The Amazing Maze of US Health Care

Sam Stein
stein@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — who has gone to great lengths to hype the supposed dangers of a big government takeover of American health care — admitted over the weekend that she used to get her treatment in Canada’s single-payer system.

“We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada,” Palin said in her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska. “And I think now, isn’t that ironic?”

The irony, one guesses, is that Palin now views Canada’s health care system as revolting: with its government-run administration and ‘death-panel’-like rationing. Clearly, however, she and her family once found it more alluring than, at the very least, the coverage available in rural Alaska. Up to the age of six, Palin lived in a remote town near the closest Canadian city, Whitehorse.

Palin Crossed Border For Canadian Health Care

By Alexandra Thomas – Bloomberg.com

Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) — Health-care spending in the U.S. will almost double in 2019 to $4.5 trillion, or more than 19 percent of the economy, as unemployment and aging baby boomers drive up government costs, economists forecast.

Spending already jumped to $2.5 trillion, or 17.3 percent of the economy, in 2009, the economists from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in their yearly estimate, published today in the journal Health Affairs. The increase in share of gross domestic product, from 16.2 percent in 2008, was the biggest since record keeping began in 1960.

Health-Care Burden Shifts to U.S. Government as Spending Soars – Bloomberg.com

By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS

With the fate of a national health care overhaul unclear, state legislators are pushing their own bills aimed at expanding coverage, though tight budgets are likely to hinder many of these efforts.

Lawmakers in at least two states, California and Missouri, have introduced legislation for the current session to create government-backed coverage for state residents. In others, including Virginia and New Jersey, legislators are hoping to tweak existing state programs to include more people.

In 11 states, lawmakers have proposed bills for this year aimed at improving access to health care, said the National Conference of State Legislatures.

States Try to Move Health-Care Bills – WSJ.com

By Jordan Rau

Kaiser Health News
Tuesday, January 19, 2010

RICHMOND — Five months into pregnancy, Jodi Lemacks discovered that her unborn son had a severe heart defect and would require a complex operation as soon as he was born. But the local pediatric heart surgeons didn’t inspire confidence.

One surgeon “had just lost a baby with the same defects,” Lemacks says, “and he only did six of these surgeries a year, which is not a really good number.”

So Lemacks and her husband, Mark, selected a Philadelphia surgeon who was one of the most experienced in the nation at performing the challenging operation. It involved draining the heart of blood while the surgeon reconstructed the aorta, which in a newborn is thin as a string. Even in the best of hands, Joshua had only a 5 percent chance of surviving to the second surgery he would need six months later, several specialists told the Lemackses.

Insurer okayed out-of-network care for heart patient but family faces huge bill – washingtonpost.com

By ROBERT PEAR – NYTimes.com

January 10, 2010

DENVER — Donny Seyfer, the manager of an auto repair shop here, had high hopes when President Obama and Congress tackled health care as their top priority early last year.

“This is good,” Mr. Seyfer remembers thinking. He expected Congress to “find out what Americans wanted.” But, he said in an interview at his shop, the Congressional debate deteriorated into a partisan brawl, and Congress has virtually ignored his biggest concern: holding down health costs.

“I am an automotive diagnostician,” Mr. Seyfer said. “We look for the root cause of problems. If we treat the symptoms, the problem always comes back. With health care, we are not treating the root cause: Why does it cost so much?”

Colorado Voters Craving Reform of Health Care and Congress – NYTimes.com