Response to A-CHAMP Questionnaire

[Guest guest]

A-CHAMP just received responses to our candidates questionnaire from

which are posted below. We have also received responses from Senator

Biden and Senator Obama which you can read at the A-CHAMP website,

www.a-champ.org. Please feel free to distribute to anyone, anywhere, anyhow.

1. Will you fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act?

Education is America’s sturdiest ladder of opportunity, but for many of the

more than 5 million school-age children with disabilities, that ladder is

missing several rungs. With IDEA, Congress made a commitment to America’s

children. Having a disability should not stand in the way of a child receiving

a quality education in the least restrictive setting. But the federal

government has not lived up to its responsibilities, funding less than half its

share.

I support a steady path toward fully funding the federal share of special

education costs and will enforce the right to receive a free and appropriate

education in schools that are fully accessible – starting with quality early

childhood education that is inclusive of all children, regardless of disability

or their learning style, and continuing with individualized education programs

when requested and classroom materials and technology that are accessible to all

students. Additionally, child care providers need training to help them

recognize when additional services might be needed and where those community

resources are.

I have repeatedly voted to fully fund special education and to make the

funding mandatory, and I oppose efforts to roll back key provisions of IDEA. It

is time that children with disabilities receive the quality education they

deserve.

2. Do you believe that the Combating Autism Act provides enough money to find

the cause, or causes, of autism and effective treatments?

While Congress took an important step last year by dedicating more than $900

million to address autism over the next five years, more can and must be done.

Resources for research should be a central part of future autism initiatives.

3. How much funding will you request to study potential environmental triggers

of autism?

As president, I will issue an all-hands-on deck research challenge and

dedicate the needed resources to unravel autism’s mysteries and follow wherever

the science takes us.

4. Do you believe there is an autism epidemic in the United States?

Autism and autism spectrum disorders affect an astonishing one in 150

children. More children than ever before – a 700 percent increase over the last

decade – are being classified as having an autism spectrum disorder. I believe

that we must learn more about why the number of children diagnosed with autism

and autism spectrum disorders has been growing.

5. What will you do to stop health insurers from discriminating against people

with autism and their families?

I will require insurers to keep plans open to everyone and charge fair

premiums, regardless of preexisting conditions, medical history, and other

characteristics. No longer will insurance companies be able to game the system

to cover only healthy people. Several states – including New Jersey, New York,

and Washington – have led the way on similar community rating and guaranteed

issue reforms. In addition, new national standards will ensure that all health

insurance policies offer preventive and chronic care with minimal cost-sharing.

6. What will you do to assure that health insurers pay for promising new

treatments and behavioral therapy?

Our health care system is predominantly fee-for-service: providers are paid

for each treatment, regardless of its necessity or quality. For example, a

hospital that makes a medical error is often paid for the error and then paid

again to fix it. Our system should pay for results, rewarding better, more

efficient care.

As part of my proposal to transform our health care system and guarantee

quality, affordable health care for every American, Medicare, my new Health Care

Markets and other government programs will lead the way by paying higher rates

to plans and providers that provide the very best care and penalizing plans that

fail to meet critical, quantifiable goals.

Only a small fraction — likely less than 0.1 percent — of each health care

dollar is currently devoted to systematic research and assessment of the

comparative effectiveness of various diagnostic and therapeutic options. I will

establish a non-profit or public organization – possibly within the Institutes

of Medicine – to research the best methods of providing care, drawing upon data

from Medicare, Health Care Markets and medical experts from across the nation.

It will test devices and drugs head-to-head to see which work best and for whom.

This new organization will quickly and widely disseminate its unbiased,

scientific findings to physicians and patients.

Though we have some of the best health care technology in the world, effective

new treatments can take years to be widely adopted. For example, until recently,

many patients did not receive beta blockers after heart attacks even though they

are cheap and highly effective. Similarly, doctors sometimes prescribe name

brand drugs despite the availability of equally effective, less expensive

generic drugs. As new diagnostics, procedures and drugs are introduced, my new

objective medical research organization will help doctors make sense of what

works best. Government programs will offer incentives for the use of

evidence-based care and treatments.

7. Do you think vaccines should be investigated as a possible cause of autism?

We need to step up our research efforts to find the causes of autism, as well

as better treatments. And that research must be transparent, accountable, open

to all possibilities and driven by science.

8. What will you do to protect Americans, especially young children and

pregnant women, from exposure to mercury through vaccines?

I will take all necessary steps to make sure that vaccines are as safe as

possible. We must discontinue the use of potentially dangerous additives,

including mercury, in vaccines.

9. What will you do to provide for the lifetime care that 250,000 to 500,000

current children with autism will need in the future?

Government education services for people with disabilities end at age 21, even

though the need does not, especially for many of those with autism. Thus,

families are left to care for their adult children with disabilities largely on

their own. I will work to develop ongoing adult education and vocational and

recreational programs for those with autism. My plans for reforming the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development and strengthening federal housing

policy will expand the supply of affordable supportive housing for people with

disabilities, including adults living with autism.

10. Would you support a large-scale federal study of the differences in health

outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated groups?

As president, I will direct my Secretary of Health and Human Services and my

Directors of the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health

to follow where science takes us and to determine which studies to undertake

based on scientific evidence.

11. Would you support a federal right for families and individuals to choose

for themselves which vaccines they will use?

I support efforts to ensure the safety of America’s vaccines and to educate

families and health care providers about vaccine options.

12. Are you satisfied that the federal vaccine approval process is free of

conflicts of interests, transparent and rigorous?

Drug companies responsible for testing drugs prior to FDA approval have an

inherent conflict of interest between their desire to profit from new treatments

and the public’s interest in ensuring safety and efficacy. I will move toward

requiring fully independent testing of drugs, including the testing of drugs

compared to existing alternatives. Information about comparative effectiveness

would be required to be made available to the FDA and to the public.