Health care reform

Health care reform is "innovation and improvement of the health care system by reappraisal, amendment of services, and removal of faults and abuses in providing and distributing health services to patients. It includes a re-alignment of health services and health insurance to maximum demographic elements (the unemployed, indigent, uninsured, elderly, inner cities, rural areas) with reference to coverage, hospitalization, pricing and cost containment, insurers' and employers' costs, pre-existing medical conditions, prescribed drugs, equipment, and services."

Health care cost
Health care costs are "the actual costs of providing services related to the delivery of health care, including the costs of procedures, therapies, and medications. It is differentiated from health expenditures, which refers to the amount of money paid for the services, and from fees, which refers to the amount charged, regardless of cost."

Regarding the increases in cost of the health care sector in the United States, one cost-benefit analysis concluded, "on average, the increases in medical spending since 1960 have provided reasonable value."

Administrative costs
The costs of administration of health care in the United States in higher than the costs in Canada.

Increased preventive health care
Regarding the opportunity cost of primary prevention of diseases, one analysis concluded, "opportunities for efficient investment in health care programs are roughly equal for prevention and treatment."

Health services accessibility
Health services accessibility is "the degree to which individuals are inhibited or facilitated in their ability to gain entry to and to receive care and services from the health care system. Factors influencing this ability include geographic, architectural, transportational, and financial considerations, among others."

President Obama
President Obama summarized his plan.

President Clinton
President Clinton summarized his plan. The Clinton plan was included mandatory:
 * states creating purchasing cooperatives or alliances. The alliances would approve health care plans that offer care paid by salary, capitation fee, or fee-for-service plans.
 * employers paying 80 percent of the average premium of health care plans.

The Clinton plan was defeated, "the Senate Finance Committee did approve a bill in July 1994 that would have extended health insurance to 95 percent of the population by 2002, but the bill stalled in debate on the Senate floor and never came to a vote." The defeat was interpreted as being "rejected by a public that came to see it as a bid to replace their family doctor with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles writ large."