Missouri Farm Bureau
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Kevin Craig - "Liberty Under God"
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| General |
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| As the First
Responder program is developed, state and federal cost-share money
for emergency equipment should be provided as rural counties have
the trained volunteers to use the equipment. |
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| We oppose more restrictive supervision rules for
physician assistants and/or nurse practitioners. |
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| County
Health Services |
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| We oppose any
proposal calling for a premium tax on health service contracts and
insurance premiums to fund community health services. |
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| Emergency
Medical Services Personnel |
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| We believe
emergency medical services personnel should receive special training
to equip them to handle farm-related accidents. |
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| We support
adoption of EMTI license process for the state of Missouri as a
whole. |
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| Health
Care Reform |
Federal health care programs should not
be reformed, they should be abolished entirely. |
| We
believe that health care is primarily the responsibility of the
individual. We strongly support efforts to improve the
present health care delivery system. Future health care policy
changes should embrace the following principles: |
Not just "primarily," but
exclusively, vis-a-vis the government. |
| 1.
Promotion of personal wellness, fitness and preventive care as basic
health goals; |
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| 2.
Minimal government intervention in decisions between providers and
receivers of health care; |
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| 3.
Patient's right to choose physicians and methods of treatment; |
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| 4.
Federal tax policies that encourage individuals to prepare for
health care needs; |
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| 5. We favor a
minimum of 90 days between date of notification and date of
cancellation of a health insurance group. We also favor more
affordable options for those being cancelled. |
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| We
oppose National Health Insurance or a public option. We are also
opposed to any form of socialized medicine. |
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| We
support allowing individuals to purchase health insurance policies
across state lines. |
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| We continue
to oppose state financed programs to provide health insurance
coverage for Missouri citizens. |
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| We support
the concept of a voucher system to enable individuals to purchase a
bare-bones private health insurance policy. |
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| We favor
elimination of unnecessary government regulations and red tape which
are prime contributors to high medical costs. |
Yes, but a completely Free Market in
health care is the goal. |
| We encourage
the health care industry to publish pricing guidelines for the most
common medical procedures and services offered to patients in order
to allow individuals a better chance to assess and control their
medical costs. |
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| To insure
that healthcare, particularly in rural areas, will not be further
eroded, resolve that Farm Bureau join with other healthcare
organizations to support recently enacted measures to address the
problem of the spiraling cost of malpractice insurance and the
decline in the number of insurance providers for hospital and
physician malpractice insurance. |
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| We favor a
ceiling on medical malpractice settlements. |
If you were on a jury and all the facts
indicated a settlement of X dollars was just and fair, would you
want there to be a federal law capping your award at X-1? Why should
Congress pre-empt the conclusions of a jury? Ignorant juries
should not be compounded with ignorant politicians. |
| We encourage
health care providers, health insurance companies, hospital
administrators and others involved in the health care industry to
cooperate whenever possible to help contain health care costs. Some
examples of cost containment ideas which we support include
elimination of duplicate services and cost shifting, sharing of
facilities and specialized equipment, creation of more satellite
clinics and increased use of non-physician providers. |
The best way to contain costs is for
patients to assume full financial responsibility and
decision-making. Neal McClusky has accurately observed,
Finally, there is the famously skyrocketing cost of health
care. Its cause is no mystery. According to the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services, in 2002 nearly 46 percent of
personal health care expenditures were covered by the government,
and after insurance only about 14 percent were covered directly by
patients. That's right: the people demanding the treatments picked
up only 14 cents of every dollar spent on them. So long,
economizing!
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| We
support the concept of tax preferred medical savings accounts which
would provide an incentive for individuals and families to build up
savings to pay for future medical expenses. |
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| We believe
regulation of the health insurance industry should remain a function
of state government and should not be shifted to the federal
government. |
Government does not do as good a job
regulating any industry as the Free Market. |
| We encourage
health insurance companies and health care providers to place more
emphasis on preventative care practices especially in the area of
education programs. |
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| Home
Health Care |
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| We believe
home health care agencies, especially those that are small and
located in rural areas, have been devastated by changes in the
federal payment structure. We support efforts to resolve funding
problems in a manner that ensures access and does not jeopardize
small businesses. |
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| Medical
Information Data Bases |
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| We oppose the
establishment of a National Data Base of personal medical
information. |
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| Medical
Schools |
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| We believe
admittance to medical schools should be based on academic
qualifications rather than referrals. |
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| We believe
medical schools should expand their programs to allow more students
to be accepted into the medical programs. |
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| Nutrition
Information |
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| We believe
that variety, moderation and balance are the cornerstones of a
healthy diet. |
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| We support
accurate labeling of food products for consumers. |
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| We oppose deceptive marketing and promotion and/or label
claims pertaining to dairy and other food products, implying
superiority when compared to other products not bearing such claims. |
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| Rural
Health Care |
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| We support
corrective legislation which would allow rural doctors and hospitals
to receive the same reimbursement rates for Medicare/Medicaid
treated patients as currently provided to urban health care
providers. |
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| We support a
program by state government in cooperation with local individuals
and institutions which would provide economic incentives for doctors
and registered nurses and licensed practical nurses to practice in
rural areas. One such program would be a state-sponsored loan
program for medical students and other medical health care
professionals with partial forgiveness of the loan if they establish
and maintain a practice in a rural area for at least five years. |
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| We support the rural-focused programs of the Missouri
Area Health Education Centers (MAHEC), which recruits and provides
educational assistance for students from rural areas who are
preparing to enter health professions and who will practice in rural
areas. |
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| We support state funding for the MAHEC separate from, and
in addition to, funds currently provided through the Primary Care
Resource Initiative for Missouri (PRIMO) program. |
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| We
urge consideration of a program to allow health insurance carriers
to offer lower priced, no-frills health insurance policies that are
not required to contain the various state-mandated health benefits. |
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| We support
greater use of non-physician providers to help relieve personnel
shortages in underserved rural areas. |
Medical
licensing is a major source of increasing medical costs. |
| We encourage
county Farm Bureaus to work cooperatively with other local
organizations to help organize and conduct effective physician
recruitment programs in their respective rural communities and to
explore other local solutions to rural health problems. |
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