Posts Tagged ‘healthcare reform’
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
The real cost of failure to pass healthcare reform legislation could mean that 275,000 Americans nationwide will die unnecessarily over the next 10 years - simply because they lack insurance. According to a new study by Families USA, “This is only the tip of the iceberg, and the most severe consequence, which is death,” said Kathleen Stoll, director of health policy at Families USA.
The states with the largest populations were found to be the ones where the majority of projected premature deaths would occur. The top states are California (34,600 early deaths); Texas (31,700); Florida (25,400); and New York (13,900). Families USA estimates that 68 adults under the age of 65 die every day because they lack healthcare insurance coverage. Unless a significant change occurs, that figure will climb to 84 by 2019.
Research exploring the connection between a lack of health insurance and an increased risk of death has found that the uninsured are more likely to avoid screenings and preventive care. As a result, their medical problems tend to be diagnosed later when they are advanced and difficult to treat. “The bottom line is that if you don’t get a disease picked up early and you don’t get necessary treatment, you’re more likely to die,” said Stan Dorn, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and author of an earlier study of premature deaths.
Healthcare experts warn that the Families USA’s study’s premature death estimate errs on the side of caution, although the report calculated that a lack of insurance increases mortality rates by 25 percent. More recent research found that people who do not have healthcare research are 40 percent more likely to die early.
Tags: Census Bureau, Children Health Insurance Program, Congress, Congressional Budget Office, Families USA, healthcare reform, Institute of Medicine, Medicaid, uninsured Americans, Urban Institute
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Monday, March 1st, 2010
The American College of Physicians (ACP) is urging Congress and the Obama administration to move ahead and pass healthcare reform legislation. ACP, whose membership includes 129,000 internists, internal medicine subspecialists, medical students, residents and fellows, offers this advice: “Don’t start over.”
“Let’s take the bills passed by the House and Senate and make them even better,” urges Bob Doherty, the ACP’s senior vice president of government affairs and public policy. “We shouldn’t toss them out and start from scratch.” An ACP report warns of the costs of failure to pass healthcare reform, quoting Congressional Budget Office projections that healthcare spending will climb to 25 percent of GDP by 2025. Similarly, the Census Bureau has warned that the number of the uninsured will soar to 60 million Americans by 2020 if reform does not occur.
ACP President Joseph Stubbs notes that “A highly partisan and polarized debate over healthcare reform legislation has regrettably taken the country’s ‘eye off the ball’ from the urgency of implementing reforms.” The ACP advocates building on existing legislation to reach ultimate agreement on a bill and create bipartisan proposals to cut the costs of the medical liability tort system with the goal of increasing the number of primary-care physicians.
Tags: American College of Physicians, Bob Doherty, Congress, Congressional Budget Office, healthcare reform, healthcare summit, internists, Joseph Stubbs, Medicare, Obama administration, primary-care physicians, US Census Bureau
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Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
The rationale for healthcare reform is simple - cover most of the population and rein in rising costs. But what happens if healthcare reform isn’t enacted? The answer is not good.
“Failure to enact health reform will result in increasing numbers of people without health insurance because fewer employers will offer it and many employees will not be able to pay the cost of plans that are available,” says Stephen Zuckerman, a health economist at the Urban Institute think tank in Washington, D.C. “For people not offered employer coverage, many will not be able to get coverage due to pre-existing conditions that insurers won’t cover or because premiums won’t be affordable. Even people with coverage will find costs becoming a greater financial burden.”
The numbers are startling. Americans paid $2.5 trillion for healthcare in 2009, equal to 17.3 percent of the nation’s GDP. As the economy starts to grow again, so will healthcare costs. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) estimates that without reform, healthcare will rise to 19.3 percent of the GDP by 2019. According to Urban Institute statistics, if healthcare reform is not enacted, the number of Americans without insurance will climb to 57 million or 20.1 percent of the population - and that is the best-case scenario.
The 16.5 percent of Americans now covered by Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program will rise to 18.3 percent. Medicare and Medicaid spending will cost approximately $725 billion in 2010, 50 percent more than Congress appropriates for all other domestic agencies. By 2014, the cost is projected to be $950 billion.
Inaction will only increase the budget deficit. Peter Orszag, the White House budget director, warns that “The fiscal course that we’re on, out in 2020 and 2030 and 2040, is unsustainable and needs to be addressed. If we don’t address rising healthcare costs, there’s nothing else that we’re going to be able to do that will alter that basic fact.”
Tags: Centers for Medicaid Services, Centers for Medicare, compromise, Congress, health economist, healthcare reform, House of Representatives, insurance premiums, Medicaid, Peter Orszag, pre-existing conditions, President Barack Obama, Senate, Stephen Zuckerman, think tank, Urban Institute
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Monday, February 15th, 2010
Veterans of the Clinton administration’s efforts to reshape healthcare policy are lining up to support President Barack Obama’s plan to extend coverage to all Americans and make medical care more affordable. Although this group isn’t a believer in making concessions to the opponents of reform, they have an attentive audience because of their hands-on experience and belief that Democrats can’t afford another healthcare failure.
“If Bill Clinton couldn’t get it done, and Barack Obama can’t do it, no Democrat will ever try again,” said Len Nichols, an economist and health policy director at the New America Foundation. Nichols is currently an unofficial advisor to lawmakers and Obama administration officials hammering out details of the proposed healthcare reform legislation. Another veteran of the Clinton-era healthcare reform effort, Chris Jennings, says “History is written by the victors, not the vanquished. Failure would serve as the ultimate judgment as to whether this effort was worth doing. Jennings, congressional liaison for Hillary Clinton during the 1990s, now works as a lobbyist.
The current healthcare reform legislation is significantly scaled back from the ambitious Clinton plan, though it still faces Republican opposition. The Obama plan concentrates on people who have the most difficulty obtaining and retaining health insurance - small businesses and those who buy their own coverage. “We are using the private insurance market and private incentives, as opposed to command-and-control,” Nichols said. “As a policy matter, we are in the middle.”
Tags: Chris Jennings, Democrats, Department of Health and Human Services, healthcare insurance, healthcare reform, Hillary Clinton, Ken Thorpe, Len Nichols, New America Foundation, President Barack Obama, President Bill Clinton, State of the Union
Posted in General, Healthcare | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
President Barack Obama used his first State of the Union Address to tell members of the House and Senate to continue their efforts to enact healthcare reform. “As temperatures cool, I want everyone to take another look at the plan we’ve proposed,” the president said. “Not now. Not when we are so close. By the time I’m finished speaking tonight, more Americans will have lost their health insurance. I will not walk away from these Americans and neither should the people in this chamber.” The president’s comments won applause and ovations from both sides of the aisle.
Richard Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association said “I think it’s the right approach.” Umbdenstock, who worked closely with the Obama administration to shape elements of healthcare reform legislation, said it was “important work” and “there is a real need to continue.” He also linked healthcare reform to the crucial issue of job creation, noting that “Hospitals are the second largest source of private sector jobs.”
Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) said “I think the House should just pass the Senate bill,” although he agreed that there likely will be efforts to amend the legislation through a procedure that allows passage on a simple majority vote. “But clearly the House can pass the Senate bill and the Senate’s bill is a good bill.”
“We all know we’ve been trying to get healthcare done since Teddy Roosevelt,” Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) commented on Wednesday. “So a few more weeks isn’t a long period of time in the context of how tough a fight this is when you go up against the special interest. We’ll do it and we’ll do it the right way.”
Tags: American Hospital Association, Chris Van Hollen, Democrats, healthcare reform, House of Representatives, President Barack Obama, Republicans, Richard Umbdenstock, Senate, Senator Barbara Boxer, Senator Bill Nelson, Senator Max Baucus, State of the Union Address, Teddy Roosevelt
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Monday, February 1st, 2010
Some Democrats think legislating in baby steps to achieve healthcare reform is their best option now that the party has lost its 60-vote super majority with Scott Brown’s upset victory in Massachusetts to fill Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat.
According to Representative Bill Pascrell, Jr., (D-NJ), some House Democrats are proposing an incremental approach to fix the healthcare system via multiple pieces of legislation instead of a single all-encompassing bill. The goal would remain to reform insurance coverage, assure patients’ rights and improve the way that healthcare is delivered. Pascrell envisions introducing three or four bills in quick succession. The legislation would encompass the least controversial elements of the broader reform package now stalled in Congress.
Pascrell believes that his measures might garner some Republican support because they would eliminate the public option, individual insurance mandates and entitlement programs. Pascrell notes that “You can blame the Senate all you want, but we are our own worst enemy. We do everything in mega-fashion. We need to do it in mini-fashion.”
Tags: 60 vote super majority, Bill Pascrell Jr, Democrats, entitlement programs, filibuster, healthcare reform, House of Representatives, individual insurance mandates, public option, Republicans, Scott Brown, Ted Kennedy
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Thursday, January 21st, 2010
“The Terminator” thinks it is time for the federal government to take care of California - especially when it comes to healthcare reform legislation. At a time when Congress is poised to pass sweeping healthcare reform, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) thinks that President Obama should rethink the legislation. In fact, Schwarzenegger thinks that healthcare reform is “something that ultimately would beat up on California,” as moderator David Gregory remarked during a recent “Meet the Press” interview.
According to Schwarzenegger, “Right now it is. And I just cannot imagine why we would have, like I said, our senators and congressional people, how they would vote for something like that where they’re representing Nebraska and not us. And, by the way, as I said in my State of the State, that’s the biggest rip-off. That is against the law to buy a vote.”
Schwarzenegger is referring to the Equitable Support for Certain States, which will provide Nebraska — as well as Massachusetts and Vermont — support in paying its share of additional costs to Medicaid in the health legislation. The provision, which Republicans have mocked as the “Cornhusker Kickback,” actually provides Nebraska the least of the three states. Vermont will receive $600 million over 10 years, while Massachusetts will receive $500 million. The money to Nebraska is expected to total $100 million.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) disagrees with Schwarzenegger - who says it will cost $3 to $ billion over 10 years — on the total cost of the Equitable Support for Certain States program. According to CBO statistics, the section of the manager’s amendment to the Senate’s health bill would cost $1.2 billion over 10 years.
Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ben Nelson, California, Congress, Congressional Budget Office, David Gregory, healthcare reform, Medicaid, nebraska, President Barack Obama
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Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
A Mississippi-based management consultant has an intriguing solution about the ideal way to fund the healthcare reform legislation that is now making its way through Congress. G. Edward Tucker, Jr., suggests that if healthcare is a right, there is also an individual responsibility to fund insurance through taxes, premiums and co-pays.
Tucker’s “Health-Us” program calls for “a federal sales tax provides the funding, which synchronizes healthcare funding with the GDP because the sales tax is a function of what consumers spend. The sales tax automatically considers ‘affordability’ for the family because it is a function of what the family spends. Second, each U.S. citizen under the age of 65 receives two ‘defined contribution’ vouchers for healthcare premiums. The voucher’s value is based on the age and gender of the individual and is a defined contribution for healthcare, not a defined benefit. This approach makes sure that the government does not spend more than the sales tax collected.”
People would use the vouchers to buy private insurance from competing companies or HMOs, which must provide a standard set of benefits and fulfill financial and service criteria. Insurers with excess profits would then funnel that money into members’ health savings plans. Even more ground-breaking is that Tucker’s plan eliminates employer-provided healthcare coverage because everyone receives a voucher.
Tucker estimates that covering all Americans under age 65 would cost $2.2 trillion or 14.22 percent of GDP, based on government data from 2008. His proposal assumes 4.97 percent of GDP savings from improved access to preventive healthcare, eliminating cost-shifting, and increasing competition for health voucher premiums, as well as empowering consumers. Under Tucker’s program, all Americans would have healthcare coverage.
Tags: GDP, Health US, healthcare reform, HMOs, insurance companies, vouchers
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Thursday, January 14th, 2010
There’s one element of healthcare reform legislation on which many liberals and conservatives agree - the mandate. Both the Senate and House versions of the healthcare reform bill contain a mandate requiring that all Americans be insured - whether it is through their job, the government or the private market.
From the right, there’s criticism from Michael Cannon, a health policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, who says “The federal government does not have the power to force you to purchase a private product.” From the left, Jim Dean, chairman of Democracy for America, notes that “We’d like to see the individual mandate stripped. It was fair given the presence of a government entity that could provide competition and control the cost. It’s not fair if people are required to buy insurance from the same insurance industry that caused this problem.”
The reasoning behind the mandate reflects the basic concept that underlies all insurance. A large pool of people pays fairly small premiums to create a fund large enough to take care of people who need help. The idea that people of all ages participate is of particular importance in healthcare, because costly medical conditions are found primarily in Americans who are middle-aged or older. When younger and healthier people don’t have insurance, the others pay higher premiums.
The insurance industry has a totally different reason for disliking the mandate - they think it’s too mild. Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, believes that “We think there’s more that (the bill) needs to do. There’s still a strong incentive for people to wait until they are sick to purchase insurance.” Zirkelbach is referring to one of the legislation’s hallmark features - the requirement that insurers treat those with pre-existing conditions the same as all other patients and bans denying coverage.
Tags: Cato Institute, government, health insurance, healthcare reform, medical costs, Michael Cannon, Senate
Posted in Healthcare, Healthcare Village | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
Representative John Dingell Jr.’s (D-MI) journey to making healthcare reform a reality dates back to 1932 when his father — John Dingell Sr., an architect of the New Deal — initially introduced Medicare legislation in the early days of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. The 83-year-old Dingell Jr., is one of the lead sponsors of the House legislation that will be reconciled with the Senate bill in conference committee.
Dingell, who is the longest-ever serving member of the House of Representatives, has introduced a national health insurance bill on the first day of every Congressional session as a tribute to his father. After John Dingell, Sr. died in 1955, his son assumed his father’s Congressional seat and the quest to make national health insurance a reality.
Commenting on the Senate’s recent passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Dingell said that “I commend my colleagues in the Senate on achieving this historic milestone. The journey is long, but the reward will be great. Unlike any other time in our history, we have two strong pieces of comprehensive health reform legislation that promise to deliver much needed access and relief to the American people. When President Obama signs a final, combined bill, we will be well on our way to fulfilling our longstanding moral obligation — providing quality, affordable coverage for every American. However, as is usually the case with any major overhaul, this is the first step in the process, not the last.”
Tags: Franklin Roosevelt, healthcare reform, House of Representatives, John Dingell Jr, John Dingell Sr, Medicare, Michigan, National Institues of Health, New Deal
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