Explore Candidates → President → Joe Biden on Health Care
Joe Biden
on
Health Care
- Abortion and Birth Control
- Civil Liberties and Domestic Security
- Crime and Punishment
- Education
- Environment and Energy
- Gay Rights
- Government and Elections
- Gun Control
- Health Care
- Immigration
- Internet and Media
- Iraq and Foreign Policy
- Medical Marijuana and Drug Policy
- Science
- Social Security
- Taxes and Budget
- Trade and Economics
I think the thing that will get us to total health coverage - health insurance for everybody the quickest - is to do what we did on welfare reform. What we did was we allowed the states considerable flexibility and leeway in reorganizing the system and we underwrote the cost of the poor states in doing it to get work programs going. Do the same exact thing with health care.
I think we need to immediately move toward dealing with catastrophic health care that every single unemployed person is able to have...we could do it without changing anything except the president's unneeded tax cut for people making $1.43 million a year.
Voted YES on $40 billion per year for limited Medicare prescription drug benefit
Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit bill; Bill S.1/H.R.1 ; vote number 2003-262 on Jun 26, 2003
I think John Kerry had a great idea in terms of insuring everyone under the age of 18. And I have a great idea to make sure that we immediately move toward dealing with catastrophic healthcare [to ensure] that every single unemployed person is able to have [that] kind of coverage...There are the first two things we could do, and we could do it without having to fundamentally change anything other than the president's unneeded tax cut for people making an average of $1.43 million dollars a year in the top one percent.
He [Biden] will convene a national gathering of key health care stakeholders from labor, business, the insurance industry, the health care industry and government within the first 90 days of his administration to seize the historic opportunity created by the recognition from organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies, the Business Roundtable and the AMA to the labor movement that the time has come for universal, affordable health care.
I would move immediately to insure all children under age 18, modernize medical records and provide catastrophic health insurance to lift the burden on the 46 million people who can't afford coverage.
Eliminate the break for investment on dividends, which is $195 billion. For $26 billion a year, I can insure every single solitary child under the age of 18 in the United States. You need start-up dollars. The place I'd start off with is somewhere over $220 billion a year by the tax cuts and ending the war.
Q: How would you address the millions of uninsured, and the cost for those insured? BIDEN: We need not just 100,000 new cops, but 100,000 new nurses that we fund in order to make things better. We have to be in a position where we don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good. In the first year, I'd insure every single, solitary child in America and make sure catastrophic insurance exists, and for every single person in America, while we move toward a national health care system covering anybody.
2007 AFL-CIO Democratic primary forum Aug 8, 2007
Voted YES on striking tax deductible medical savings accounts from an amendment.
Kassebaum Amdt #3677; Bill S. 1028 ; vote number 1996-72 on Apr 18, 1996
On Wednesday, Biden headlined a news conference for a movement called Wake Up Wal-Mart. 'My problem is that I don't see any indication they care about the fate of middle-class people,' Biden said...'I'm looking for corporate responsibility that says, "Hey, Americans have a right to health care, and we American corporations are at a disadvantage because our country doesn't have a national health care plan
I would support experimentation on the state level (like in Massachusetts and California) to determine how employer mandates and individual mandates work best.
Voted NO on limiting self-employment health deduction. The Santorum (R-PA) amdt would effectively kill the Kennedy Amdt (D-MA) which would have allowed self-employed individuals to fully deduct the cost of their health insurance on their federal taxes.
Santorum Amdt #1234; Bill S. 1344 ; vote number 1999-202 on Jul 13, 1999
Senator Joe Biden today signed on as a cosponsor of the Health Insurance Purchasing Alliance Act of 2002. This legislation would facilitate the ability of individuals and small businesses to band together to buy health insurance at group discount rates.