The document outlines talking points in support of health reform. It argues that the plan holds insurance companies accountable by banning practices like denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, gives Americans more choice in health insurance plans, and brings down costs for everyone through measures like reducing waste and fraud. It also responds to criticisms of the plan, arguing that starting over would delay reform, reconciliation is acceptable to get a vote on the issue, and the plan provides immediate benefits in its first year.

1. Talking Points on Health Reform

2. “Giving the American People More Control –
Not Insurance Companies or Government”
“I don’t believe we should give the
government or the insurance companies
more control over health care in
America. I believe it’s time to give you –
the American people – more control over
your own health insurance.”

3. Talking to the 85% with Insurance -
Describing the Plan
If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you
like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.
I. Holds Insurance Companies Accountable;
II. Gives Americans More Insurance Choices; and
III. Brings Down Costs For Everyone.

4. I: Holds Insurance Companies
Accountable
• End the worst practices of insurance companies:
– “Uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions will be able
to purchase affordable health insurance for the very first time
in their lives;”
– “Insurance companies will be banned forever from denying
coverage to children with pre-existing conditions;”
– “And they will no longer be able to arbitrarily and massively
raise premiums for millions of Americans;”
– “Banned from dropping your coverage when you get sick.”

5. If Reform Fails, Americans Concerns
Focus on Insurance Companies
Concern “greatly”/“somewhat
” concerned
Insurance companies still drop coverage for people who 89%
are sick
Costs would keep skyrocketing for small businesses 88%
Higher and higher premiums for working Americans 87%
Fear of losing coverage if you switch jobs 87%
Insurance companies still deny coverage on basis of pre- 87%
existing conditions
More than 30 million Americans without access to affordable 76%
coverage

6. Beyond Politics - Fundamental
Disagreement
“Despite all that we agree on and all the
Republican ideas we’ve incorporated, many
Republicans in Congress just have a
fundamental disagreement over whether we
should have more or less oversight of
insurance companies.”
– Anthem Blue Cross in California, Illinois, Virginia
– Goldman Sachs
– Personal Stories about families and small businesses

7. “Common-Sense Rules of the Road” for Insurance
Companies:
Strongest Rebuttal to “Government Takeover”
“It isn’t government control to set new common-
sense rules of the road for insurance companies to
protect consumers from their abuses. The plan
gives patients and doctors more control over
health care decisions, not insurance companies,
and cracks down on practices like denying
coverage for pre-existing conditions and dropping
patients when they become sick.”

8. II: Gives Americans More Insurance
Choices
• “It sets up a new competitive health insurance market giving
tens of millions of Americans and small business owners the
purchasing power that big businesses and unions enjoy and
the same choices as every member of Congress;”
• “If you still can’t afford the insurance in this new marketplace,
we will offer you tax credits to do so – tax credits that add up
to the largest middle class tax cuts for health care in history.
It’s the middle-class that gets squeezed, and that’s who we
have to help;”
• “It protects Medicare for America’s Seniors.”

9. III: Brings Down Costs For Everyone
• “Incorporated most of the serious ideas from across the
political spectrum about how to contain the rising cost of
health care;”
• Helps small businesses so they don’t have to choose
between hiring and health care – More Jobs.
• “We go after the waste, fraud and abuse in our system,
especially overpayments to insurance companies;”
– But we do this while protecting Medicare benefits, and extending the
financial stability of the program by nearly a decade.
• CBO: $1 trillion of deficit reduction over next two decades

10. Responding to Attacks
• “It’s time to start over from scratch and come up with real
reform that Democrats and Republicans can support.”
• “President Obama is trying to use reconciliation to get
around Senate rules to ram his health care bill through
Congress.”
• “The American people oppose this reform. They don’t want
it.”
• “There’ll be no benefits for 4 years.”

11. Responding to “Start Over”
We should vote
“Starting over again is just a prescription for
another year of debate that’s meant to stop
reform, not advance it. Insurance companies
aren’t starting over with 40 percent premium
increases and denying people coverage for pre-
existing conditions. After years of debate, all the
ideas are on the table and it’s time we pulled the
best ideas together and answer the problems
Americans face.”
Q44

12. Responding to “Reconciliation”
Reconciliation is OK
“Congress has been debating health care reform for
years and the American people deserve an up or
down vote. We shouldn’t hide behind rules to
prevent us from going on record and casting a vote
for or against reform. This is about giving Americans
what they’re entitled to: a clear vote showing what
people stand for and believe and where the majority
vote rules.”
Q42

13. Responding to American People Oppose:
American People Want Us To…
Elements of Reform More Likely to Support Less Likely to Support
Tax Credits to Small Business 73% 11%
Insurance Exchanges 67% 16%
Keep What You Have 66% 10%
Ban Pre-Existing Condition 63% 24%
Denials
Medicaid Expansion 62% 22%
Dependent Coverage through 26 60% 22%
Close Medicare Donut Hole 60% 21%
Subsidy Assistance to individuals 57% 24%
Kaiser: January Tracking Poll, 1/18/10

14. Responding to No Benefits in 4 Years:
Immediate Benefits This Year…
• Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;
• Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
• Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured
because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;
• Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;
• Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;
• Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative
expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to
overhead costs;
• Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process
to appeal new insurance plan decisions;
• Require plans to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26;
• Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-
sharing;
• Relief on the Donut Hole.