Goddard Mayor Gregory makes health-care case to Rep. Pompeo | Wichitopekington | Wichita Eagle Blogs
PDF By Dion Lefler
Published by The Wichita Eagle
Posted Nov. 7, 2011
Saying she had benefited as both a small-business owner and a mother, Goddard (Kansas) Mayor Marcey Gregory today pressed Rep. Mike Pompeo to change his view that Congress should completely repeal the national health care law.
Pompeo didn’t back off from his long-held stance that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — which he and other Republicans derisively call “Obamacare” — should be repealed in its entirety.
He did, however, express some support for safeguards against insurance companies denying people coverage.
Goddard Mayor Gregory makes health-care case to Rep. Pompeo | Wichitopekington | Wichita Eagle Blogs
6th Circuit Court of Appeals panel upholds individual mandate
By JENNIFER HABERKORN | 6/29/11
The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld the health reform law’s controversial requirement that nearly all Americans buy insurance, marking a significant win for President Barack Obama in the legal battles over his signature legislation.
The ruling by a three-judge panel — 2-1 in favor of the mandate — is the first from an appeals court on the constitutionality of the law.
The panel included two Republican nominees, who ended up on opposite ends of the opinion. Jeffrey S. Sutton, a George W. Bush nominee and a former clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia, is the first Republican-nominated judge to rule in favor of upholding the mandate.
“We find that the minimum coverage provision is a valid exercise of legislative power by Congress under the Commerce Clause,” Judge Boyce F. Martin Jr., who was nominated by Jimmy Carter, wrote for the majority.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/58040.html#ixzz1Qm9FEF2G
Is Employer Sponsored Health Care the Next Jurassic Park? | Health Care Solutions and Benefits Management
Is Employer Sponsored Health Care the Next Jurassic Park?
By RedBrick Health
If employers have been looking for an exit to employer-sponsored health benefits, they may have found one in the new health reform law. According to the just released employer survey by McKinsey and Company, upwards of 30% of the 1,300 employers surveyed “definitely or probably” will drop health coverage altogether and instead pay the $2,000 per employee government mandated fine. The flee rate gets even higher when focused on those employers with a high awareness of the new law – more than half (50%+) employers indicating plans to exit health benefits.Regardless of whether or not the survey findings become reality, the health reform law is likely to have an impact on the landscape of employer sponsored health. Employers leaning toward getting out of the world of health insurance may feel justified in doing so knowing their employees are ensured affordable coverage options outside of their employment.
Many U.S. employers to drop health benefits: McKinsey | Reuters
CHICAGO | Tue Jun 7, 2011
(Reuters) – At least 30 percent of employers are likely to stop offering health insurance once provisions of the U.S. health care reform law kick in in 2014, according to a study by consultant McKinsey.
McKinsey, which based its projection on a survey of more than 1,300 employers of various sizes and industries and other proprietary research, found that 30 percent of employers will “definitely” or “probably” stop offering coverage in the years after 2014, when new medical insurance exchanges are supposed to be up and running.
“The shift away from employer-provided health insurance will be vastly greater than expected and will make sense for many companies and lower-income workers alike,” according to the study, published in McKinsey Quarterly.
Many U.S. employers to drop health benefits: McKinsey | Reuters
The Affordable Care Act: Immediate Benefits for Hawaii
The Affordable Care Act: Immediate Benefits for Hawaii
- Small business tax credits. 18,600 small businesses in Hawaii could be helped by a new small business tax credit that makes it easier for businesses to provide coverage to their workers and makes premiums more affordable.1 Small businesses pay, on average, 18 percent more than large businesses for the same coverage, and health insurance premiums have gone up three times faster than wages in the past 10 years. This tax credit is just the first step towards bringing those costs down and making coverage affordable for small businesses.
Corporations, Federal ‘Reform’ Keep Shifting Healthcare Costs to Workers
By Roger Bybee May 13, 2011
In These Times
Despite its $14.2 billion in profits last year untouched by federal income taxes, General Electric is now demanding that its unionized workers accept a new high-deductible “Health Choice” health savings account plan.
GE’s demands are particularly obscene because it is sitting on $25 billion in savings and is threatening to close more U.S. plants, i.e. move more jobs to Mexico, China and elsewhere. And they’re particularly dangerous because GE is modeling bad behavior for other corporations to emulate.
As UE-GE Conference Secretary Steve Tormey has said, “Nobody is more symbolic of the assault on workers than General Electric.” The United Electrical workers union, one of a handful of unions now negotiating with GE, warned its members:
Corporations, Federal ‘Reform’ Keep Shifting Healthcare Costs to Workers – Working In These Times
What’s driving seniors’ Medicare fears? | BenefitsPro
April 28, 2011 By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican plan to privatize Medicare wouldn’t touch his benefits, but Walter Dotson still doesn’t like the idea. He worries about the consequences long after he’s gone, for the grandson he is raising.
“I’d certainly hate to see him without the benefits that I’ve got,” said Dotson, 72, steering a high school sophomore toward adulthood.
The loudest objections to the GOP Medicare plan are coming from seniors, who swung to Republicans in last year’s congressional elections, and many have been complaining at town-hall meetings with their representatives during the current congressional recess. Some experts say GOP policymakers may have overlooked a defining trait among older people: concern for the welfare of the next generations.
“I remember the days when we had poor farms and elderly people on welfare, before we had Social Security and Medicare for seniors, and I’m afraid it will lead right back to that situation,” added Dotson, from the village of Cleveland in rural southwest Virginia.
Survey: Claim costs rise for employer plans | BenefitsPro
April 25, 2011 By Jenny Ivy
Although the cost of claims for employer-sponsored health plans are slightly lower than six months ago, a new study finds these costs are rising at double-digit rates.
Wells Fargo Insurance Services recently surveyed 60 insurance companies between February and March.
Reflecting claim activity over a six-month period, projected increases in the national average cost of claims include
Barbour’s Medicaid claims counter facts | BenefitsPro
Barbour’s Medicaid claims counter facts | BenefitsPro
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Gov. Haley Barbour, a potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate, played fast and loose with his state’s Medicaid enrollment numbers this week as he spoke in Washington and chatted up voters in the early primary state of New Hampshire.
“Our rolls dropped from 750,000 to 580,000 in the first couple of years,” Barbour said Tuesday on Capitol Hill, referring to Medicaid enrollment trends after he took office in January 2004. That would be a 22.7 percent decline.
The problem is, Barbour’s numbers are misleading, according to statistics provided by his own administration.
The Mississippi Governor’s Office Division of Medicaid had a different way of counting Medicaid enrollment under Barbour’s predecessor, Democrat Ronnie Musgrove. The program changed its counting method in 2006, about midway through Barbour’s first term.
Health insurance plans sometimes don’t cover care needed by newborn babies
By Michelle Andrews
Monday, January 3, 2011
Many expectant parents are pretty savvy these days about making sure that their obstetrician and the hospital where they plan to have their baby are in their health insurance network. Using an out-of-network provider would almost certainly mean higher out-of-pocket costs: The plan might pay just 60 percent of charges, for example, instead of 80 percent or more.
However, fewer parents-to-be realize that they may be in for a nasty surprise if their baby is premature or for some other reason needs special care immediately after birth: The neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) personnel at their in-network hospital may be out of network.
Health insurance plans sometimes don’t cover care needed by newborn babies
New Ernst & Young report reveals key issues for U.S. companies on health care reform – Articles – Employee Benefit News
By Andrea Davis December 13, 2010
U.S. employers believe that managing the changes resulting from health care reform is a critical business issue, yet few organizations have conducted a full analysis of the legislation’s financial impact, according to a new report from Ernst & Young.
Results of the survey of 381 executives show that companies across a variety of industries clearly recognize the need to plan adequately so they are in compliance with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, with 84% of respondents stating that such planning is important.
Arizona Strikes Back – NYTimes.com
By GAIL COLLINS December 3, 2010
Let us revisit the matter of pulling the plug on grandma.
You may remember the historic day in 2009 when Senator Chuck Grassley brought the issue to the fore at a town meeting in Iowa. “We should not have a government plan that will pull the plug on grandma,” he said to loud cheers.
This was when Grassley, a Republican, was negotiating with the Democrats on a bipartisan health care reform bill. Optimistic spirits felt his plug-pulling metaphor was simply an attempt to reassure his constituents, while he continued working in good faith with the Finance Committee chairman, Senator Max (I Am Always Wrong) Baucus.
Later, President Obama asked Grassley whether he would vote for the bill if all his suggestions for change were included. Grassley said probably not. This was taken to be a bad sign.
Job-based insurance usage declines – Local Business – The Buffalo News
Updated: November 21, 2010, 06:37 AM
Workers in New York State are taking up their employer’s health insurance coverage at a lower rate than nationwide, and much lower than they were a decade ago, according to a new report by the New York State Health Foundation.
It is an ominous crack in the state’s health care system — fueled by rising costs and a slow economy—that could worsen over time, experts said.
Only 58 percent of workers in the state are covered by an employer-sponsored health plan, down from 69 percent in 2001.
Job-based insurance usage declines – Local Business – The Buffalo News
Single payer ballot questions pass in all fourteen Massachusetts districts! – PNHP’s Official Blog
By Benjamin Day
Massachusetts voters have, for the second straight election, overwhelmingly affirmed their support for single payer health reform by turning in majority ‘Yes’ votes in all fourteen districts where local single payer ballot questions appeared on November 2. The ballots spanned 80 different cities and towns in a state of 351 municipalities, winning in every city and town reporting results so far except two. Five of the districts backing single payer reform voted for Scott Brown in last year’s special senate election, which was largely seen as a referendum on national health reform, showing that the goal of improved and expanded Medicare for All is supported by a diverse range of communities across the state.
Single payer ballot questions pass in all fourteen Massachusetts districts! – PNHP’s Official Blog
DownWithTyranny!: Union Bullying Must Stop!
Illinois blogger Mike Doyle of Chicago Carless wrote a guest post for us about union bullying. You hear about union bullying on Fox and on Hate Talk radio all the time, where the concept has been twisted into something unrecognizable. This is what it’s really all about:
Heartless For the Hell of It? Phenomenally Profitable Express Scripts Launches a Recession-Era Attack on Wage Earners
-by Mike Doyle
This should be the story of a win-win situation. In the middle of the Great Recession, a nationally prominent mega-corporation manages to achieve phenomenal profitability and decides to share its good fortune with the wage workers who helped make that profit possible. All of that happens to be true about Express Scripts (Nasdaq: ESRX), the nation’s second-largest pharmacy benefits manager–all except for the decision about how to thank its workers.To show their gratitude, Express Scripts managers went in a different direction. First, they publicly lauded union workers at their most efficient processing plant. Then they told them they were losing their jobs. Sometimes corporate America’s capacity to stick it to the little guy is so astounding, you can’t help but feel impressed by the chutzpah.
The plant in question is an Express Scripts processing facility in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, employing 365 workers represented by SEIU Healthcare PA.
Fraud Bureaus Report Sharp Rise in Fake Health Plans
By Dennis Jay July 7, 2010
Bob Harper thought he’d found a better health-insurance deal. The Oklahoma man bought coverage from an outfit called American Trade Association (ATA). The price seemed affordable, and he thought he’d save decent money while maintaining a solid healthcare safety net.
Harper’s heart then went bad. His strength fading, he urgently needed a pacemaker. But he discovered too late that ATA was fake. Trying to find legitimate health protection he was having trouble convincing insurers to cover him because of his pre-existing condition.
A Colorado man was gravely hurt in a hit-and-run accident. His hospital bills soared to $43,000 before he died. His so-called health plan, the National Trade Business Alliance, paid out just $250, the insurance department says.
More victims like these are showing up as fake health plans operate widely around the United States over the last two and a half years, exploiting people’s anxiety over finding affordable coverage amid rising premiums, mounting layoffs and general financial distress in a downturned economy.
Government boasts $2.5 billion Medicare fraud recovery, assures health reform will up success – FierceHealthcare
The government recovered $2.5 billion in overpayments for the Medicare trust fund last year–up from $1.9 billion in 2008–and says that the stepped-up antifraud measures in health reform will ensure even greater future success.
As Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder pointed out during yesterday’s news conference, the newly enacted Affordable Care Act provides an additional $300 million over the next 10 years to fight health fraud, enhances the government’s oversight of companies participating in Medicare and Medicaid and lengthens prison sentences in criminal cases.
Thank God for the NHS | The Spectator
by Ross Clark
American healthcare makes our system look good, writes Ross Clark. But however revolutionary Barack Obama’s health reforms are, Americans will still pay through the nose
Had I a more devotional attachment to free-market economics I suppose I would be joining all those Republicans condemning Barack Obama’s health reforms. I have written enough about the failings of the NHS over the years to fill an entire symposium at a Washington think-tank.
Churchill backed universal care – Letters – Times Union – Albany NY
Letter to the Editor:
Times Union, Albany, NY
In his March 24 letter decrying health care reform, English teacher William Elder invokes conservative icon Winston Churchill’s words of warning against socialism.
While Mr. Elder is correct in that Churchill was anti-socialist, he omits the fact that Churchill was also an early architect, and staunch supporter, of England’s nationalized health care.
Churchill backed universal care — Page 1 — Times Union – Albany NY
News Analysis – With or Without Health Reform, We Pay for Others’ Bad Habits – NYTimes.com
By SANDEEP JAUHAR, M.D. March 29, 2010
“I’m tired of paying for everyone else’s stupidity,” is a comment I read on the Internet last week after the health care bill was passed. It summed up the views of many Americans worried about shelling out higher premiums and taxes to cover the uninsured. Why should we pick up the tab when so much disease in our country stems from unhealthy behavior like smoking and overeating?
In fact, the majority of Americans say it is fair to ask people with unhealthy lifestyles to pay more for health insurance. We believe in the concept of personal responsibility. You hear it in doctors’ lounges and in coffee shops, among the white collar and blue collar alike. Even President Obama has said, “We’ve got to have the American people doing something about their own care.”
But personal responsibility is a complex notion, especially when it comes to health. Individual choices always take place within a broader, messy context. When people advocate the need for personal accountability, they presuppose more control over health and sickness than really exists.
News Analysis – With or Without Health Reform, We Pay for Others’ Bad Habits – NYTimes.com
Bill Boyarsky: A Healthy Start … With Loopholes – Bill Boyarsky’s Columns – Truthdig
AP / Lauren Victoria Burke Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., holds a large gavel as she crosses Independence Avenue en route to the Capitol before Sunday’s House vote on health care reform. Immediately right of Pelosi is Rep. David Obey and immediately left, Rep. John Lewis. Next to Lewis is House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.
By Bill Boyarsky Mar 24, 2010
Now that President Barack Obama has signed health reform into law, insurance industry lobbyists will turn their attention to trying to cripple it. This will be done under the pretense of improving the reform proposal—or, as they say in the lobbying business, loving the law to death.
The passage of health reform was a great event. The Republicans who talk about repeal are misreading the public. At the moment, public opinion polling is mixed, but two days after passage, a USA Today/Gallup Poll reported that 49 percent of those surveyed found the measure was “a good thing.” A total of 40 percent said it was bad.
And support will increase as the reform law begins to kick in later this year. Consider these provisions going into effect in 2010:
Bill Boyarsky: A Healthy Start … With Loopholes – Bill Boyarsky’s Columns – Truthdig
PostPartisan – Why Democrats are fighting for a Republican health plan
By E.J. Dionne
Here is the ultimate paradox of the Great Health Care Showdown: Congress will divide along partisan lines to pass a Republican version of health care reform, and Republicans will vote against it.
Yes, Democrats have rallied behind a bill that Republicans — or at least large numbers of them — should love. It is built on a series of principles that Republicans espoused for years.
PostPartisan – Why Democrats are fighting for a Republican health plan
Congressman Dennis Kucinich Supports Reform
Each generation has had to take up the question of how to provide for the health of the people of our nation. And each generation has grappled with difficult questions of how to meet the needs of our people. I believe health care is a civil right. Each time as a nation we have reached to expand our basic rights, we have witnessed a slow and painful unfolding of a democratic pageant of striving, of resistance, of breakthroughs, of opposition, of unrelenting efforts and of eventual triumph.
I have spent my life struggling for the rights of working class people and for health care. I grew up understanding first hand what it meant for families who did not get access to needed care. I lived in 21 different places by the time I was 17, including in a couple of cars.
Middle Class Losing Health Insurance Faster Than The Rich Or Poor
Arthur Delaney arthur@huffingtonpost.com
It’s the biggest “doughnut hole” of them all: Members of the middle class are losing their health insurance faster than any other income group, according to a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The number of middle-income earners covered by employer health insurance fell by three million from 2000 to 2008, and government programs and the individual market aren’t picking up the slack. The total number of uninsured middle-income earners rose from 10.5 million to 12.9 million, representing 16.2 percent of the income bracket — a bigger increase than for any other income group.
Middle Class Losing Health Insurance Faster Than The Rich Or Poor
Palin Crossed Border For Canadian Health Care
Sam Stein
stein@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost ReportingFormer 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.
Health-Care Burden Shifts to U.S. Government as Spending Soars
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
States Try to Move Health-Care Bills – WSJ.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.
Insurer okayed out-of-network care for heart patient but family faces huge bill – washingtonpost.com
By Jordan Rau
Kaiser Health News
Tuesday, January 19, 2010RICHMOND — 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
Colorado Voters Craving Reform of Health Care and Congress
January 10, 2010DENVER — 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
Firedoglake » Terrorism Still Less Deadly in US Than Lack of Health Insurance, Salmonella
By: Blue Texan Tuesday December 29, 2009
Since we still seem to be having a national freakout over some loser who got on a plane with a bomb in his underwear, which was apparently worthy of a presidential address, it might be a good idea to put the actual danger posed by terrorist attacks in some numerical perspective.
If you count the Ft. Hoot shooting as a terrorist attack, which even the likes of Pantload doesn’t, 16 people have died in the United States as result of terrorism in 2009. The other three deaths include the Little Rock military recruiting office shooting (1), the Holocaust Museum shooting (1), and Dr. George Tiller’s assassination (1), the last two coming at the hands of right-wing extremists.
On the other hand, 45,000 Americans died because they didn’t have health insurance and 600 died from salmonella poisoning.
Firedoglake » Terrorism Still Less Deadly in US Than Lack of Health Insurance, Salmonella
Merry Christmas! Ed Hanway, Cigna CEO, gets a $73.2M golden parachute
The NOW! Blog
Ed Hanway, CEO of Cigna, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies, will step down at the end of this year, in just over a week. When he does, he’ll get $73,200,000 as compensation for a job well done.
What makes Hanway worth $73.2 million? Well, for one example, he’s presided as Cigna denied a liver transplant to 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, causing her death and widespread outrage. Wendell Potter, Cigna’s former spokesperson turned whistle-blower, was at the company during the Sarkisyan scandal, and he explains its effect on him personally, as well as how the company thinks about denying care:
NOW! Blog » Merry Christmas! Ed Hanway, Cigna CEO, is getting a $73,200,000 golden parachute
A Decade After ‘To Err is Human’ Report, Patient Safety Challenges Remain
- News digest – Quality/Equality – RWJF
Providers have made significant improvements in patient safety since the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) groundbreaking To Err is Human report, which shed light on the prevalence of medical errors in U.S. hospitals when it was released a decade ago, but many of the report’s recommendations “remain elusive,” Modern Healthcare reports. The IOM report famously determined that as many as 98,000 patients in U.S. hospitals die annually because of “medical harm,” calling for a series of systemic changes and reforms to reduce errors and mortality in the health care industry.
Anthony Weiner – New York’s 9th District
Washington, DC – Representative Anthony Weiner (D- Brooklyn & Queens), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee released the following statement in advance of President Obama’s meeting with the Senate Democratic Caucus at the White House:
“Snowe? Stupak? Lieberman? Who left these people in charge? It’s time for the President to get his hands dirty. Some of us have compromised our compromised compromise. We need the President to stand up for the values our party shares. We must stop letting the tail wag the dog of this debate.”
One-third of health care dollars wasted – Articles – Employee Benefit Adviser
December 14, 2009
A new study from Thomson Reuters Healthcare Analytics confirms one thing we all know about health care costs: fraud, paperwork, unnecessary care and other forms of waste combine to drain a mindboggling amount of money from the U.S. health care system. The new study pegs the total at around $700 billion a year — about one-third of the total U.S. health care spend.
“America’s health care system is indeed hemorrhaging billions of dollars,” says Robert Kelley, vice president of healthcare analytics at Thomson Reuters. The good news, however, “is that by attacking waste we can reduce health care costs without adversely affecting the quality of care or access to care,” Kelley believes.
One-third of health care dollars wasted – Articles – Employee Benefit Adviser
How Health Care Reform Opponents Take Advantage Of Silly Facebook Games
Last night, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow featured our story, Health Insurers Caught Paying Facebook Gamers Virtual Currency To Oppose Reform Bill. Watch:
How Health Care Reform Opponents Take Advantage Of Silly Facebook Games
Free health clinic treats 2,300 people over two days
KansasCity.com
A huge two-day free health clinic at Bartle Hall is over, and the numbers are in.
Volunteer doctors, nurses, dentists and other health professionals saw more than 900 uninsured people Wednesday and about 1,400 Thursday.
Demand was so great Thursday evening that volunteers worked to arrange doctor appointments for people who were still waiting in line as the clinic was closing.
The Kansas City clinic is the fourth held in recent months by the National Association of Free Clinics to highlight the problems of the uninsured. The association has received donations of about $1.9 million for the events and plans to hold more of them next year.
Free health clinic treats 2,300 people over two days – KansasCity.com
Joseph Lieberman Says He Can’t Support Current Health Bill
By ROBERT PEAR and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN – NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — In a surprise setback for Democratic leaders, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, said on Sunday that he would vote against the health care legislation in its current form.
The bill’s supporters had said earlier that they thought they had secured Mr. Lieberman’s agreement to go along with a compromise they worked out to overcome an impasse within the Democratic Party.
But on Sunday, Mr. Lieberman told the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, to scrap the idea of expanding Medicare and abandon any new government insurance plan or lose his vote.
Joseph Lieberman Says He Can’t Support Current Health Bill – NYTimes.com
Health care reform satire game “Death Panel” comes to the iPhone
December 9, 2009 | Dean Takahashi | VentureBeat
Casting a satirical view on the healthcare reform debate, a game called Death Panel is debuting on Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch devices today.
Made by developer People Operating Technology, the game tests a user’s knowledge of healthcare reform. It takes its title from the much-discussed “death panels” that reform opponents used to deride Democratic proposals, to let “experts” decide who lives or who dies among patients. If it were serious, the game would be a slam against Obama. But it treats the subject tongue in cheek and is by and large politically neutral.
Health care reform satire game “Death Panel” comes to the iPhone | VentureBeat
Senate Dems may change health care compromise
By ERICA WERNER
The Associated Press
December 11, 2009washingtonpost.com
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are considering changing a proposed expansion of Medicare to address complaints from doctors and hospitals and defray costs for consumers, officials said Thursday, two days after party leaders hailed it as part of a breakthrough for health care.
Under the plan, uninsured individuals ages 55 to 64 could purchase coverage under Medicare. The expansion is part of a compromise for dropping a full-blown national government-run insurance plan from the legislation that Democrats and the White House hope to push through the Senate by Christmas.
Senate Dems may change health care compromise – washingtonpost.com
Two-thirds of Americans support Medicare-for-all (#2 of 6)
Andrew Coates MD on Monday, Dec 7, 2009 PNHP’s Official Blog
Two-thirds of Americans support Medicare-for-all (#2 of 6)
Citizen juries demonstrate massive support for single-payer
By Kip Sullivan, JD“They contradicted both beltway and public opinion polls. The whole damn world seems to think the Clinton plan is the way to go. Yet they like the single-payer system, which isn’t even getting considered in Washington.”
That was how the president of the Jefferson Center characterized the outcome of a five-day “citizen jury” experiment in which 24 “jurors” listened to and questioned 30 experts on health care reform. (Patrick Howe, “‘Citizens jury’ supports Wellstone’s health care proposal over Clinton plan,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, October 15, 1993, 10A.) Of those 30 experts, only one, Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN), spoke in favor of single-payer. (Gail Shearer of Consumers Union, which had endorsed single-payer by 1993, was one of the 30 experts to speak to the jury, but it is not clear from the Jefferson Center record that she spoke in favor of single-payer.)
Two-thirds of Americans support Medicare-for-all (#2 of 6) – PNHP’s Official Blog
Open Mike – Departments – Johns Hopkins Public Health Magazine
Reform 2.0
by Michael J. Klag
I have to find a new doctor.
Last month, my primary care physician wrote me a letter. He said he was leaving private practice. He’s an outstanding physician—a doctor’s doctor whom I’ve known since he was a medical student. His reason for closing up shop? The sheer frustration of getting paid by private insurance companies.
When a physician of his stature and skills departs private practice for a reason like that, it is an indictment of our health care system—that is, if we had a health care system. We all know the U.S. has great physicians and the world’s best medical technology. But the best health care system? Not in the least. Our crazy patchwork quilt is an accident of history and one that we need to fix. It fails us in so many ways, from its gross inefficiencies to the fact that it has left 47 million Americans without health insurance.
Open Mike – Departments – Johns Hopkins Public Health Magazine
AFL-CIO aims at centrist Dems over ‘Cadillac tax’
By Michael O’Brien – 12/07/09
The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room
The AFL-CIO’s new TV ad is set to take aim at centrist Democrats over the Senate healthcare bill’s taxes on insurance plans.
The ad, which pushes the Senate to remove the so-called “Cadillac tax” on high-value insurance policies, will begin running Monday in Delaware, Indiana, and Virginia.Those states are home to centrist Democratic Senators Tom Carper (Del.), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Jim Webb (Va.), and Mark Warner (Va.), whose votes on the taxes in this bill are subject to pressure from the labor group and other organizations with a stake in the healthcare fight.
AFL-CIO aims at centrist Dems over ‘Cadillac tax’ – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room
Nearly 9 Percent of Surgeons Made ‘Major Error’ Recently, Study Finds -
A new study in the Annals of Surgery suggests that nearly 9 percent of surveyed surgeons believed they had made a major medical error in the past three months, with more than 70 percent of those surgeons attributing errors to individual factors such as burnout and depression, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Health care reform’s control of costs questioned
Chris Frates – POLITICO.com
The White House has started to aggressively push back against a growing narrative that pending health reform legislation doesn’t do enough to control spiraling health costs.
The administration has made senior officials available, circulated a letter from respected economists and highlighted positive press coverage to combat the growing impression.
White House Budget Director Peter Orszag essentially blamed the emerging, and potentially damaging, story line on lazy reporters.
Health care reform’s control of costs questioned – Chris Frates – POLITICO.com
No Big Cost Rise in U.S. Premiums Is Seen in Study
By ROBERT PEAR and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
November 30, 2009
WASHINGTON — The Congressional Budget Office said Monday that the Senate health bill could significantly reduce costs for many people who buy health insurance on their own, and that it would not substantially change premiums for the vast numbers of Americans who receive coverage from large employers.
The eagerly awaited report, which came as the Senate began debate on the legislation, provided Democrats with ammunition against Republicans who have criticized the bill on the ground that it would raise costs for a majority of Americans.
Centrist Democrats like Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, whose votes are vital to President Obama’s hopes of getting the bill approved, had feared that the measure would drive up costs for people with employer-sponsored coverage. After reading the budget office report, Mr. Bayh said he was reassured on that point.
No Big Cost Rise in U.S. Premiums Is Seen in Study – NYTimes.com
Joe Davidson – Federal Diary: A case study in abortion funding – washingtonpost.com
By Joe Davidson
December 1, 2009
D.J. Feldman was 11 weeks pregnant last year when she learned that her child had anencephaly, a fetal defect that left the baby with almost no brain. It is always fatal.
Feldman, a 41-year-old federal lawyer, and her husband had been trying for two years to have a baby. Sadly, her doctor “made it very clear I wasn’t to continue this pregnancy,” she said.
An abortion was medically necessary. She had little choice.
But after the jolt of the diagnosis and the emotional pain of the procedure, Feldman was in for another shock — sticker shock. She thought her health insurance policy through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) would cover the $9,000 cost of the abortion. It didn’t.
Joe Davidson – Federal Diary: A case study in abortion funding – washingtonpost.com
People do want health care reform – from HEALTHLIFESOURCE.COM
Reuters Jaime Harmon:
People do want health care reform Summit Daily News I have to severely disagree with some of the recent letters to the editor claiming that the majority of Americans do not want health care reform. Most of the people I know, myself included, have had extreme hardships due to the current state of health … Obama Backs Senate on Health Bills’ Disparities New York Times Compromise molds Senate health bill Detroit Free Press White House says health-care bills contain cost-cutting remedies Washington Post Reuters
The Washington Monthly – Political Animal
by Steve Benen
THE LATEST SHOT AT HEALTH CARE REFORM…. Nearly every other far-right constituency has manufactured odd reasons to oppose health care reform, so it stands to reason that the gun crowd would get in on the fun.
About a week ago, Gun Owners of America told its 300,000 members that the reform bill pending in the Senate “would mandate that doctors provide ‘gun-related health data’ to ‘a government database,’ including information on mental-health issues detected in patients, which could jeopardize their ability to obtain a firearms license.” Not done there, the alert added that “nothing within the bill would prohibit rabidly anti-gun HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius from decreeing that ‘no guns’ is somehow healthier.”
It’s not an abortion bill, but the debate managed to turn to abortion. It’s not a gun bill, but the debate has managed to turn to guns. It’s funny how the culture-war issues manage to sneak their way into everything.
Lieberman Digs In on Public Option – WSJ.com
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, speaking in that trademark sonorous baritone, utters a simple statement that translates into real trouble for Democratic leaders: “I’m going to be stubborn on this.”
Stubborn, he means, in opposing any health-care overhaul that includes a “public option,” or government-run health-insurance plan, as the current bill does. His opposition is strong enough that Mr. Lieberman says he won’t vote to let a bill come to a final vote if a public option is included.
San Francisco’s health care a model during debate
by JULIANA BARBASSA
The Associated Press 11/20/09
Friday, November 20, 2009SAN FRANCISCO — This city did not wait for Washington’s health care overhaul. Most uninsured adults here are already reaping the benefits of a government-run health care program – seeing doctors, filling prescriptions, and getting surgeries they could not otherwise afford.
Healthy San Francisco is the nation’s first city-run universal health care plan. While not insurance and not valid outside the city, it does illustrate how some hotly debated elements of plans being considered on Capitol Hill might play out.
In just over two years, the $126 million program has won over its target population, and now covers about 48,000 people – more than two-thirds of San Franciscans who previously had no insurance.
San Francisco’s health care a model during debate – washingtonpost.com
Senate Health Bill: Less, Later, and Holy Complexity Batman (P2)
We covered the good parts of HR 3590, the new Senate healthcare reform bill, in Part 1. Now, on to the Less, Later, and Holy Complexity Batman aspects.
Less
- Numbers: HR 3590 costs less than the House bill, $849 billion vs. $894 trillion. It lowers the deficit less, $127 vs $139 billion (see more dollar comparisons here.) It manages this by covering less of the population (94% vs 96%) and delaying major insurance reform. That costs less, but it also does less. There are also unintended consequences like skyrocketing insurance premiums prior to 2014 due to implementation of consumer protections in 2010. Hey, if private insurers have to pay out and can’t get rid of you, they are going to charge more. Plus in 2014 they’ll have to take riskier customers. Their business is to make money, not spend it; they’ll circle the wagons.
Senate Health Bill: Less, Later, and Holy Complexity Batman (P2) | Health Care | Change.org
Towers Perrin’s 2010 Retiree Survey Shows Continuing Affordability and Access Concerns
STAMFORD, Conn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Driven by a prolonged economic recession and already high health care benefit costs for active employees, large U.S. employers are continuing to shift significant health coverage costs to retirees or exiting sponsored retiree health benefit programs altogether, according to Towers Perrin’s 2010 Retiree Health Care Cost Survey.
The survey finds that pre-65 retirees, who are not yet eligible for Medicare, will be hardest hit as they attempt to balance fixed incomes with steady increases in health coverage costs. At the same time, the survey also reveals that many employers are missing significant opportunities to deliver retiree benefit value while saving money and improving program effectiveness.
According to Towers Perrin, surveyed employers’ total health benefit costs for retirees will increase 6% for pre-65 retirees and 4% for post-65 retirees in 2010. While these rate increases are consistent with past experience, the impact on retirees is significant. Today, only 45% of survey respondents subsidize retiree health care coverage in some form. That figure reflects a steady decline over the past 20 years. In addition, many employers have put caps on their premium subsidies and, since plan costs are now well in excess of those caps, many retirees now bear the full brunt of cost inflation.
Health-Care Overhaul: Waiting for Elmendorf, Test for Lincoln – Health Blog – WSJ
By James A. White
As the Senate gets ready to begin floor debate on the health-care overhaul, two players with different roles come in for media attention this morning.
All eyes in the health-care arena are on Douglas W. Elmendorf, head of the Congressional Budget Office, who is due to come up with an evaluation of the Senate’s proposed overhaul shortly, according to an article in the New York Times. It puts what’s riding on the CBO’s assessment this way:
A thumbs-up from Mr. Elmendorf could speed the process along, helping Mr. Obama fulfill his hope of signing a bill into law this year. A thumbs-down on any of the critical questions — how much the bill costs, how many people it covers, whether it reins in the runaway growth of health spending — could leave the White House and Democrats scrambling.
Elmendorf’s past calls on cost issues has strained some of his friendships in Washington, including with fellow Democrats.
Health-Care Overhaul: Waiting for Elmendorf, Test for Lincoln – Health Blog – WSJ
AP poll: Tax the rich to pay for health bill
The Lowell Sun
11/17/2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — When it comes to paying for a health care overhaul, Americans see just one way to go: Tax the rich.
That finding from a new Associated Press poll will be welcome news for House Democrats, who proposed doing just that in their sweeping remake of the U.S. medical system, which passed earlier this month and would extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.
The poll found participants sour on other ways of paying for the health overhaul that is being considered in Congress, including taxing insurers on high-value coverage packages derided by President Barack Obama and Democrats as “Cadillac plans.”
That approach is being weighed in the Senate. It is one of the few proposals in any congressional legislation that analysts say would help reduce the nation’s health expenditures, but it has come under fire from organized labor and has little support in the House.
AP poll: Tax the rich to pay for health bill – Lowell Sun Online
Health reform’s hidden land mines – POLITICO.com
By CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN & CHRIS FRATES
After all the controversy over the public option, people might think that everyone can sign up right away if Congress passes health reform.
Or that insurance premiums will go down.
Or that they’ll be able to shop around for insurance if they don’t like what their company offers.
Think again.
When it comes to the public option, for instance, only about 1 in 10 Americans will be eligible, mainly people who don’t get insurance through work. Only about 6 million are expected to enroll. The plan doesn’t even start until 2013.
Health reform’s hidden land mines – Carrie Budoff Brown and Chris Frates – POLITICO.com
2010 Health Plan Costs More Than Four Times Wage Increases
According to The Segal Company’s just-completed survey of projected 2010 health plan costs, medical plan cost trends will continue to be more than four times greater than the annual increase in average hourly earnings and in sharp contrast to changes in the consumer price index for urban consumers.
Other key findings of the survey include:
- High-deductible health plans are projected to increase by just over one percentage point to 11.9 percent next year.
- In 2010, medical plan projections for most managed care plans are similar to those found in 2009, ranging from 10.2 percent to 10.8 percent.
Medical Industry Grumbles, but It Stands to Gain From Overhaul
News Analysis – NY Times.com
By DUFF WILSON and REED ABELSON
Published: November 8, 2009
For any industry, there has to be at least some good news any time Congress votes to expand the market by tens of millions of customers.
But the business world found plenty to complain about Sunday, as it assessed the House bill that would make sweeping changes in the health care system and extend insurance coverage to millions more Americans.
Insurers do not like the provision to create a new government-run insurance program. Drug makers oppose billions of dollars in rebates they would have to give to the government over 10 years. Makers of artificial hips, heart defibrillators and other medical devices are not particularly happy about the proposed 2.5 percent tax on their products.
And employers large and small oppose rules that, for many of them, would make health care coverage — long a job benefit — become a federally mandated obligation.
News Analysis – Medical Industry Grumbles, but It Stands to Gain From Overhaul – NYTimes.com
Catholic Bishops’ Faustian Bargain: “Burn Health Care Reform” to Advance Anti-Choice Cause « Unsilent Generation
James Ridgeway – the Unsilent Generation
We now know that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which in the end run reports to Rome, was intimately involved in the crafting and promotion of the Stupak Amendment, which turned a tepid health care victory for the Democrats into a serious loss for women’s reproductive rights. Jessica Arons, director of the Women’s Health and Rights Program at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, writes today that the measure “potentially goes farther than any other federal law to restrict women’s access to abortion” by effectively guaranteeing that virtually all insurance plans will refuse to pay for the procedure in the future.
Enough already! – PNHP’s Official Blog
Posted by Andrew Coates MD on Monday, Nov 9, 2009
“The House Public Plan: Yes, It’s Worth It” write Jacob S. Hacker and Diane Archer in The New Republic. Jacob Hacker is Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science at Yale University. Diane Archer is director of the Health Care Project at the Institute for America’s Future and founder and past president of the Medicare Rights Center.
A Response
to “The House Public Plan: Yes, It’s Worth It”
By Sarah K. Weinberg, MDJacob Hacker and Diane Archer ask us to believe that:
…health reform is much more likely to succeed with a public health insurance option, even one with negotiated rates, than if private insurers are left to run the show.
So a public plan that will be available to less than half the population and will attract maybe 2% as enrollees is going to have any effect at all on big insurers? I don’t think so, and I’ll bet the big insurers and their investors don’t think so either. (United Health Group and Wellpoint stock prices are stable this morning.)
In a remarkable paragraph, Hacker and Archer claim that private insurance premiums will be lower because sicker people will selectively enroll in the public plan:
Sorry!
At this historic moment in the health care saga, I was unable to post any news stories to the News and Information page from Saturday until today. I was out of town and unable to access my web site. Sorry to disappoint you, especially at this time. I watched the House vote on CNN but could not get my laptop connected to the Web.
NEJM — Doctors, Patients, and the Need for Health Care Reform
by Max Baucus
One Montanan wrote to me recently about her father’s death. Six months away from qualifying for Medicare coverage, he did not have health insurance or the cash to pay for recommended heart surgery. He died on Christmas Day.
Since I began my current fight for health care reform 2 years ago, I have heard from hundreds of Montanans from across the state. So many of them tell heartbreaking personal accounts of tragedy and suffering that have resulted from our broken health care system. In nearly a century of effort, this country has never been as close as we are today to bringing true stability and security to our health care system. We must seize this opportunity on behalf of the millions of people throughout the country for whom this system is no longer working.
NEJM — Doctors, Patients, and the Need for Health Care Reform
Some Vaguely Heretical Thoughts on Health-Care Reform: Rational Irrationality : The New Yorker
by John Cassidy
With the publication of H.R. 3962, the House Democrats’ mammoth, 1,990-page proposal to restructure the health-care system (the outlines of which can be found in this detailed summary), decision time is fast approaching in the big reform debate. Paul Krugman, in his usual forthright style, says, “History is about to be made—and everyone has to decide which side they’re on.” Democrats and progressives can line up behind the reform legislation that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put forward last week, or they can help to kill reform for another generation by aligning with hard-line conservatives.
As political analysis, there’s something to be said for Krugman’s Manichean view of the world. But Krugman is also an economist—a very good one—and the economics of what is proposed bear inspection. The President is on the verge of fulfilling his campaign pledge to extend health-care coverage to many of the uninsured. He is doing this, however, not by transforming the existing system of private insurance, which gave rise to many of the current problems, but by extending it.
Some Vaguely Heretical Thoughts on Health-Care Reform: Rational Irrationality : The New Yorker
Extending COBRA subsidy likely rests on reform – Articles – Employee Benefit News
By Lydell C. Bridgeford
November 1, 2009
In September, House lawmakers approved a bill granting workers in 27 states another 13 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits. For employers, the move may signal that Congress is willing to extend the Dec. 31 eligibility date for the COBRA subsidy program if lawmakers fail to agree on health care legislation by the end of the year.
The sentiment is that the COBRA subsidy is working – providing health insurance to individuals when they need it most, says Karen Frost, Hewitt’s health and welfare outsourcing leader. According to Frost, whether Congress extends the Dec. 31 eligibility date for the subsidy depends on health care reform.
Extending COBRA subsidy likely rests on reform – Articles – Employee Benefit News
Debate rages over health-risk age bands – EBN
by By Bruce Shutan at 03:53PM.
A significant disparity in health insurance costs between young and old tied to risk-based ratings has crippled the individual and small group markets with generally fewer than 50 lives. It also is one of the least discussed issues of health care reform.
Average medical spending per person among 18- to 44-year-olds is about $2,079, whereas it’s 2.3 times higher for 45- to 64-year-olds at $4,866, according to the latest data available from the federal government. These numbers are based on the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey administered by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
News You Can Use: Debate rages over health-risk age bands – Articles – Employee Benefit News
Some experts worry that cost controls in health-care reform are too cautious
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 4, 2009Democrats in Congress are embracing the spirit of President Obama’s call to slow the runaway rise of health-care costs but are shying away from some of the most aggressive techniques for achieving that.
Instead of revolutionizing how care is delivered and paid for, experts say, the legislation being shaped takes a cautious approach to reining in costs.
“The bills are directionally correct, but they’re not going far enough,” said George Halvorson, chairman and chief executive of Kaiser Permanente and the author of “Health Care Will Not Reform Itself.”
Some experts worry that cost controls in health-care reform are too cautious – washingtonpost.com
Democrats Say House Bill Would Cut Premiums for Many – NYTimes.com
By ROBERT PEAR and CARL HULSE
Published: November 2, 2009
WASHINGTON — As the House moved toward climactic votes on legislation to remake the health care system, the Congressional Budget Office said Monday that middle-income families might be required to pay 15 percent to 18 percent of their income on insurance premiums and co-payments under the proposal.
Democrats cited the figures as evidence that the legislation would reduce premiums for many low- and middle-income families who currently lack affordable coverage.
Democrats Say House Bill Would Cut Premiums for Many – NYTimes.com
Huffington Post: Fundamental Healthcare Reform Now.
Stewart Acuff
Director of Organizing, AFL-CIO
November 1, 2009It is beyond doubt that we are in a potentially historic moment of great change. In the last two years we’ve made huge change in America. Just four or five years ago after George W’s re-election how many of us thought that in 2008 we would elect as President a progressive African-American and large majorities of Democrats in both Houses of Congress? And how many of us thought that we would also be so close to passage of the Employee Free Choice Act and real, fundamental labor law reform?
Americans are ready for change! And no potential change in America is more significant as real, fundamental healthcare reform.
Health Care Reform: What Would LBJ Do? | Mother Jones
By James Ridgeway | Mon November 2, 2009
As the Democratic leadership keeps rolling over to one health care industry demand after another, I’m reminded of a post that I wrote on my Unsilent Generation blog nearly a year ago, as Obama prepared to take office after promising to reform the American health care system. It’s about President Lyndon B. Johnson’s successful effort, back in 1965, to create the Medicare and Medicaid programs–-the only single-payer health care this nation has ever known. Like a lot of LBJ’s War on Poverty programs, they were far from perfect. But compared with what today’s Democrats are offering, they were something close to radical, and represented a triumph of political will on Johnson’s part.
I suspect that if if LBJ were alive today, he might have been able to get a decent reform bill through Congress, without all of the concessions to corporate interests that have rendered the Democrats’ current legislation—including the public option—so weak that it is getting close to meaningless.
House health care reform bill good news for women « Colorado Independent
By Katie Redding 10/30/09 4:51 PM
The House health care bill(pdf) unveiled by Democrats this week would make the world of health insurance a whole lot better for women.
“There’s so many great things in there that will go a long way toward helping women and their families get access to affordable, high quality health care and eliminating all the ways insurance companies treat women as a pre-existing condition,” Women’s Law Center Senior Counsel Lisa Codispoti told the Colorado Independent.
In its current form, the new bill would solve three of the most significant problems that women encounter in markets across the United States, including the individual health market in Colorado.
House health care reform bill good news for women « Colorado Independent
After all the fuss, public health plan covers few
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
The Associated Press
Sunday, November 1, 2009WASHINGTON — What’s all the fuss about? After all the noise over Democrats’ push for a government insurance plan to compete with private carriers, coverage numbers are finally in: Two percent.
That’s the estimated share of Americans younger than 65 who’d sign up for the public option plan under the health care bill that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is steering toward House approval.
The underwhelming statistic is raising questions about whether the government plan will be the iron-fisted competitor that private insurers warn will shut them down or a niche operator that becomes a haven for patients with health insurance horror stories.
Some experts are wondering if lawmakers have wasted too much time arguing about the public plan, giving short shrift to basics such as ensuring that new coverage will be affordable.
AP: Health care plan hits rich with big tax increases
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER (AP) – November 2, 2009
WASHINGTON — The typical family would be spared higher taxes from the House Democratic plan to overhaul health care, and their low-income neighbors could come out ahead.
Their wealthy counterparts, however, face big tax increases that could eventually hit future generations of taxpayers who are less wealthy.
The bill is funded largely from a 5.4 percent tax on individuals making more than $500,000 a year and couples making more than $1 million, starting in 2011. The tax increase would hit only 0.3 percent of tax filers, raising $460.5 billion over the next 10 years, according to congressional estimates.
The Associated Press: Health care plan hits rich with big tax increases
Reid’s Math: Liberal Fans Exceed Public-Plan Foes – WSJ.com
By NAFTALI BENDAVID
Some of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s colleagues were surprised by his decision this week to include a government-run health-care plan in the Democrats’ bill.
But the mathematics of the Senate suggest the motives for the Nevada Democrat’s gamble: While a handful of Democratic moderates don’t like the so-called public option, the liberals who support it easily outnumber them — and at least some of them warned Mr. Reid they would oppose a bill that didn’t include the option.
The Associated Press: THE INFLUENCE GAME: Doctors’ lobby in tricky spot
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS (AP) –10/28/09
WASHINGTON — Does the AMA matter in the health care debate? Congress is beginning to have its doubts, despite the medical association’s deep pockets and platoons of lobbyists.
It’s lost its principles, some lawmakers and physicians say. Perhaps more damaging: It can’t produce votes.
After a humiliating defeat in the Senate, the venerable American Medical Association faces a revolt from both its member doctors and one-time political allies as it struggles to influence an overhaul of the nation’s health system.
The Associated Press: THE INFLUENCE GAME: Doctors’ lobby in tricky spot
The public option: It’s baaack – Articles – Employee Benefit Adviser
Fittingly close to Halloween, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) resurrected the possibility of a government-run insurance option when he announced on October 26 that he intends to include in the Senate bill a public plan with the option for states to opt out.
The move was not a surprise to EBA’s health reform panelists who have been reading the tea leaves in the past few weeks. “Once Sen. Snowe talked about the opt-out in a favorable manner, I thought that this would be in the Senate bill. It also looks like the Senate liberals, like Sen. Rockefeller, can live with the opt-out,” says Bill Sweetnam, principle with Washington, D.C.’s Groom Law Group.
The public option: It’s baaack – Articles – Employee Benefit Adviser
A GOP health plan
Editorial– chicagotribune.com
Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate have spent the spring, summer and fall grappling with how to fix the health care system. They’re still trying to craft a bill they can sell to Americans — or even explain in plain English.
And the Republicans? Well, as the minority party, they’re mainly on the sidelines. They’ve become the party of “no,” sniping at every Democratic health care reform idea without promoting any of their own. Right?
Not entirely.
Companies fighting changes like insurers | Philadelphia Inquirer |
By Jane M. Von Bergen 10/25/2009
Inquirer Staff Writer
Insurance companies are uniformly opposed to the government insurance public option, but they are not the only ones lining up against what has become a lightning rod in the debate around the health-care overhaul in Washington.
The insurers are being joined by the nation’s largest employers, companies such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.
Companies fighting changes like insurers | Philadelphia Inquirer | 10/25/2009
Small Business Faces Sharp Rise in Costs of Health Care
By REED ABELSON October 24, 2009
As Congress nears votes on legislation that would overhaul the health care system, many small businesses say they are facing the steepest rise in insurance premiums they have seen in recent years.
Insurance brokers and benefits consultants say their small business clients are seeing premiums go up an average of about 15 percent for the coming year — double the rate of last year’s increases. That would mean an annual premium that was $4,500 per employee in 2008 and $4,800 this year would rise to $5,500 in 2010.
Small Business Faces Sharp Rise in Costs of Health Care – NYTimes.com
Biggest issue in health care reform is who should get paid less- Opinion
by Dr. Robert M. McLean, an internist in New Haven
It is not surprising that many Americans are confused about the details and goals of health reform when there has been so much noise and misinformation spread all summer.
Those of us who work daily in the health care arena see myriad inefficiencies and daily examples of over-utilization in the current dysfunctional system. There may already be enough money to provide adequate care to most Americans if that money were only spent better.
Why the Health Insurance Excise Tax Is a Bad Idea
By Steve Early & Rand Wilson October 21, 2009
Twenty years ago, 60,000 workers from New York City to Maine rallied against healthcare cost-shifting at the telecom giant then known as NYNEX (since “rebranded” as Verizon).
NYNEX was a very profitable, multinational company seeking to capitalize on a demoralizing decade of lost strikes, contract givebacks and widespread union-busting. At a time when many workers were forced to make concessions, NYNEX strikers held the line for four months and emerged victorious. They successfully resisted the company’s demand that they pay hundreds and eventually thousands of dollars a year for medical benefits. But this singular union win didn’t come cheap. Customer service was disrupted by the work stoppage, resulting in tens of millions of dollars worth of lost wages. Hundreds of strikers were arrested, fired or suspended–and one, Gerry Horgan, was killed on a picket line in Westchester County.
Exclusive: Nancy Pelosi lacks votes for most sweeping public option
By MIKE ALLEN | POLITICO.com 10/23/09
Speaker Nancy Pelosi counted votes Thursday night and determined she could not pass a “robust public option” — the most aggressive of the three forms of a public option House Democrats have been considering as part of a national overhaul of health care.
Pelosi’s decision—coupled with a significant turn of events yesterday during a private White House meeting—points to an increasingly likely compromise for a “trigger” option for a government plan.
Exclusive: Nancy Pelosi lacks votes for most sweeping public option – Mike Allen – POLITICO.com
Reid, Pelosi get dose of tough medicine
By CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN & PATRICK O’CONNOR | 10/22/09
Public option — yes or no — has been at the heart of the debate on health reform all year, but Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were reminded Wednesday that the obstacles to getting a bill done are even bigger than that.
In the Senate, Reid got a taste of just how hard it will be to corral his famously fractious caucus — as a dozen Democrats joined with Republicans to vote down the so-called doc fix to Medicare physician reimbursements because it would add $247 billion to the deficit.
Reid, Pelosi get dose of tough medicine – Carrie Budoff Brown and Patrick O’Connor – POLITICO.com
Key senators may rebuff Obama on health care
By CHARLES BABINGTON (AP) – 10/22/09
WASHINGTON — The Democrats’ control of a hefty majority in the Senate — plus the House — would suggest that President Barack Obama is within reach of overhauling the nation’s health care system this fall.
But the numbers mask a more complicated reality: Obama and Democratic leaders have modest leverage over several pivotal Senate Democrats who are more concerned about their next election or feel they have little to lose by opposing their party’s hierarchy.
One is still smarting from being forced to abandon next year’s election. Another had to leave the Democratic Party to stay in office. And some are from states that Obama lost badly last year.
The Associated Press: Key senators may rebuff Obama on health care
Wife’s cancer prompts man to enlist
By Mark Johnson
56 days . . . 55 days . . . 54 days . .
Chelsea Caudle began signing her text messages this summer with a countdown. At 14 years old, she knew no better way to express what was coming. Day Zero was to be Oct. 7, the day Dad left for Army basic training in Fort Jackson, S.C. He was moving 950 miles from their home in Watertown, 950 miles from Mom.
He was leaving, even though Mom was sick with ovarian cancer. Even though he had been at her side through two long, miserable rounds of chemotherapy. Even though she now faced the likelihood of a third.
In fact, Dad was leaving because Mom was sick.
Judge sides with employer in lawsuit over health benefits – Employee Benefit News
By Lydell C. Bridgeford
October 22, 2009
A federal judge ruled that Deere & Co. was in compliance with ERISA when it redesigned its health benefits for certain retirees who had argued that the company reneged on its promise of full health coverage.
In Brubaker et al. v. Deere & Co., U.S. District Judge Charles Wolle of the Southern District of Iowa concluded that the company and its summary plan documents made it clear to the plaintiffs that their retiree health benefits may be amended, modified or terminated.
Judge sides with employer in lawsuit over health benefits – Articles – Employee Benefit News
THE INFLUENCE GAME: Firms resist new health rules
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS 10.21.09
WASHINGTON –
Despite promises by President Barack Obama, more than 70 million Americans who have health insurance through their jobs could be open to higher costs or denials of some coverage under a leading overhaul plan making its way through Congress.
That’s because large employers that directly assume the cost and risk of health coverage for their workers – including Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Caterpillar Inc. and Xerox – wouldn’t be subject to the same rules and restrictions that would be imposed on health insurers in the measure approved this month by the Senate Finance Committee.
THE INFLUENCE GAME: Firms resist new health rules – Forbes.com
Health insurance worries keep rising
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR (AP) – 10/20/2009
WASHINGTON — The number of Americans worried about losing their current health care coverage keeps rising, even as President Barack Obama and a Democrat-led Congress strive to extend society’s safety net to cover the uninsured, a new poll has found.
The growing levels of insurance insecurity are reflected in the latest monthly snapshot from the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Americans have conflicting views on whether a health care overhaul will help matters, make them worse or leave things about the same.
The foundation’s September poll found that about one-third of Americans said they were worried about losing current coverage, a slight increase from 29 percent who reported such concerns the previous month.
Most support public option for health insurance, poll finds
Washington Post Staff Writer
October 20, 2009A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that support for a government-run health-care plan to compete with private insurers has rebounded from its summertime lows and wins clear majority support from the public.
Americans remain sharply divided about the overall packages moving closer to votes in Congress and President Obama’s leadership on the issue, reflecting the partisan battle that has raged for months over the administration’s top legislative priority. But sizable majorities back two key and controversial provisions: both the so-called public option and a new mandate that would require all Americans to carry health insurance.
Most support public option for health insurance, poll finds – washingtonpost.com
Massachusetts health law serves as a model and a warning
By James Oliphant and Kim Geiger– chicagotribune.com
BOSTON – — Three years ago, Massachusetts passed the most sweeping health care law in the country, adopting a plan that closely resembles the proposals being considered by Congress — and a plan that now offers powerful “lessons learned” for the nation.
The Massachusetts system, like the proposals moving toward votes in the House and Senate, focused on three goals: making medical insurance nearly universal, fostering competition through a regulated insurance exchange, and helping low-income workers pay for coverage.
Today, the Bay State leads the nation with 96 percent of its residents covered by insurance, even more than some of the plans now before Congress. The employer-based insurance system remains intact despite fears that overhauling the old system might cause companies to pull back.
Massachusetts health law serves as a model and a warning — chicagotribune.com
Pelosi makes case for government-run health option
By ERICA WERNER (AP) – Oct. 15, 2009
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that the case is growing stronger for allowing the government to sell health insurance in competition with private companies, contending recent attacks from the industry should dispel any doubts.
“The need for a public option is very clear,” the California Democrat told reporters at her weekly news conference, making the argument as lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol worked to finalize sweeping legislation extending coverage to millions of the uninsured.
The Associated Press: Pelosi makes case for government-run health option
Obama attacks insurance companies – UPI.com
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 (UPI) — U.S. President Barack Obama attacked insurance companies Saturday, saying they have resorted to “smoke and mirrors” to try to sink healthcare reform.
The nation has never been closer to reform that would prevent continuing increases in costs, which would “devastate” the nation’s economy, Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.
“But this is not the time to pat ourselves on the back; this is not the time to grow complacent,” the president said.
Women tell Congress about health insurance disparities | McClatchy
By Erika Bolstad | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — When Amanda Buchanan and her schoolteacher husband talked about having a second baby, it felt as though there were three people at the table, she told a Senate committee Thursday.
“Myself, my husband and our insurance policy,” Buchanan said.
Women tell Congress about health insurance disparities | McClatchy
CEOs Tally Health-Bill Score – WSJ.com
By JANET ADAMY and GREG HITT
The drug industry stands to gain in a health-care overhaul by getting tens of millions of newly insured customers, while insurance companies — especially those that cater to the individual market — look like they are in for a tougher time.
That is the early scorecard from executives poring over Congress’s sweeping health legislation. Senate Democrats are meeting this week to write the bill they plan to bring to the floor, following last week’s 14-9 vote in the Senate Finance Committee for a health bill that would cost $829 billion over 10 years.
Why Americans Disagree About Healthcare Reform – ABC News
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Using arguments about the social benefits of healthcare reform may galvanize Democrats but they leave Republicans cold, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.
Politicians seeking support for new regulations and laws aimed at improving health may need to carefully frame their arguments for each audience, the researchers reported in the American Journal of Public Health.
They set up an experiment that showed Republicans and Democrats alike supported measures to reduce the risk of type-2 diabetes.
But the Republicans lost enthusiasm when the researchers presented arguments about how hard it is for people to exercise and eat right when streets have no sidewalks and fast-food restaurants abound, Sarah Gollust of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues found.
Scorecard Finds State-Level Gaps in Health Performance – Quality/Equality – RWJF
Citing “wide variability” in health care quality, a new state-by-state scorecard released by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System finds that “closing the gap” of state-level health care disparities could cut Medicare spending by as much as $37 billion and free funds to help extend coverage to 29 million individuals, according to Modern Healthcare.
White House Team Joins Talks on Health Care Bill – NYTimes.com
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ROBERT PEAR
October 14, 2009
WASHINGTON — A delegation of senior White House officials met on Wednesday at the Capitol with the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and the chairmen of the Finance and health committees, as Democrats turned their full attention to merging competing versions of the comprehensive health care legislation.
The effort to combine the two bills is complicated and, politically, a potentially treacherous task. The Democrats must negotiate sharp disagreements between the liberal and centrist members of their party while also trying to hold the support of Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, the one Republican so far to support the legislation.
White House Team Joins Talks on Health Care Bill – NYTimes.com
Funding, Middle-Class Relief Are Key – WSJ.com
By GERALD F. SEIB
Don’t be fooled by the turmoil. This is the week the odds tipped ever so slightly in favor of a health overhaul passing Congress.
In fact, much of the turmoil in recent days — liberal Democrats arguing with conservative Democrats, unions sniping at their usual allies, insurance companies jousting with the White House — stems from this shift. The health-care duel now is being waged with real bullets. Everybody now knows the stakes are high and is acting accordingly.
Also, don’t let all the focus on the “public option” — the question of whether the final bill should include a government-run insurance plan — fool you. Yes, that’s important. Yet the two toughest issues for Democrats to resolve are how to pay for their overhaul plans, and how to ensure the final product helps rather than squeezes the middle class. If legislation collapses, it’s just as likely that one of those proves the insurmountable hurdle.
Democrats Fire Back at Health Industry – washingtonpost.com
By Lori Montgomery and David S. Hilzenrath
Thursday, October 15, 2009Days after the insurance lobby began an aggressive campaign against a Senate plan to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, senior Democrats fired back, threatening Wednesday to revoke the industry’s long-standing antitrust exemption.
Health insurance is one of only a few industries exempted from certain federal antitrust regulations, and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the exemption was “one of the worst accidents of American history. It deserves a lot of the blame for the huge rise in premiums that has made health insurance so unaffordable.”
Labor unions turn against parts of health bill – USATODAY.com
By John Fritze, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — A coalition of labor unions is emerging as a leading critic of an $829 billion health care bill heading toward a Senate vote, complicating debate among Democrats over how to pay for the measure.
Unions had largely supported President Obama’s effort to revamp the nation’s $2.6 trillion health care system, but 27 labor groups have launched a campaign against key provisions in the bill passed this week by the Senate Finance Committee.
Labor unions turn against parts of health bill – USATODAY.com
FACT CHECK: Health insurers cherry-pick facts
By ALAN FRAM
WASHINGTON (AP) — In its assaults on a Democratic health care overhaul bill, the insurance industry uses facts selectively and mixes accurate assertions with misleading spin and an embrace of worst-case scenarios.
Take the 30-second TV spot that America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry’s trade group, was running this week in six states as the Senate Finance Committee approved overhaul legislation.
Signs of a Split Emerge in Insurance Industry – WSJ.com
By AVERY JOHNSON and JANET ADAMY
The insurance industry’s once-unified stance in the health-care debate is showing signs of fissure as legislation to overhaul the system moves forward.
Ron Williams, Aetna Inc.’s chief executive, has been working with the White House and Senate Finance Committee in an attempt to mend a rift between insurers and Democrats sparked by an industry-funded study critical of the measure. But the BlueCross BlueShield Association continued to step up the rhetoric against the legislation by releasing its own study Wednesday critical of the bill.
Interest groups battle to deflect health taxes /AP Wire
By CHARLES BABINGTON
WASHINGTON (AP) — Insurance companies, unions, medical device makers and others in the health care industry are furiously lobbying lawmakers to shift burdens onto someone else – anyone else – before they find themselves saddled with billions of dollars in taxes under new health care legislation.
Their gain would be another industry’s loss, of course, unless the entire overhaul effort collapses and Congress fails to agree on how to pay to provide health coverage for millions of uninsured Americans.
Health care: The uncivil rights movement – Rochester City Newspaper
The national debate over health-care reform blazed through the summer with fiery town hall speeches and angry protests from both the right and the left. The far-fetched charges were nothing short of astonishing in their sheer absurdity and bitterness.
But wild-eyed fights over health care are nothing new in American politics. The struggle for universal coverage has been going on for more than 100 years, says Theodore Brown, a history professor at the University of Rochester. Brown has chronicled the history of health care in the US. He describes it as a long series of charge-and-retreat scuffles between liberals and conservatives that have led us to where we are now – with a costly, broken system.
Health care: The uncivil rights movement – News Articles – Rochester City Newspaper
Fight obesity by taxing calories – Opinion – USATODAY.com
By David Zinczenko
President Obama set the soft-drink industry fizzing recently when he mentioned the possibility of a “soda tax” on sweetened beverages as a way of combating America’s obesity crisis.
“I actually think it’s an idea that we should be exploring,” he told Men’s Health magazine. “There’s no doubt that our kids drink way too much soda.” The notion of a soda tax got a lot of people riled up, and in the hullabaloo, the White House downplayed the prospect of any possible legislation. But it might have died too quickly.
Column: Fight obesity by taxing calories – Opinion – USATODAY.com
Dems scramble after warning from health insurers
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — Insurance companies aren’t playing nice any more. Their dire message that health care legislation will drive up premiums for people who already have coverage comes as a warning shot at a crucial point in the debate and threatens President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.
Democrats and their allies scrambled on Monday to knock down a new industry-funded study forecasting that Senate legislation, over time, will add thousands of dollars to the cost of a typical policy. “Distorted and flawed,” said White House spokeswoman Linda Douglass. “Fundamentally dishonest,” said AARP’s senior policy strategist, John Rother. “A hatchet job,” said a spokesman for Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.
Health Care USA | rabble.ca
Canadians have been watching and reading about your national debate over how to reform your health care system. Normally, of course, we would not attempt to intervene or influence you. But Canadians are shocked that their health-care system — called Medicare — has been used to frighten Americans. Some of what has been said about our Medicare system are outright falsehoods — like the claim that we can’t choose our own doctors or that government “bureaucrats” can deny us needed treatment.
We want you to know the truth so that when you make up your mind it will be on the basis of facts, not falsehoods. This page has testimonials from ordinary Canadians, from health professionals, links to websites explaining our Medicare and links to campaigns in your own country fighting for reform.
Should Congress require that Americans have health insurance?
What’s the issue?
The leading health reform bills in Congress would impose a national individual mandate requiring most Americans to have health insurance. New standards would be set to determine acceptable” minimum coverage and spell out how much people needed to contribute out of their own pockets. Coverage could be obtained in various ways, including through employers, through government
health programs, or through new federal or state health insurance exchanges. Subsidies would make coverage more affordable for lowand moderate-income people, and insurance market reforms would make coverage more reliable.
Penalties, most likely in the form of a tax, would be imposed on individuals who had not obtained coverage or who were not exempted from the requirement for various reasons.
NEJM — The Cost of Health Care — Highlights from a Discussion about Economics and Reform
Atul A. Gawande, M.D., M.P.H., Elliott S. Fisher, M.D., M.P.H., Jonathan Gruber, Ph.D., and Meredith B. Rosenthal, Ph.D.
President Barack Obama has argued that health care reform is essential to the future economic health of the United States. But the economics of both health care and reform are daunting. Is it possible to pay for health care coverage for all Americans without moderating our rapidly rising health care costs? And what do we know about the best ways of achieving cost savings?
NEJM — The Cost of Health Care — Highlights from a Discussion about Economics and Reform
Report Shows Healthcare Disparities among States — OrlandoSentinel.com
Andrew Zajac
Even as state and federal initiatives have extended a medical safety net beneath children in recent years, more and more adult Americans have been living without insurance coverage compounding the already-serious problems of the healthcare system and fueling sharp disparities in the cost and quality of care across the country.
Those disparities, graphically documents in state-by-state rankings released Wednesday by the non-partisan Commonwealth Fund, underscored one of the biggest challenges in designing a healthcare overhaul: The nation doesn’t have one system and one reality, it has at least 50 each with its own economic, social and demographic characteristics.
Report Shows Healthcare Disparities among States — OrlandoSentinel.com
Speaker Nancy Pelosi | News Room | Fact Check
This year, every insured American family will pay $1,017 — and insured singles will pay $368 per year — in insurance premiums just to cover the medical expenses of the uninsured. That’s $42.7 billion this year – or $1,354 per second. This “Hidden Health Care Tax” is the undisclosed insurance premium surcharge, paid by America’s businesses and insured Americans, that subsidizes the uncompensated health care costs of the uninsured.
See how much Americans have already paid this year:
Budget Report: Senate Finance Panel’s Health-Care Bill Wouldn’t Raise Deficit
By Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray
Congressional budget analysts gave an important political boost Wednesday to a Senate panel’s health-care overhaul, projecting that the $829 billion measure would dramatically shrink the ranks of the uninsured and keep President Obama’s pledge that doing so would not add “one dime” to federal budget deficits.
With the report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the measure crafted by the Senate Finance Committee has emerged as the only one of five bills by various panels that achieves every important goal Obama has set for his top domestic initiative.
Budget Report: Senate Finance Panel’s Health-Care Bill Wouldn’t Raise Deficit
Division fizzes up in GOP over resistance to health plan
By Richard Wolf, USA TODAY
The scene is familiar: Republicans criticizing Washington’s inaction on health care. Only now, they’re blaming Republicans.
Concerned that their party may prevent progress on one of the nation’s most intractable problems, several governors and former Washington power brokers are calling on Republicans in Congress to help pass a health care bill.
“
Division fizzes up within GOP over resistance to health plan – USATODAY.com
Physician Practice Groups of Tomorrow Will Change Dramatically
MIAMI–(BUSINESS WIRE)–As the health care reform debate drags on in Congress, change in our health care delivery system is certain, according to Mike Segal, who for the past two decades has worked with physicians to form large practice groups and currently heads the Health Law Practice Group of the Florida law firm Broad and Cassel.
“The manner of delivery and the way providers are compensated most likely will change markedly over the next decade, no matter what Congress does,” he said.
Segal believes these changes will occur primarily because of the government’s focus on gearing physician payments more toward “performance” or “outcomes” versus the existing “fee for service” system.
Physician Practice Groups of Tomorrow Will Change Dramatically
Whistleblowers Expose Hospitals Fleecing the Public’s Back – Change.org
What happens when two whistleblowers separately expose widespread Medicare fraud to authorities? Other than nearly $90 million in fines, one wrongdoer loudly protests that she just lacked supporting documentation for the fraud.
Such is life in the case of medical device maker Medtronic Spine LLC and its hospital customers. After two former employees alerted the Justice Department of a scheme that ran from 2002-2008, Medtronic’s acquisition of Kyphon Inc. came back to haunt it with a $75 million fine. Kyphon made equipment and materials used to perform kyphoplasty. It promoted the procedure as a hospital money-maker if clients billed Medicare for inpatient rather than outpatient surgery.
Whistleblowers Expose Hospitals Fleecing the Public’s Back (Universal Health Care – Change.org)
Employers share information on value-based purchasing – Employee Benefit News
By Kathleen Koster
Employers of various size, geographic location and business sector are opening up on their experiences with value-based benefit purchasing designs. Two of their common themes: sponsors should engage in employee health promotion throughout the year, and support wellness programs to maintain employee health and reduce costs.
Employers share information on value-based purchasing – Articles – Employee Benefit News
The Lie Machine : Rolling Stone
TIM DICKINSON
On the first day of August, a mob of 200 right-wing Texans stormed the parking lot of a Randalls grocery store in southwest Austin. They were united in a single goal: Disrupt the “office hours” that Rep. Lloyd Doggett, the district’s congressman, had scheduled for his constituents.
Hospitals Find Way to Make Care Cheaper — Make It Better – WSJ.com
By THOMAS M. BURTON
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Be it cereal or cars, buyers usually have an idea of how good the products are and how much they cost before they buy them.
That’s not how U.S. health care works. Patients rarely know which hospitals offer top-quality lung or aortic surgery, and which are more likely to harm them. Hospitals don’t compete on price and rarely publish measurements of their quality, if they measure it at all.
Except in Pennsylvania. For two decades, a state agency has published “medical outcomes” — death and complication rates — from more than 50 types of treatments and surgery at hospitals. The state has found that publishing results can prompt hospitals to improve, and that good medical treatment is often less expensive than bad care.
Hospitals Find Way to Make Care Cheaper — Make It Better – WSJ.com
A Self-Employed Family’s Quest For Insurance : NPR
Like many teenage boys, Evan Fisher, 15, does some things that make his mom more than a little anxious. One of them is participating in a sport called “aggressive skating,” which means he races down a sidewalk, street or driveway on inline skates, and then jumps up onto a railing or other obstacle to perform tricks. Evan explains that it is similar to skateboarding, and he admits it can be dangerous.
Evan wears pads when at the skate park in his home town of Oak Park, Ill., just west of Chicago, but not very often when skating at other places, and he says he probably should wear pads more often.
Massachusetts Health Reform: Employer Coverage From Employees’ Perspective – RWJF
The national health reform debate continues to draw on Massachusetts’ 2006 reform initiative, with a focus on sustaining employer-sponsored insurance. This study provides an update on employers’ responses under health reform in fall 2008, using data from surveys of working-age adults. Results show that concerns about employers’ dropping coverage or scaling back benefits under health reform have not been realized. Access to employer coverage has increased, as has the scope and quality of their coverage as assessed by workers. However, premiums and out-of-pocket costs have become more of an issue for employees in small firms.
Massachusetts Health Reform: Employer Coverage From Employees’ Perspective – RWJF
Health reform update: public option gone but not forgotten – Employee Benefit News
The Senate Finance Committee formally rejected the public option’s entry into its bill on Tuesday, giving many employers and insurance professionals a sigh of relief. But is the public option really dead?
Perhaps not, says Mike Thompson, a principal and NYC health care practice leader for the PricewaterhouseCoopers Human Resource Services division. It may revive itself in some form before a solidified bill makes its way to the President’s desk.
Health reform update: public option gone but not forgotten – Articles – Employee Benefit News
Senators bristle over Reid’s deal – Manu Raju – POLITICO.com
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid moved swiftly to ensure that his home state of Nevada wouldn’t be hurt by Medicaid changes included in the health care reform bill moving through the Senate Finance Committee.
Now some of his Democratic colleagues are demanding the same treatment for their states.
“We have to make sure Colorado is treated fairly,” Democratic Colorado Sen. Mark Udall said Wednesday.
Senators bristle over Reid’s deal – Manu Raju – POLITICO.com
Report Analyzes Pennsylvania Hospital Mortality, Readmission Rates – RWJF
A new report from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) finds that, although hospitals in the state made progress between 2002 and 2008 toward reducing mortality rates, readmissions for several conditions increased during that time, Modern Healthcare reports. According to the report, between 2002 and 2008, the overall patient mortality rate for 20 conditions tracked by the organization declined from 5.1 percent to 4.2 percent, but readmission rates for 15 conditions increased from 18.3 percent to 19.1 percent.
Wellpoint "really did" write the Baucus health plan | Physicians for a National Health Program
Three articles on the connection between Sen. Max Baucus and Liz Fowler, former executive and current lobbyist for Wellpoint.
Wellpoint “really did” write the Baucus health plan | Physicians for a National Health Program
Without US healthcare plan, states could pay more – Forbes.com
By Lisa Lambert
WASHINGTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) – If the U.S. Congress fails to reform health care, states will spend more on their programs for the poor than they currently pay out, according to a new report on Wednesday.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report shows that within a decade the number of people without health insurance could increase by more than 30 percent in more than half of the states. The uninsured are most likely to turn to public programs administered by the states.
Without US healthcare plan, states could pay more – Forbes.com
Health Care Reform Support Has Increased Since Summer
The Huffington Post | Rachel Weiner
The anti-reform town hall anger that dominated the health care reform debate appears to have ebbed. Support for health care reform increased in September after falling over the summer, according to a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Fifty-seven percent of Americans now believe that tackling health care reform is more important than ever — up from 53 percent in August. The proportion of Americans who think their families would be better off if health reform passes is up six percentage points (42% versus 36% in August), and the percentage who think that the country would be better off is up eight points (to 53% from 45% in August).
Poll: Public Says Voice Not Heard In Health Debate : NPR
by Julie Rovner
Perhaps no other issue Congress deals with touches every American as intimately as health care. Yet a new poll by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Harvard School of Public Health finds that, so far, the public feels profoundly shut out of the current health overhaul debate.
“Most people don’t feel that they personally have a voice in this debate,” said Mollyann Brodie, director of public opinion and survey research for the Kaiser Family Foundation. “In fact, 71 percent told us that Congress was paying too little attention to what people like them were saying.”
Baucus plan would help insurers, not sick people
Billings Gazette
Teddy Roe asks Max Baucus “What would Mike and Lee do?” I bet the answer would be single-payer healthcare.
Baucus’ ineffectual health care proposal isn’t even a good effort. Let’s kill it. If you support reform, you cannot support this bill. Call the president, call Baucus and call Jon Tester.
Wendell Potter, a former insurance executive, calls Baucus’ bill the “Insurance Industry Profit Protections and Enhancement Act.”
Baucus’ proposal is contradictory in stating it will make health care affordable. It won’t. It is contradictory saying it won’t cost taxpayers money. It will.
In Rationing Health Care, More Not Always Better, Experts Say
By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 29, 2009A dirty word in health-care reform is “rationing,” a term that conjures up the image of faceless government bureaucrats denying lifesaving therapies in the name of cutting costs.
But what if the real issue is not the specter of future rationing, but the haphazard, even illogical, way in which care is delivered today?
Medical professionals say the fundamental problem in the nation’s health-care system is the widespread misuse and overuse of tests, treatments and drugs that drive up prices, have little value to patients, and can pose serious risks. The question, they say, is not whether there will be rationing, but rather what will be rationed, and when and how.
In Rationing Health Care, More Not Always Better, Experts Say – washingtonpost.com
Majority of Physicians Support Health Reform that Includes Both Public and Private Insurance Options – RWJF
A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) study published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine shows that a majority of physicians (63 percent) support a health reform proposal that includes both a public option and traditional private insurance. If the additional 10 percent of doctors who support an entirely public health system are included, then approximately three out of four physicians nationwide support inclusion of a public option. A minority (27 percent) support a private-only option that would provide subsidies for low-income individuals to purchase private insurance.
TBO.com – News From AP
By MIKE SCHNEIDER
Associated Press WriterORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Where someone lives makes a difference in whether or not that person has health insurance.
Census data released this week shows a vast geographic inequality in the uninsured that has been shaped by an area’s state laws, population makeup and jobs. Residents in vast swaths of the Southwest are many times more likely to lack health insurance than residents in pockets of the Northeast and upper Midwest.
“Depending on who you are and where you work, you can be very unlucky and not get covered,” said Dr. Bruce Siegel, director of the Center for Health Care Quality at George Washington University. “It’s a completely fragmented system.”
Overhaul Divides Business and Its Traditional GOP Allies – WSJ.com
By NEIL KING JR.
WASHINGTON — Business is parting from its traditional allies in the Republican Party on health care as companies and big corporate lobbyists lend tentative support to a congressional overhaul that conservative lawmakers staunchly oppose.
The rift mirrors a similar divide on other issues, including immigration and climate change, where many companies have backed legislative action that Republican lawmakers oppose.
But the health-care debate, in particular, casts a spotlight on the split in the longstanding alliance between economic conservatives and the business community.
Overhaul Divides Business and Its Traditional GOP Allies – WSJ.com
Health care benefits: Workers to pay 10% more in 2010, Hewitt Associates study predicts –
chicagotribune.com
The cost of medical benefits is projected to jump again next year with premiums and out-of-pocket expenses rising 10 percent, and that likely will mean more pain for workers, who have seen their share of the tab triple since 2001.
In 2010, the combined average premium and out-of-pocket costs for health care coverage for a worker are projected to climb to $4,023 a year, a 10 percent increase from this year, according to an annual study by Hewitt Associates released ahead of open-enrollment season for medical benefits.
Health care benefits: Workers to pay 10% more in 2010, Hewitt Associates study predicts — chicagotribune.com
Health care polls leave pols dizzy – POLITICO.com
By ANDIE COLLER | 9/28/09
You could forgive a typical poll-driven pol for being driven around the bend by health reform.
Legislators hoping to learn what their constituents think about the issue — and how to vote to keep them happy — face a dizzying deluge of hard-to-reconcile data, some of which suggests that voters are more than a little confused, as well.
Health care polls leave pols dizzy – Andie Coller – POLITICO.com
CBO Estimates for the Gazillionth Time that Public Option Saves Money
by Tim Foley (Universal Health Care – Change.org)
OK, this is just getting plum silly.
You don’t hear as much these days about how giving people the choice of enrolling in a government-administered insurance plan based on Medicare as one of many options in the Exchange marketplace will cause the end of private insurance as we know it (the Congressional Budget Office score predicting only 10-15 million people would enroll in a public option certainly put the damper on that myth). But you do hear all the time from Republicans and so-called moderate Democrats that “we can’t afford a public option.” They’re playing on the confusion that “the public option” is the entirety of health reform, which it certainly is not. In fact, the public option is a net cost-saver. The Congressional Budget Office confirmed for the umpteenth time today that having it as part of health reform saves money for all of us.
White House Announces Grants for Patient Safety, Medical Liability
News digest – Quality/Equality newsroom – Quality/Equality – RWJF
The White House has announced that $25 million in grants is now available for states and health systems to develop, implement and evaluate evidence-based patient safety and medical-liability demonstrations, AHA News Now reports. Starting in 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) will make available grants for demonstration projects aimed at reducing preventable injuries, improving communication between physicians and patients, ensuring fair and timely compensation for injured patients, reducing frivolous lawsuits and reducing liability premiums.
GOP Health Proposals:Opt Out of Medicare « Unsilent Generation
September 25, 2009
The Republican Study Committee, which consist of more than 100 conservative members headed by Tom Price,have set forth a slew of proposals on health care which are sure to be used to protect members on the stump in 2010
The most important of these concerns Medicare, which the Right long has viewed as a foot in the door to socialism.At least two of the RSC committee proposals provide seniors the right to opt out of the program entirely.
GOP Health Proposals:Opt Out of Medicare « Unsilent Generation
Business owners address health-care costs
By Stacey Burling 09/25/2009
Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer
After enduring years of rising health-care premiums, Rolf Poeting, who owns a Latrobe glass-etching company, took a step this year he’s not happy about. He stopped offering health insurance that covers the families of his 30 employees.
He knows his workers, who make $25,000 to $40,000 a year, cannot afford coverage on their own. But it seemed unfair that, by providing coverage to spouses who worked at other companies, he was subsidizing owners who do not offer insurance.
Business owners address health-care costs | Philadelphia Inquirer | 09/25/2009
Overhaul Divides Business and Its Traditional GOP Allies
By NEIL KING JR. WSJ.com
WASHINGTON — Business is parting from its traditional allies in the Republican Party on health care as companies and big corporate lobbyists lend tentative support to a congressional overhaul that conservative lawmakers staunchly oppose.
The rift mirrors a similar divide on other issues, including immigration and climate change, where many companies have backed legislative action that Republican lawmakers oppose.
Overhaul Divides Business and Its Traditional GOP Allies – WSJ.com
Economic Scene – Malpractice System Breeds More Waste in Medicine
September 22, 2009 NYTimes.com
The debate over medical malpractice can often seem theological. On one side are those conservatives and doctors who have no doubt that frivolous lawsuits and Democratic politicians beholden to trial lawyers are the reasons American health care is so expensive. On the other side are those liberals who see malpractice reform as another Republican conspiracy to shift attention from the real problem.
Yet most people, I suspect, still aren’t sure exactly what to think. For them, the good news is that the issue has inspired a lot of research by economists and others with no vested interest. And after sifting through years of data, these researchers have come to some basic factual conclusions.
Economic Scene – Malpractice System Breeds More Waste in Medicine – NYTimes.com
What Would Harry Do? | The New Republic
- Jonathan Cohn, Senior Editor
- September 21, 2009
A lot of people care about what happens to our health care system. But not a lot of people understand what’s actually being proposed–or even have time to figure it out. And even those who do follow the debate closely may not always know what’s important, what isn’t, and so on. (Even I get confused sometimes.)
Part of the problem is that judging reform actually requires asking several different questions. There’s the economic security issue: Will it expand insurance coverage substantially–and make sure the insurance people have is good insurance? There’s the cost question: Will it pay for itself–and will it reduce costs over the long run? And there’s the matter of quality: Will it actually make medical care better?
NH’s Shaheen to business leaders: Health care reform needed to save jobs, protect families
San Francisco Examiner – Associated Press
09/18/09BEDFORD, N.H. — Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., told New England business leaders Friday that health care reform is needed — and soon — because escalating health care costs are hobbling American manufacturers, forcing small businesses to drop health care coverage and landing families in bankruptcy court.
“There are powerful interests on all sides of that debate,” she told about 90 members of the New England Council, including health care industry representatives. “Some stand to win. Some stand to lose.”
Polling on Health Care Reform
RealClearPolitics – HorseRaceBlog -
September 21, 2009
Polling on Health Care Reform
Over at Pollster, Charles Franklin performs some
fascinating analysis on public opinion on health care. He puts together a series of trend lines based upon different “smoothing” techniques, which cut down on statistical noise to varying degrees. Despite all these different methods, he still finds the same basic trendline:
RealClearPolitics – HorseRaceBlog – Polling on Health Care Reform
Analysis: You Have No Idea What Health Costs
By Ezra Klein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 20, 2009The most important health-care document released this week was not Sen. Max Baucus’s Healthy Future Act. It was the Kaiser Family Foundation’s 2009 Employer Benefits Survey.
While the proposal by Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, outlines a direction for policy, the survey, which polls employers about health benefits to assemble a detailed look at the actual cost of health care, fits it squarely in our pocketbooks.
Analysis: You Have No Idea What Health Costs – washingtonpost.com
Conservatives Sunny About the Public Option (No, Really!) (Universal Health Care – Change.org)
by Tim Foley
Published September 17, 2009 @ 09:16PM PT
Two weeks ago, I imagined a parallel health care universe. Now I seem to be living in it. The only people who are more dead-set that the insurance industry against giving Americans the choice between private insurance and a high-quality public health insurance option, modeled on the reliability of Medicare, are Republicans. So why is it that the most positive things said today about the public option were by not just run-of-the-mill conservatives, but conservative icons?!
Conservatives Sunny About the Public Option (No, Really!) (Universal Health Care – Change.org)
Will health reform go on without one of its biggest advocates? – Articles – Employee Benefit Adviser
Even before his August 25 death, speculation as to the impact of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s passing had pundits and politicians questioning what will happen to health care reform without one of its strongest and most prominent supporters. As chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Kennedy (D-Mass.) was an outspoken proponent of creating a new, government-run public plan. He “could not be prouder” when the HELP Committee passed the Affordable Health Choices Act with a “strong public option” on July 15.
Will health reform go on without one of its biggest advocates? – Articles – Employee Benefit Adviser
More employers drop workers’ health insurance
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Where you get health insurance typically depends on where you work.
But as health-care costs rise and premiums become unaffordable, employers are losing ground as the main providers of health coverage.
A decade ago, 65 percent of Ohioans were covered by employer health plans. In 2007 — the most recent year available — that dropped to 58 percent.
Experts say the bad economy is causing an even steeper decrease. Small employers have stopped providing health insurance for workers because it’s too expensive.
The Columbus Dispatch : More employers drop workers’ health insurance
Matthew Yglesias » Can’t Make Insurance Affordable for All Without Making it Affordable
I’ve had a number of positive things to say about the Max Baucus health care draft along with some criticisms. But it’s worth emphasizing that not all bullet points are created equal. To say that the subsidy levels Baucus is envisioning are not adequate is just one sentence. But it’s a really big problem. Baucus’ plan would be a boon to currently uninsured people earning less than 133 percent of the federal poverty line. And it’s fine for those of us who already have good employer-based health insurance. But for the 25 million or so uninsured people earning between 133 and 300 percent of FPL, the math just doesn’t really add up. In this chart Nick Beaudrot compared premium levels under Baucuscare to what they do currently in Massachusetts (which seems to work okay) with what federal health reform could do under some alternative scenarios:
Matthew Yglesias » Can’t Make Insurance Affordable for All Without Making it Affordable
Segal Advisors Publications | Segal Advisors
September 2009 Research Note, “Digging Deeper into Labor Market Data”
Abstract
Many economists closely follow the unemployment rate, a key economic indicator. In a challenging economy, that important statistic may not provide a clear view of the employment situation within the United States. This issue of Research Note focuses on a few other measurements of employment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) that provide additional insights into today’s labor market: unemployment by state and region, long-term unemployment, involuntary part-time employment and unemployed people per job opening.
Hewitt Develops Health Care Reform Report for Business Roundtable -
Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies, recently commissioned Hewitt Associates to develop a new report that explores the cost of inaction around health care reform and identifies ways to build an improved, and more efficient delivery system.
Health Care Reform: The Perils of Inaction and the Promise of Effective Action, issued on September 15, 2009, reveals that annual per employee health care costs will triple to nearly $29,000 over the next decade without significant marketplace reforms that reduce costs, expand coverage, and improve delivery.Key findings of the report include:
Political Memo – Rockefeller Stands Up for Liberals on Health Care – NYTimes.com
Published: September 17, 2009
WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, John D. Rockefeller IV, a leading Senate liberal on health issues, said he would oppose a new Democratic proposal intended to win elusive Republican support to remake the health system. On Wednesday, he was summoned to a private meeting with President Obama.
After months in which the White House had seemed to ignore liberals as it courted centrists to join the president’s signature cause, liberal lawmakers have finally attracted the administration’s attention. They, in turn, have to decide how far to press their case.
Political Memo – Rockefeller Stands Up for Liberals on Health Care – NYTimes.com
Baucus’s health bill aims to reform employers’ W-2 reporting – Employee Benefit News
By Lydell C. Bridgeford
September 17, 2009
The health care proposal submitted by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, would require employers to disclose the cost of health benefits on workers’ W-2 forms.
The America’s Healthy Future Act calls for businesses to disclose the value of benefits provided by the employer for each worker’s health insurance coverage on the employee’s annual Form W-2. The measure would be effective beginning in 2010. The provision “has a negligible revenue impact over 10 years,” according to the bill.
Baucus’s health bill aims to reform employers’ W-2 reporting – Articles – Employee Benefit News
TBO.com – News From AP
By MIKE STOBBE
AP Medical WriterATLANTA (AP) — In a bid to ramp up the public health battle against obesity, a group of nutrition and economics experts are pushing for a tax of 1 cent on every of ounce of sodas and other sweetened beverages.
Proposals for a hefty soda tax though have repeatedly fallen flat. The idea was even floated as a way to help pay for health care reform, but government officials on Wednesday said that’s not likely to happen.
The experts’ plan was released by the influential New England Journal of Medicine, in a health policy article by Arkansas’ surgeon general, New York City’s health commissioner and five national experts on health and economics.
Breaking down the Baucus bill – POLITICO.com
By CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN & PATRICK O’CONNOR | 9/17/09
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) worked for months to find common ground with Republicans on health care reform — but when he released his long-anticipated proposal Wednesday, the real problem quickly came into focus.
He set the stage for a titanic struggle within his own party.
Reaction from congressional Democratic leaders was lukewarm to worse, progressives were downright hostile and Republicans were scornful of what they described as brazen government grab.
But Baucus may have provided lawmakers with the only viable blueprint for winning support across Congress, because he sought to find elements that pleased all sides.
Breaking down the Baucus bill – Carrie Budoff Brown and Patrick O’Connor – POLITICO.com
CBO Bolsters Baucus Health Care Reform Plan « The Alan Katz Health Care Reform Blog
The Congressional Budget Office has given a boost to the Chairman’s Mark of America’s Healthy Future Act 0f 2009. In a preliminary analysis of the health care reform proposal put forward by Senator Max Baucus, the chair of the Senate Finance Committee. the CBO estimates the plan would reduce federal budget deficits by $49 billion between 2010-and-2019.
The Congressional Budget Office is highly regarded by both parties for its independent analysis. Their findings can cripple a bill or enhance its stature. In this case, even though the report is preliminary, the CBO adds substantial credence to Senator Baucus’ reform effort. A good thing considering the attacks on the proposal from both wings of the political spectrum.
CBO Bolsters Baucus Health Care Reform Plan « The Alan Katz Health Care Reform Blog
Americans Back Obama’s Health Goals Even as They Doubt Success – Yahoo! News
Kristin Jensen Kristin Jensen – Tue Sep 15, 6:00 pm ET
Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) — Americans overwhelmingly approve of President Barack Obama’s goals for remaking the U.S. health- care system even as they express skepticism he can achieve them, according to a Bloomberg News poll.
More than 8 out of 10 people support covering the uninsured, curbing costs, creating an insurance-purchasing exchange, and preventing insurers from dropping coverage or refusing to accept people with preexisting medical conditions. Majorities say employers should have to offer insurance and individuals should be required to have coverage.
Americans Back Obama’s Health Goals Even as They Doubt Success – Yahoo! News
Employee Benefit Adviser – Future of adviser business dominates talk at EBA Summit
September 15, 2009
More than 125 brokers, consultants and advisers who gathered in Atlanta Sept. 13-15 for the 4th annual Employee Benefit Adviser Summit left armed with the latest strategies to embrace social media, corner the wellness market and craft a business plan to better face whatever health care reform may bring their way.
Speaking during a panel discussion on thriving after health care reform, Mike Sullivan, EVP and CMO of Digital Insurance, urged benefits professionals to frame reform in two ways: What they’d like to see happen as a member of a benefits firm and what they want to happen as a citizen.
Future of adviser business dominates talk at EBA Summit – Articles – Employee Benefit Adviser
Average family health insurance policy: $13,375, up 5% – USATODAY.com
WASHINGTON — An average family health insurance policy now costs more than some compact cars, and four in 10 companies will likely pass more of that expense on to workers, according to a closely watched survey of businesses released Tuesday.
The average cost of a family policy offered by employers was $13,375 this year, up 5% from 2008, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust survey found. By comparison, wages rose 3% over that period, the study said.
Average family health insurance policy: $13,375, up 5% – USATODAY.com
Alvarado Post Poll: More erosion in health care confidence
Monday, September 14, 2009 10:17 PM CDT
ERICA WERNER
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) – August’s contentious disputes over health care appeared to take a toll, further eroding consumers’ confidence about their health care future and access to care, a new report has found.
The decline in confidence was greatest among seniors eligible for Medicare and young adults aged 18-34, suggesting President Barack Obama’s proposed health care overhaul is raising alarm bells for both the old and the relatively young as people tune in to the debate.
Alvarado Post > Health > Health > Poll: More erosion in health care confidence
Physician Views on the Public Health Insurance Option and Medicare Expansions – RWJF
By: Keyhani S, Federman A and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
A RWJF survey summarized in the September 14, 2009 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine shows that 62.9 percent of physicians nationwide support proposals to expand health care coverage that include both public and private insurance options—where people under the age of 65 would have the choice of enrolling in a new public health insurance plan (like Medicare) or in private plans. The survey shows that just 27.3 percent of physicians support a new program that does not include a public option and instead provides subsidies for low-income people to purchase private insurance. Only 9.6 percent of doctors nationwide support a system where a Medicare-like public program is created in lieu of any private insurance. A majority of physicians (58%) also support expanding Medicare eligibility to those between the ages of 55 and 64.
Physician Views on the Public Health Insurance Option and Medicare Expansions – RWJF
Open Left:: EXCLUSIVE: UnitedHealth Lobbyist Announces Pelosi Fundraiser As She Begins Backing Off Pub Option
by: David Sirota
Fri Sep 11, 2009 at 17:47
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the first time yesterday suggested she may be backing off her support of the public option. According to CNN, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “said they would support any provision that increases competition and accessibility for health insurance – whether or not it is the public option favored by most Democrats.” When “asked if inclusion of a public option was a non-negotiable demand – as her previous statements had indicated Pelosi ruled out any non-negotiable positions,” according to CNN. This was also corroborated by the Associated Press, and by Pelosi’s own words, as quoted in those stories.
This announcement came just hours before Steve Elmendorf, a registered UnitedHealth lobbyist and the head of UnitedHealth’s lobbying firm Elmendorf Strategies, blasted this email invitation throughout Washington, D.C.
Opposition to Obama’s Health-Reform Plan Is High, but Easing – washingtonpost.com
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, September 14, 2009President Obama continues to face significant public resistance to his drive to initiate far-reaching changes to the country’s health-care system, with widespread skepticism about central tenets of his plan, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
But after a summer of angry debate and protests, opposition to the effort has eased somewhat, and there appears to be potential for further softening among critics if Congress abandons the idea of a government-sponsored health insurance option, a proposal that has become a flash point in the debate.
Opposition to Obama’s Health-Reform Plan Is High, but Easing – washingtonpost.com
Statement Regarding Census Estimate of Number of Uninsured Americans – RWJF
“The federal government today announced that the number of Americans living without health insurance has increased, with more than 46.3 million people in the U.S. going without any health coverage last year. It’s important to keep in mind while the Census is the most commonly cited estimate, there are multiple surveys with differing methodologies that estimate the number of uninsured individuals in this country. All of the surveys however show that the number of Americans who don’t have health insurance coverage is large and that it’s growing over time. With health reform dominating the news, it’s an important time to remember that tens of millions of Americans lack coverage and are forced to delay or skip medical care because of it.
Statement Regarding Census Estimate of Number of Uninsured Americans – RWJF
Health Negotiators Look at Malpractice Changes – NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — Following President Barack Obama’s offer of compromise on an issue that has long divided Washington, congressional health care negotiators are considering proposals to foster alternatives to medical malpractice lawsuits.
The possibility that malpractice changes could be part of health care legislation that suddenly seems to have better chances of passing has sent doctors and trial lawyers scrambling.
Health Negotiators Look at Malpractice Changes – NYTimes.com
HealthDay
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 9 (HealthDay News) — Spending on health care is growing so fast that it will devour much more of the American economy in the future and take even larger chunks out of personal income, a new study warns.
Even if spending stops growing so much, it will account for more than half of the increases in the salary that Americans will make over the next 75 years, according to researchers at Harvard University and the University of Michigan.
Summer of Work Exposes Medical Students to System’s Ills
By KEVIN SACK- NYTimes.com
Published: September 8, 2009
SEATTLE — This summer, medical students from the University of Washington took a long look under the hood of the health care system they are about to inherit, and many returned to campus last week with their eyes wide open and their idealism tempered.
The students learned not only to deliver babies and suture wounds, but also to order unnecessary tests as protection against lawsuits, to hector specialists into seeing Medicaid patients, to match patients with prescriptions on Wal-Mart’s $4 list. And they saw firsthand what Mr. Olsgaard called “a tidal wave of chronic disease” — diabetes, hypertension, obesity, depression — that left many questioning how much any one physician could really accomplish.
Summer of Work Exposes Medical Students to System’s Ills – NYTimes.com
News Analysis – Aim of Obama Health Speech – Reigniting a Presidency
By ADAM NAGOURNEY – NYTimes.com
Published: September 9, 2009
WASHINGTON — On one level, President Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night was what it seemed: an attempt to corral lawmakers into approving the signature initiative of his presidency, the health care overhaul that has eluded Washington, as Mr. Obama said, for 65 years.
But the speech was about more than health care.
It was an attempt by this still new president to display his authority
News Analysis – Aim of Obama Health Speech – Reigniting a Presidency – NYTimes.com
So Much for Civility
By GAIL COLLINS
Op-Ed Columnist – NYTimes.com
Published: September 9, 2009
Let me go out on a limb and say that it is not a good plan to heckle the president of the United States when he’s making a speech about replacing acrimony with civility.
Most of the Republicans listening to Barack Obama’s health care address Wednesday night followed the normal rule about sitting in stony silence while the president’s party leaps up and down in rapturous applause. But there were a few exceptions, notably Joe Wilson, a member of Congress from South Carolina who loudly called the president a liar.
Drew Westen: Why the President Has Been Losing on Health Care, and What He Needs to Say
Huffington Post
Pundits have offered a range of reasons for why health reform that was wildly popular and on which the President and two houses of Congress were elected has turned so far south in public opinion: The White House overlearned the lessons of the Clintons by letting a dysfunctional Congress try to create the legislation on their own. The President failed to lay out a clear plan and only suggested a set of principles. The White House emphasized cost, when most people who vote are more concerned with security and stability of their insurance and when the emphasis on cost ultimately drew attention to the weakest link in the effort to reform health care. The White House didn’t stay on message.
True enough. But none of these gets at the root of them all: The White House didn’t stay on message because it didn’t really have one.
Drew Westen: Why the President Has Been Losing on Health Care, and What He Needs to Say
The rocky road for Obama’s health care journey
By CHARLES BABINGTON (AP) –
WASHINGTON — Harry Reid could hardly believe his ears.
The Senate majority leader was in Denver for a mid-August Democratic conference when he heard one of Congress’ pivotal negotiators on health care trashing a bill on that very subject.
“You have every right to fear,” Republican Sen. Charles Grassley told a raucous citizens’ forum in Iowa that day. “We should not have a government program that determines you’re going to pull the plug on Grandma.”
Grassley’s stunning comments made Reid second-guess a decision he and President Barack Obama had reluctantly made months earlier: to give six senators from small states, the so-called Gang of Six, the time and prominence to fashion a bipartisan bill on overhauling the health care system.
The Associated Press: The rocky road for Obama’s health care journey
Data Fuel Regional Fight on Medicare Spending
By ROBERT PEAR NYTimes.com
Published: September 7, 2009
WASHINGTON — For years, health policy experts have said health care spending is much higher in New York City and Boston because doctors and hospitals there provide more services, practicing medicine in a more intensive way.
But new government data show that Medicare costs per patient in those cities are slightly below the national average when the numbers are adjusted for the cost of living and other factors.
The new numbers add fuel to a raging debate over what Congress should do to reduce geographic disparities in Medicare spending. The debate involves a combustible mix of health policy and money.
US Health Crisis — Survival Strategies
by April Capil
As our health care debate has overheated, myths about the Canadian health care system abound. The Republicans and the media are using the Canadian system to criticize everything from the public option to breast cancer treatment as they continue to stonewall any reform.
Washington Times – Something must be done
Thomas H. Kean and Risa Lavizzo-Mourey
Ronald Reagan used to say that “status quo” is Latin for “the mess that we’re in.”
Well, for too many working Americans and their families, the health care status quo is, indeed, a real mess. The “value gap” between what we spend on care and what we get in return is a fundamental cause of America’s health care (and economic) crisis.
We spend twice as much per person on health care than any other advanced nation in the world. But we don’t deliver the quality of care, patient outcomes, improvements in public health and longer life spans as do many other countries. Meanwhile, at least 15 percent of Americans are uninsured — about 46 million people, which is more than the combined populations of 24 states plus the District of Columbia. And many people with insurance are scared they’ll lose it.
Delaying action makes the problem worse.
Why Reform Survived August | The New Republic
Jonathon Cohn: The Treatment
The August recess began with critics attacking health care reform because of its high price tag. It ended with critics attacking health care reform because of how reformers proposed to reduce that high price tag. The intervening weeks were nightmarish: Instead of using August to showcase what reform could do for the average American, the White House spent most of its time knocking down rumors of death panels for the sick and elderly. And as the right became energized, the left grew disillusioned, as much by the administration’s backroom deals as by its ineffectual messaging. Eventually, the shift showed up in the polls. First people grew more wary of reform. Then they grew more wary of the president. It was if everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
Somehow, though, health reform is not dead.
Nancy Pelosi: No public option, no bill – Alex Isenstadt -
POLITICO.com
As the White House signals that it is willing to move forward on a health reform plan without a public option, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sent a strong message Thursday evening: not so fast.
In her strongest statement yet, Pelosi said that any bill “without a strong public option will not pass the House”:
“Any real change requires the inclusion of a strong public option to promote competition and bring down costs,” Pelosi said. “If a vigorous public option is not included, it would be a major victory for the health insurance industry.”
Nancy Pelosi: No public option, no bill – Alex Isenstadt – POLITICO.com
Employer health care mandate would make a terrible system worse
Thursday, September
The fight over the “public option” has obscured debate on an element of congressional health reform plans that would be equally consequential and equally threatening to many Americans: the “pay-or-play” mandate.
Rather than changing one of the worst features of American health care – the fact that insurance is almost always tied to employment – it would carve that fact in stone. If that weren’t bad enough, it would threaten to drag down wages and kill jobs in the process by driving up costs for employers
Employer health care mandate would make a terrible system wo
Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Premiums Increase 119 Percent from 1999-2008
Health News – RedOrbit
Nationally, family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance increased 119 percent between 1999 and 2008, and could increase another 94 percent to an average $23,842 per family by 2020 if cost growth continues on its current course, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.
Tool workers strike over health coverage
Crain’s Chicago Business
Roughly 70 workers belonging to the Teamsters Local 743 went on strike over what they regard as an unfair labor practice.
Richard Berg, president of the local union, said that SK Hand Tool failed to notify employees that it would stop offering health insurance coverage in May. Workers realized the benefit had been withdrawn when they received their paychecks and saw there was no deduction for health care, Mr. Berg said.
Tool workers strike over health coverage | Crain’s Chicago Business
Teamsters Local 743
SK Workers on Strike!
Workers at SK Hand Tools in Chicago and McCook have been on strike since 5:30am Tuesday morning over the company’s unilateral withdrawal of their health care coverage.
The strike is being covered by every Chicago media outlet, which shows how important the issue of justice is to the general public.
Will health reform go on without one of its biggest advocates?
Employee Benefit Adviser
Even before his August 25 death, speculation as to the impact of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s passing had pundits and politicians questioning what will happen to health care reform without one of its strongest and most prominent supporters. As chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Kennedy (D-Mass.) was an outspoken proponent of creating a new, government-run public plan. He “could not be prouder” when the HELP Committee passed the Affordable Health Choices Act with a “strong public option” on July 15.
Will health reform go on without one of its biggest advocates? – Articles – Employee Benefit Adviser
Obama Hurt by Hands-Off Strategy – WSJ.com
Among the many problems President Barack Obama confronts on the health-care front, one is fairly simple. He is defending a plan that doesn’t really exist.
It may be time for the White House to change that. As the president and his administration figure out how to hit the reset button on health at the close of a bruising August, one option is to, at last, lay out exactly what Mr. Obama now wants in an overhaul package, and start selling and defending that.
Aspects of Health Reform:
Introduction – RWJF
From 2001 to 2008 the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the Economic Research Initiative on the Uninsured (ERIU), housed at the University of Michigan. ERIU supported original research to spark new discussions on health coverage issues that were useful to policy-makers, policy analysts, researchers and members of the media. For its last act, ERIU commissioned four papers to highlight the core economic principles that policy-makers should understand as they grapple with health care reform. The four papers have been published as a special feature in the Summer 2009 issue of Inquiry.
Laurel to T.R. Reid
For extraordinary clarity in explaining foreign health systems
Campaign Desk — August 28, 2009 01:39 PM
CJR
As I have posted many times on Campaign Desk, the media, for the most part, has hardly touched how health care works in the rest of the developed world. Special interests, instead, have filled in the blanks with shrill and false advertising about socialized medicine and rationing. The public discussion has become so polarized and virulently nasty that it’s nearly impossible for any lessons from abroad to gain traction.
Dr. Obama’s Toughest Patient -
Washingtonpost.com
THE OBAMA administration and other advocates of comprehensive health reform knew that August was going to be a perilous month. It’s turned out to be disastrous. As lawmakers return to work and President Obama ends his vacation, the health reform enterprise is in rough shape. So what is the proper course of treatment?
Editorial – Majority Rule on Health Care Reform -
NYTimes.com
The talk in Washington is that Senate Democrats are preparing to push through health care reforms using parliamentary procedures that will allow a simple majority to prevail in their chamber, as it does in the House, instead of the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster that Senate Republicans are sure to mount.
Editorial – Majority Rule on Health Care Reform – NYTimes.com
Study: Most can’t afford health care on their own
The Pueblo Chieftain Online
The group recommends full assistance for those even twice above poverty level.
By JOHN NORTON
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAINEven if the unemployed and the working poor can afford some kind of health insurance, the money they spend on it means depleted savings, inability to pay for education for themselves and their children and other opportunity costs, according to a recent study of health care costs in Colorado.
The Pueblo Chieftain Online :: Study: Most can’t afford health care on their own
Weigh options carefully if you need to buy health insurance – MLive.com
Weigh options carefully if you need to buy health insurance
by Linda S. Mah | Kalamazoo Gazette
KALAMAZOO — As some families lose their health insurance and struggle to replace their coverage, they can find the options very confusing.
Insurance-industry experts say consumers should carefully consider their options and educate themselves before signing a new policy.
Some of the most common alternatives to major medical insurance include limited-medical, catastrophic and short-term insurance.
Weigh options carefully if you need to buy health insurance – MLive.com
Editorial – World’s Best Health Care -
NYTimes.com
Published: August 25, 2009
Critics of President Obama’s push for health care reform have been whipping up fear that proposed changes will destroy our “world’s best” medical system and make it like supposedly inferior systems elsewhere.
The emptiness of those claims became apparent recently when researchers from the Urban Institute released a report analyzing studies that have compared the clinical effectiveness and quality of care in the United States with the care dispensed in other advanced nations. They found a mixed bag, with the United States doing better in some areas, like cancer care, and worse in others, like preventing deaths from treatable and preventable conditions.
Visitors From Planet LaRouche
The Lede Blog – NYTimes.com
Proof that the global village is here: On Tuesday, the Cuban state newspaper Granma published a column by Fidel Castro in which he writes that he was struck last week by an encounter Rep. Barney Frank had with a woman at a health insurance forum in a senior center in Dartmouth, Mass. As the much-watched video of the exchange embedded above shows, when the woman claimed that President Barack Obama supported “a Nazi policy” endorsing euthanasia, Mr. Frank asked her simply, “On what planet do you spend most of your time?”
Somewhat obscured by the laughter following that punch line was the answer to his question: the woman makes no secret of the fact that she spends most or all of her time on the planet where Lyndon LaRouche is a major political figure.
Op-Ed Contributor – Congress’s Health Care Numbers Don’t Add Up
NYTimes.com
By JON R. GABEL
Published: August 25, 2009
FOR competence and integrity, few organizations command more respect in Washington than the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. As health care reform makes its way through Congress, the budget office’s assessment of how much various elements might cost may determine the details of legislation, and whether it ultimately passes. But when it comes to forecasting the costs of reform, the budget office’s record is suspect. In each of the past three decades, when assessing major changes in Medicare, it has substantially underestimated the savings the changes would bring.
Op-Ed Contributor – Congress’s Health Care Numbers Don’t Add Up – NYTimes.com
Waxman Takes On Drug Makers Over Medicare
NYTimes.com
By DUFF WILSON
Published: August 25, 2009
As the health care debate focuses on whether cost cuts are looming in Medicare coverage, Representative Henry A. Waxman is on a crusade to save Medicare billions of dollars — in a way that he says would end up helping the elderly.
That is because the money would come from the drug industry, which is why Mr. Waxman may have a fight on his hands.
Employers Face 10.5 Percent Health Care Cost Increases, Says Aon Consulting;
Copyright 2009 PR Newswire Association LLC
All Rights ReservedPR Newswire
August 25, 2009 Tuesday 9:30 AM EST
Increases consistent with a year ago, but sluggish economy creates worse situation for many employers and employeesCHICAGO, Aug. 25
CHICAGO, Aug. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Health care costs are expected to increase on average 10.5 percent in the next 12 months,(1) according to Aon Consulting, the global human capital consulting organization of Aon Corporation (NYSE: AOC).
Aon Consulting surveyed more than 60 leading health care insurers, representing more than 100 million insured individuals, and found that health care costs are projected to increase by 10.4 percent for HMOs, 10.4 percent for POS plans, 10.7 percent for PPOs and 10.5 percent for CDH plans. These are slightly lower than one year ago, when HMO cost increases were 10.6 percent and POS plans were 10.5 percent. PPOs and CDH plans remain steady at 10.7 percent and 10.5 percent, respectively. (See below for trend data from Aon Consulting’s prior health care surveys.)
Policy Experts Call Fear of Medical Rationing Unfounded
- NYTimes.com By REED ABELSON
Published: August 24, 2009
“Rationing.”
It is what many people say they fear most from an overhaul of the health care system — the prospect of the federal government’s limiting the medical care they can receive.
Even some people who now have private health insurance through their employers have expressed this concern in opinion polls and public forums. They say they worry that the enormous price tag for providing care to tens of millions of additional Americans will eventually force everyone else to make do with less.
Policy Experts Call Fear of Medical Rationing Unfounded – NYTimes.com
Hard times tighten ‘use-it-or-loss-it’ bond to health benefits
Employee Benefit News
By Kathleen Koster
April 23, 2009
The recession compels employers to reduce their health care costs, but some workers have upped utilization of their coverage, fearing that layoffs and reduce health benefits are on the way, reports the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.
Hard times tighten ‘use-it-or-loss-it’ bond to health benefits – Articles – Employee Benefit News
Democrats plan hundreds of reform rallies
- Chris Frates – POLITICO.com
Faced with a souring public mood on health care reform, Democrats and their supporters are launching a national grassroots push Wednesday to show lawmakers that the majority of Americans still support overhauling the system.
Reform supporters are planning to hold more than 500 events between Wednesday and when lawmakers return to Washington Sept. 8, ranging from neighborhood organized phone banks to professionally staffed rallies with hundreds of people.
Democrats plan hundreds of reform rallies – Chris Frates – POLITICO.com
Howard Kurtz – Media Notes: Howard Kurtz on the Complex Nature of the Health-Care Reform Story
Journalists, Left Out of The Debate
Few Americans Seem to Hear Health Care Facts
For once, mainstream journalists did not retreat to the studied neutrality of quoting dueling antagonists.
They tried to perform last rites on the ludicrous claim about President Obama’s death panels, telling Sarah Palin, in effect, you’ve got to quit making things up.
But it didn’t matter. The story refused to die.
Five Myths About Health Care in the Rest of the World – washingtonpost.com
By T.R. Reid
As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we’ve overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they’ve found ways to cover everybody — and still spend far less than we do.
By T.R. Reid — Five Myths About Health Care in the Rest of the World – washingtonpost.com
Obama tries to ‘cut through the noise’ on healthcare
latimes.com
By Christi Parsons and Mark Silva
August 21, 2009
On Michael Smerconish’s conservative radio talk show, President Obama set the record straight on whether he had abandoned the idea of a government-run insurance plan. “We’re happy to make sensible compromises,” he said.
Reporting from Washington – “I’m scared out of my mind talking to you here,” Joe from Philadelphia blurted out as he was connected to President Obama during a conservative radio talk show devoted to healthcare Thursday. But when it came to his comment, Joe did not hold back.
“I’m getting a little ticked off that it feels like the knees are buckling a little bit,” the caller said, suggesting the president had begun to wobble in the face of pressure from conservative critics.
“You have an overwhelming majority in both the House and the Senate, and you own the whole shooting match,” Joe said. “It’s very frustrating to watch you try and compromise with a lot of these people who aren’t willing to compromise with you.”
Obama tries to ‘cut through the noise’ on healthcare — latimes.com
Opinion | There are death panels: The insurance industry runs them
Seattle Times Newspaper
Syndicated columnist Froma Harrop
“Death panels”? I’ll tell you about death panels. My husband faced one some years ago, and it didn’t involve any government bureaucrat. It was run by our private insurer, the sort of corporate entity that foes of health-care reform say will give you anything you want.
Opinion | There are death panels: The insurance industry runs them | Seattle Times Newspaper
Health Care’s Transparency Problem – Forbes.com
Niv Elis
08.19.09, 06:00 AM EDT
Why patients are in the dark on medical costs.
WASHINGTON — By now, thousands of pages of legislation have been devoted to reforming America’s health care system. But relatively little of it will clean up one of health care’s murkiest areas: pricing.
Free-market economics is predicated on the idea that people make informed choices about what they consume through prices, which signal the value of goods and services. Unlike the markets for books, cars, groceries and other goods, pricing for health care procedures is done behind the scenes by insurance companies, medical providers and the government.
Alternative ideas in health care reform
08/18/2009
By Dr. Gilead I. Lancaster
This summer, as the U.S. seems to be embroiled in a heated debate over health insurance, one cannot help but wonder if we are missing the forest for the trees. It’s not that efforts to reform health care are not needed; they certainly are. However, lawmakers seem so focused on reforming health insurance that they and we may be missing the bigger picture.
Alternative ideas in health care reform – The Connecticut Post Online
Insurers vs. government: Who is more trustworthy?
Washington Business Journal – by Kent Hoover Washington Bureau Chief
For many small business owners, health care reform boils down to one issue. Which of these do you trust the least: insurance companies or the federal government?
Members of the Main Street Alliance contend a government-run insurance option is needed to force private insurers to be more competitive.
Insurers vs. government: Who is more trustworthy? – Washington Business Journal:
Analysis: Liberals tired of health care compromise – washingtonpost.com
WASHINGTON — Frustrated liberals have a question for President Barack Obama and Democratic lawmakers: Isn’t it time the other guys gave a little ground on health care? What’s the point of a bipartisan bill, they ask, if we’re making all the concessions?
Analysis: Liberals tired of health care compromise – washingtonpost.com
Workers Uniting union counters the lies in U.S. health care debate
Workers Uniting, the world’s first international union, has launched an attack on the lies and misinformation being spread in the USA by opponents of President Obama’s health insurance reform plan.
In an online campaign, the union representing three million working people from every industrial sector in Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada and the Caribbean, is demonstrating the malicious distortions being spread about the UK’s National Health Service.
Workers Uniting union counters the lies in U.S. health care debate
Robert Reich calls for ‘march on Washington’ in support of public option
Fred Barbash – POLITICO.com
Robert Reich, the former Labor secretary, scholar and commentator, called Tuesday for a “march on Washington” on Sept. 13 —“Grandparents Day” — in support of a health care bill that offers a public option.
While he said organizing was not his strength, he would be prepared to assist. “If enough people feel that’s the best way for their voices to be heard, and can’t be heard in any other way, then we march,” Reich said in a reader question-and-answer session in POLITICO’s Arena
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26224.html#ixzz0OpIQljZf
Health Reform Galaxy Blog: Do we really have the best health care in the world?
Posted by Minna Jung on August 20, 2009 in
health care reform quality
Bob Berenson of the Urban Institute writes about the quality of care in the United States as compared to other countries.
The rhetoric about health care reform has heated up and thickened over the summer months, and it is now more critical than ever to discern what, exactly, is at stake in these health reform debates. If people are getting increasingly passionate in their support for, or opposition to, health care reform, then there must be quite a few perceptions circling around out there about things that we want to gain out of reform, as well as perceptions about things we are fearful of losing.
Health Reform Galaxy Blog: Do we really have the best health care in the world?
Democrats, unnerved in face of health-care uproar, start fighting back
Copyright 2009 Press News Limited
All Rights Reserved The Canadian Press(CP)August 19, 2009 Wednesday
FOREIGN GENERAL NEWS
LEE-ANNE GOODMAN, CP
WASHINGTON _ It could have been the Nazi comparisons. Perhaps it was recent remarks from top Republicans that they’d support no health-care reform bill. Or it could just be spent reserves of patience following weeks of misinformation about death panels and health insurance for illegal aliens.
Whatever the reason, Democrats appeared to be fighting back on Wednesday amid relentless attacks from Republicans and their supporters about President Barack Obama’s sweeping health-care overhaul.
What is a ‘public’ insurance plan?
Copyright 2009 Gannett Company, Inc.
All Rights ReservedGannett News Service
August 5, 2009 Wednesday
MAUREEN GROPPE
By MAUREEN GROPPE
Gannett Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON – Whether to create a publicly run health insurance plan to compete with private insurance companies has emerged as a key question as Congress decides how to revamp the nation’s health care system. Here’s a look at what’s being discussed.
Question: What has the president proposed?
Answer: President Barack Obama wants Congress to create a government-run health insurance program that would compete with private insurers. Congress would have to decide which benefits the plan would cover, how much doctors and other health care providers would be paid, and who would be eligible to purchase a public plan. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama said the plan should be open to anyone without access to group coverage through an employer or to current programs. The benefits would be the same as those offered to federal employees.
Study: Treating Fractured Vertebrae May Not Help : NPR
One of the key issues for a health care overhaul is how to pay only for necessary care — and how to identify which procedures and treatments are most advantageous to patients. Two studies published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine show how difficult making medical decisions based on comparative effectiveness can be.
Massachusetts data exchange begins | Healthcare IT News
Massachusetts data exchange begins
August 03, 2009 | Patty Enrado, Contributing Editor
WORCESTER, MA – HealthAlliance Hospital and Fallon Clinic are the first two healthcare organizations to go live with SAFEHealth (Secure Architecture For Exchanging Health Information), a regional health information exchange based in Worcester, Mass.
Survey Suggests Increase in HIE Popularity
News digest – Quality/Equality newsroom – Quality/Equality – RWJF
A new survey by the eHealth Initiative (eHI) reveals that there are 57 active health information exchange (HIE) programs, an increase from 42 such programs in 2008 and just nine in 2004
AHA News Now reports.
Utah Health Officials Post Patient Satisfaction Scores -
News digest – Quality/Equality newsroom – Quality/Equality – RWJF
Utah residents now have access to data on overall patient satisfaction ratings for some hospitals in the state, the
Deseret Morning News reports. Posted on the state’s Web site, the information is based on the results of the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems
Health care defines a nation
Dr. Gene Davenport
Professor of Religion at Lambuth University.
August 4, 2009
One thing that President Obama has said with regard to the nation’s health care situation seems indisputable: the status quo cannot continue. In a strange twist, the status quo with regard to today’s health care is not a fixed point, but is the very fact of change – upward change in cost…
One of the essential questions in current debates is whether it is possible to have universal health coverage of the quality and dimensions now available only to some and, at the same time, bring the cost of health care under control…
One thing that does ring hollow is the warning against going too fast.
http://www.jacksonsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009908040305
Congress gets 10 plans, a private pharmacy; Have pre-existing conditions? No problem
Copyright 2009 Chicago Tribune Company
Chicago Tribune
August 4, 2009 Tuesday
Chicagoland Final EditionBy Mark Z. Barabak and Faye Fiore, Tribune Newspapers
Too much, too fast, too expensive. Those are some of the objections lawmakers have voiced against the health-care overhaul Democrats are attempting on Capitol Hill.
But many Americans think Congress is out of touch. How, they wonder, can lawmakers empathize with the underinsured or uninsured when they receive a benefits package — heavily subsidized by taxpayers — that most of us can only envy?
What’s so great about private health insurance? – Los Angeles Times
The bloody battle in Congress over a ‘public option’ ignores the insurers’ role in creating the nation’s healthcare crisis and their efforts to throttle reform.
Michael Hiltzik
August 3, 2009Throughout the heroic struggle in Congress to provide a “public option” in health insurance, one question never seems to get answered: Why are we so intent on protecting the private option?
What’s so great about private health insurance? – Los Angeles Times
How We Can Pay for Health Care Reform
Urban Institute Researchers Calculate Savings from Reform and Show that Revenue Options Provide Ample Funds to Finance Health Care Reform
By: Berenson RA, Holahan J, Blumberg LJ, Bovbjerg RR, Waidmann T, Cook A, Williams A and Urban Institute
A new analysis shows that savings from many popular health reform ideas would finance the lion’s share of the cost of comprehensive health care reform. It also shows that a combination of revenue options currently being discussed would provide more than enough money to fill the relatively modest gap between the cost of reform and the savings resulting from it.
The Urban Institute analysis outlines multiple options for health reforms that would save the government $1.25 trillion over 10 years:
http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?id=46492&c=
Doctors Know That Rationing Medical Care Is Standard Practice – washingtonpost.com
Rationing Care Is Standard Practice
(By Lisa Haney — Getty Images)
A seasoned pulmonologist shakes his head. “Let’s face it, we already ration care.” And, pausing ever so slightly, he begins his story.
Doctors Know That Rationing Medical Care Is Standard Practice – washingtonpost.com
Why Single Payer Advocacy Matters Now More Than Ever
THE NATION posted by John Nichols on 08/04/2009
How should serious supporters of healthcare reform spend the month of August?
Not by getting trapped in the narrow “debate” between “party of no” Republicans who favor no reform at all, and Blue Dog Democrats, whose “reform” is to make a bad system worse.
And not by campaigning for “buzz words – “public option,” “employer mandates” – or whatever President Obama or Speaker Pelosi happen to favor this week. There will be plenty of advertising and organizing to that end, including a $15 million expenditure by the AFL-CIO.
Americans who want to tip the debate in the most progressive direction should take advantage an opening provided at the last minute during negotiations to get a bill approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
And they should do so by advocating even more aggressively for single-payer health care.
New Report: Health Reform Proposals Have Potential to Help More Than 13 Million Uninsured Young Adults Gain Coverage -
The Commonwealth Fund
Affordable, Secure Health Insurance Through Insurance Exchange and Medicaid Expansion Could Help Young Adults Get Needed Health Care and Protect Them From Medical Debt
New York, NY, August 6, 2009— Comprehensive health reform proposals now before Congress could help the more than 13 million uninsured young adults ages 19-29 gain coverage, and such reforms would also help ensure that those who now have coverage would not lose it, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report. Extending health insurance coverage to all Americans through expansions in Medicaid and a health insurance exchange with a choice of private and public plans would help guarantee stable, affordable coverage for young adults, according to the report, Rite of Passage? Why Young Adults Become Uninsured and How New Policies Can Help, 2009 Update.
Health Care Realities – NYTimes.com
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: July 30, 2009
At a recent town hall meeting, a man stood up and told Representative Bob Inglis to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” The congressman, a Republican from South Carolina, tried to explain that Medicare is already a government program — but the voter, Mr. Inglis said, “wasn’t having any of it.”
Health Reform: The Cost of Failure – RWJF
Number of Uninsured Americans Could Reach 65.7 Million Within 10 Years
May 21, 2009
This Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) report projects that—if federal reform efforts are not enacted—within 10 years the cost of health care for businesses could double, and the number of uninsured Americans could reach 65.7 million—with middle-income families hardest hit.
Number of Uninsured Americans Could Reach 65.7 Million Within 10 Years
May 21, 2009
This Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) report projects that—if federal reform efforts are not enacted—within 10 years the cost of health care for businesses could double, and the number of uninsured Americans could reach 65.7 million—with middle-income families hardest hit.
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