keep your own doctor. But it does say insurance companies can't jerk you around. They can't impose arbitrary lifetime limits. They have to let you keep your kid on your insurance plan until you're 26 years old. And it also says that you're going to have to get rebates if insurance companies are spending more on administrative costs and profits than they are on actual care.

Barack Obama: ObamaCare and RomneyCare both expand private insurance

ROMNEY: The right answer is not to have the federal government take over health care and start mandating to the providers across America, telling a patient and a doctor what kind of treatment they can have. That's the wrong way to go.

OBAMA: There's a reason why Governor Romney set up the plan that he did in Massachusetts. It wasn't a government takeover of health care. It was the largest expansion of private insurance. But what it does say is that "insurers, you've got to take everybody."

ROMNEY: The federal government taking over health care for the entire nation and whisking aside the 10th Amendment, which gives states the rights for these kinds of things, is not the course for America to have a stronger, more vibrant economy.

Mitt Romney: Shift Medicaid to states, plus inflation, plus 1%

ROMNEY: I would like to take the Medicaid dollars that go to states and say, you're going to get what you got last year, plus inflation, plus 1%, and then you're going to manage your care for your poor in the way you think best. One of the magnificent things about this country is the whole idea that states are the laboratories of democracy. Don't have the federal government tell everybody what kind of training programs they have to have and what kind of Medicaid they have to have. Let states do this.

OBAMA: Governors are creative. But they're not creative enough to make up for 30% of revenue on something like Medicaid. What ends up happening is some people end up not getting help.

ROMNEY: If a state gets in trouble, well, we can step in and see if we can find a way to help them. The right approach is one which relies on the brilliance of our people and states, not the federal government.

Mitt Romney: Restore $716B in Medicare cuts

ROMNEY: That's $1 for every $15 you've cut. They're smart enough to know that's not a good trade. I want to take that $716 billion you've cut and put it back into Medicare. By the way, we can include a prescription program if we need to improve it. But the idea of cutting $716 billion from Medicare to be able to balance the additional cost of ObamaCare is, in my opinion, a mistake.

Mitt Romney: No change to near-retirees; Medicare vouchers for young

OBAMA: I don't.

ROMNEY: Again, that's for future people, not for current retirees.

OBAMA: In fairness, what Gov. Romney has now said is he'll maintain traditional Medicare alongside it. But those insurance companies are pretty clever at figuring out who are the younger and healthier seniors. They recruit them, leaving the older, sicker seniors in Medicare. And the traditional Medicare system will collapse.

ROMNEY: What I support is no change for current retirees and near-retirees to Medicare. And the president supports taking $716 billion out of that program.

Q: And what about the vouchers?

ROMNEY: For people coming along that are young, what I do to make sure that we can keep Medicare in place for them is to allow them either to choose the current Medicare program or a private plan. Their choice.

Mitt Romney: Give young people a choice of Medicare or private insurer

ROMNEY: For people coming along that are young, allow them either to choose the current Medicare program or a private plan. Their choice. They get to choose--and they'll have at least two plans that will be entirely at no cost to them. So they don't have to pay additional money, no additional $6,000. That's not going to happen. And if the government can be as efficient as the private sector and offer premiums that are as low, people will be happy to get traditional Medicare or they'll be able to get a private plan. I know my own view is I'd rather have a private plan. I'd just as soon not have the government telling me what kind of health care I get. I'd rather be able to have an insurance company. If I don't like them, I can get rid of them.

OBAMA: Medicare has lower administrative costs than private insurance; private insurers have to make a profit.

Mitt Romney: ObamaCare has unelected board making health decisions

OBAMA: The irony is that we've seen this model work really well in Massachusetts, because Gov. Romney set up what is essentially the identical model.

ROMNEY: We didn't put in place a board that can tell people ultimately what treatments they're going to receive.

OBAMA: This "unelected" board is a group of health care experts to figure out, How can we reduce the cost of care in the system overall?

ROMNEY: To bring the cost of health care down, we don't need to have a board of 15 people telling us what kinds of treatments we should have. We instead need to put insurers, hospitals, doctors on target such that they have an incentive: performance pay, for doing an excellent job, for keeping costs down.

OBAMA: This board that we're talking about can't make decisions about what treatments are given. That's explicitly prohibited in the law.

Mitt Romney: ObamaCare is too expensive, and it has killed jobs

ROMNEY: I sure do. It comes from my experience. The number of small businesses I've gone to that are saying they're dropping insurance because they can't afford it, the cost of health care is just prohibitive. So it's expensive. Second reason, it cuts $716 billion from Medicare to pay for it. I want to put that money back in Medicare for our seniors. Number three, it puts in place an unelected board that's going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have. Fourth, small businesses were asked, what's been the effect of Obamacare on your hiring plans? And 3/4 of them said it makes us less likely to hire people. I just don't know how the president could have come into office, facing 23 million people out of work, rising unemployment, an economic crisis, and spend his energy and passion for two years fighting for ObamaCare instead of fighting for jobs for the American people. It has killed jobs.

Mitt Romney: RomneyCare was bipartisan; ObamaCare was pushed through

ROMNEY: I like the way we did it in Massachusetts. In my state, we had Republicans and Democrats work together. What you did instead was to push through a plan without a single Republican vote. As a matter of fact, when Massachusetts did something quite extraordinary--elected a Republican senator to stop ObamaCare, you pushed it through anyway. So entirely on a partisan basis, instead of bringing America together and having a discussion on this important topic, you pushed through something that you and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid thought was the best answer and drove it through. What we did in a legislature 87% Democrat, we worked together; 200 legislators in my legislature, only two voted against the plan by the time we were finished. What were some differences? We didn't raise taxes. You've raised them by $1 trillion under ObamaCare.

Mitt Romney: RomneyCare is national model, but only state by state

OBAMA: Governor Romney said this has to be done on a bipartisan basis. [ObamaCare] was a bipartisan idea. In fact, it was a Republican idea. And Governor Romney said "what we did in Massachusetts could be a model for the nation." I agree that the Democratic legislators in Massachusetts might have given some advice to Republicans in Congress about how to cooperate, but the fact of the matter is, we used the same advisers, and they say it's the same plan.

ROMNEY: The right answer is not to have the federal government take over health care and start mandating to the providers across America. That's the wrong way to go. The federal government taking over health care for the entire nation and whisking aside the 10th Amendment, which gives states the rights for these kinds of things, is not the course for America to have a stronger, more vibrant economy.