Healthcare: Greater Choices and Higher Quality

Greater Choice (These Provisions begin in 2013)
· Keep your doctor, and your current plan, if you like them
· The choice of a public health insurance plan option, available across the country
· The public plan will be required to meet the same benefit requirements, and comply with the same insurance market reforms as private plans.
· Plan premiums would vary by geographic area based on costs in the local markets.
· Individuals in the exchange, including individuals eligible for affordability credits, can choose among the private insurers and the public option.
Higher Quality
· Strengthen and expand programs that promote diversity in the health workforce. (2012)
· Require HHS Secretary to identify key health and health care disparities as part of a National Prevention and Wellness Strategy initiative. (2012)
· Direct the Task Force on Clinical Preventive Services and the Task Force on Community Preventive Services to take relevant health and health care disparities into account as they develop and disseminate evidence-based recommendations on the use of preventive services. (2013)
· Target at least half of the funding in a new grants program for the delivery of preventive health services at the community level to proposals with the primary purpose of addressing health care disparities. Eligible grantees include “health empowerment zones”, areas in which a community partnership provides multiple preventive health services. (2013)
· Enhance the scholarship programs for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. (2012)