www.c-spanarchives.org Question: Senator, selling health care coverage in America as a marketable commodity has become a very profitable industry. Do you believe health care should be treated as a commodity? SEN. OBAMA: Well, you know, as I travel around the country, this is one of the single most frequently asked issues that I get, is the issue of health care. It is breaking family budgets. I can’t tell you how many people I meet who don’t have health insurance. If you’ve got health insurance, most of you have seen your premiums double over the last eight years. and your copayments and deductibles have gone up 30 percent just in the last year alone. And if you’re a small business, it’s a crushing burden. So one of the things that I have said from the start of this campaign is that we have a moral commitment as well as an economic imperative to do something about the health care crisis that so many families are facing. So here is what I would do. If you’ve got health care already, and probably the majority of you do, then you can keep your plan if you are satisfied with it. You can keep your choice of doctor. We’re going to work with your employer to lower the cost of your premiums by up to 00 a year. And we’re going to do it by investing in prevention. We’re going to do it by making sure that we use information technology so that medical records are actually on computers instead of you filling forms out in triplicate when you go to the hospital. That will reduce …

16 Responses to “Town Hall Debate – Health Care: Should health care be tre…”