奥巴马每日发言Discuss Employer Health Care Costs(2009-5-12)

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REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AFTER ROUNDTABLE WITH BUSINESS LEADERS TO
DISCUSS EMPLOYER HEALTH CARE COSTS

 Roosevelt Room

12:23 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, everybody.  We just had a wonderful conversation that is a corollary to the discussion that I had yesterday.  And you may be seeing a theme, this was -- we're doing some stuff on health care because I think the country is geared up, businesses are geared up, families are geared up, to go ahead and start solving some of our extraordinary health care system problems.

Yesterday we focused a lot on cost.  One element of cost is that where companies are able to take initiatives to make their employees healthier, to give them incentives² and mechanisms³ to improve their wellness and to prevent disease, companies see their bottom lines improve.

And so what we've done is to gather together a group today -- some of the best practitioners⁴ of prevention and wellness, wellness programs -- in the private sector⁵.  You have companies like Safeway that have been able to hold their costs flat for their employees at a time when other companies are seeing double-digit inflation in their health care.

You've got terrific innovations at companies like Microsoft, where they actually have used home visits of doctors to reduce the utilization⁶ of emergency room care and are saving themselves millions of dollars.

We've got the Hotel Employees Union that has been taking data and working individually with providers as well as their membership, working with the employer and the employee as well as the providers, and seeing huge reductions in some of the costs related to chronic⁷ illnesses.

Johnson & Johnson has been a leader in this area since 1978.  Pitney Bowes has been taking similar approaches and seeing millions of dollars in savings⁸ to their bottom line.  The Ohio Department of Public Health has been doing terrific work with respect to their state employees as well as spreading the message across the state.

And then REI, which has to be fit since they're a fitness company -- (laughter) -- has been doing work that allows them to provide health care coverage⁹, health insurance, not only to their full-time¹⁰ employees but also their part-time employees.  Every single employee is covered, but part of the reason they're able to do it is because they put a big emphasis on prevention and wellness.

So what we've done here today is to gather together some of these stories and best practices to make sure that they are going to be informing the health care reform discussions that take place here in Washington.  There's no quick fix, there's no silver bullet.  When you hear what Safeway or Johnson & Johnson or any of these other companies have done, what you've seen is sustained experimentation¹¹ over many years and a shift in incentive¹ structures so that employees see concrete benefits as a consequence of them stopping smoking or losing weight or getting exercise, working with providers -- the provider incentives are aligned¹² with the employee incentives as well, and changing the culture of a company.

Now, if we can do that in individual companies, there's no reason why we can't do that for a country as a whole.  Part of what we want to do here, starting here today is to lift up these best practices so other companies can identify and potentially implement¹³ them; but also to make sure that when we think about how we're going to reform the health care system as a whole, when we think about things like Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements¹⁴, when we think about how we can make the system more efficient, that we're not just doing this in the abstract, but we're actually taking proven measures that have been applied¹⁵ in the private sector and seeing how we can apply those, for example, to federal employees and our employee health care system.  All this designed to save taxpayers¹⁶ money, save businesses money and ultimately make the American people healthier and happier and make sure that we're getting a better bang for our health care dollar.

So it's been a terrific conversation.  This will be a part of the ongoing¹⁷ process that we're developing over the next several months and I appreciate all of you for participating in a wonderful conversation.

All right.  Thank you, guys.

END                                             
12:29 P.M. EDT

1 incentive   

n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机

参考例句：

• Money is still a major incentive in most occupations.在许多职业中，钱仍是主要的鼓励因素。
• He hasn't much incentive to work hard.他没有努力工作的动机。

2 incentives   

激励某人做某事的事物( incentive的名词复数 )； 刺激； 诱因； 动机

参考例句：

• tax incentives to encourage savings 鼓励储蓄的税收措施
• Furthermore, subsidies provide incentives only for investments in equipment. 更有甚者，提供津贴仅是为鼓励增添设备的投资。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

3 mechanisms   

n.机械( mechanism的名词复数 )；机械装置；[生物学] 机制；机械作用

参考例句：

• The research will provide direct insight into molecular mechanisms. 这项研究将使人能够直接地了解分子的机理。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He explained how the two mechanisms worked. 他解释这两台机械装置是如何工作的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 practitioners   

n.习艺者，实习者( practitioner的名词复数 )；从业者（尤指医师）

参考例句：

• one of the greatest practitioners of science fiction 最了不起的科幻小说家之一
• The technique is experimental, but the list of its practitioners is growing. 这种技术是试验性的，但是采用它的人正在增加。 来自辞典例句

5 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

6 utilization   

n.利用，效用

参考例句：

• Computer has found an increasingly wide utilization in all fields.电子计算机已越来越广泛地在各个领域得到应用。
• Modern forms of agricultural utilization,have completely refuted this assumption.现代农业利用形式，完全驳倒了这种想象。

7 chronic   

adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的

参考例句：

• Famine differs from chronic malnutrition.饥荒不同于慢性营养不良。
• Chronic poisoning may lead to death from inanition.慢性中毒也可能由虚弱导致死亡。

8 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

9 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

10 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

11 experimentation   

n.实验，试验，实验法

参考例句：

• Many people object to experimentation on animals.许多人反对用动物做实验。
• Study and analysis are likely to be far cheaper than experimentation.研究和分析的费用可能要比实验少得多。

12 aligned   

adj.对齐的，均衡的

参考例句：

• Make sure the shelf is aligned with the top of the cupboard.务必使搁架与橱柜顶端对齐。

13 implement   

n.(pl.)工具，器具；vt.实行，实施，执行

参考例句：

• Don't undertake a project unless you can implement it.不要承担一项计划，除非你能完成这项计划。
• The best implement for digging a garden is a spade.在花园里挖土的最好工具是铁锹。

14 reimbursements   

n.偿还( reimbursement的名词复数 )；退款；补偿；赔偿

参考例句：

• We had to put in for the food reimbursements again. 我们不得不再次申请食物赔偿。 来自互联网
• Have you figured up the total of the reimbursements I gave you? 你有没有把我给你的报销账目全部加总了呢？ 来自互联网

15 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

16 taxpayers   

纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Finance for education comes from taxpayers. 教育经费来自纳税人。
• She was declaiming against the waste of the taxpayers' money. 她慷慨陈词猛烈抨击对纳税人金钱的浪费。

17 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。