December 29, 2008                                                                      

     Weitzman prepares to issue healthcare reform report to President-Elect based on recent community discussion

Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman’s recent holiday Health Care Community Discussion held at his home last week with 25 of Long Island’s preeminent healthcare leaders produced a number of viable healthcare reform ideas for the incoming administration in Washington to pursue.  President-Elect Barack Obama had asked the American people to host holiday discussions among neighbors and friends to offer suggestions for a health care system that provides quality, affordable healthcare for all Americans.  Weitzman will be issuing a formal report on his discussion within the next few weeks to Senator Tom Daschle, the President-Elect’s nominee for Secretary of Health & Human Services and New York State Senator Charles Schumer, the Chair of the Senate Joint Economic Committee.

"Long Island is home to some of the top names in the healthcare industry,” said Weitzman.  “I thought this request from our President-Elect was a wonderful opportunity to put those people together in one room and draw on some of their best ideas, while also sharing some good food and holiday cheer. We agreed on a majority of issues and I know that our report will contain innovative ideas worthy of consideration by the administration.”

Senator Daschle and his team will be reviewing the submissions from healthcare reform gatherings throughout the country.

"This historic meeting was an opportunity for a cross-section of healthcare experts from Long Island to have a voice in the future of the nation’s healthcare plan,” Weitzman said.

All 25 healthcare experts agreed the existing healthcare system is broken and that action needs to be taken on a national level to ensure that all Americans are receiving the quality care that they deserve.

"Access to quality healthcare is a basic right of all Americans,” Weitzman said. “All of us in attendance agreed that there should be a healthcare program in place that would provide access to health insurance for everyone.”

However, ideas on how to implement that health program, varied. Attendees split on whether to implement a new program with incremental change or with a sweeping reform of the system. Ideas included: A mandatory health insurance program that would require all Americans to have some level of insurance; or expansion of the existing Medicare program.

Weitzman said that all healthcare experts in attendance agreed that long term care needs to be included in any comprehensive program, as it accounts for a significant part of the national health care costs; and they agreed that prescription drug coverage also needed to be included in the program.

The group also discussed how a national reform initiative would be paid for; the role of employers in funding costs; how to address racial and ethnic disparities in delivering quality healthcare to all; the need to modernize the healthcare delivery system; and how to eliminate many of the “high cost-drivers” of healthcare, such as insurance fraud and the high cost of malpractice insurance for doctors and hospitals.

"I believe that this discussion was a great beginning, and that this group of individuals brought fresh ideas to the table,” Weitzman said. “Now we will send these ideas to Washington for the administration to create a new healthcare system that works for our entire nation.”

Healthcare issues have always been at the forefront of Weitzman’s policy initiatives, both as County Comptroller and during the 35 years he spent in the healthcare field.  As Comptroller, he has successfully found ways to reduce healthcare costs for the County and its taxpayers. Weitzman created the Nassau RX card, a prescription discount card that has saved Nassau’s residents over $10 million, and most recently, along with the Nassau County Executive, he successfully worked with the State to reduce the health insurance premiums in the NYSHIP, saving the County, State and other governments over $272 million.