Posts Tagged ‘President Barack Obama’
Monday, February 22nd, 2010
Of the world’s 193 recognized sovereign states, only Poland refused the H1N1 vaccine because of safety fears and distrust of the pharmaceutical companies producing the injections. The decision by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Health Minister Ewa Kopacz had broad public support, even though Poland has reported 145 deaths from H1N1 flu as of mid-January. Poles saw the vaccine rejection as a praiseworthy act of defiance against pharmaceutical manufacturers, a sentiment bolstered by a growing anti-vaccine movement.
“We are making this decision only in the interest of the Polish patient and the taxpayer,” Tusk said. “We will not take part because it’s not honest and it’s not safe for the patient.” The anti-vaccine movement claims that the H1N1 inoculation is untested or contains unsafe ingredients, such as the preservative thimerosal. The World Health Organization disagrees and points out that more than 150 million people in 40 nations have been vaccinated and suffered no abnormal or dangerous reactions.
The lone Polish official to protest is Janusz Kochanowski, the ombudsman for civil rights, who calls the unavailability of the vaccine an unnecessary risk to the country’s health. Ironically, Kochanowski himself came down with H1N1 flu over Christmas. Poland’s response to the vaccine stands in sharp contrast to the United States, where President Barack Obama and his family were inoculated against H1N1 flu to set an example.
“The saving grace for Poland is that this swine flu pandemic is so far very mild. It would be a big scandal if this were a virus that would cause many deaths,” said Andrew McMichael, an immunologist and director of the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford.
Tags: Andrew McMichael, anti-vaccine movement, Donald Tusk, EU, Ewa Kopacz, H1N1, immuniologist, Oxford, pandemic, Poland, President Barack Obama, swine flu, thimerosal, vaccine, World Health Organization
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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
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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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Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
Americans spent an average of $7,681 per person on healthcare during 2008, just a 3.5 percent rise over the previous year - the slowest growth rate in 48 years. According to a report issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, healthcare spending totaled $2.3 trillion in 2008 and accounted for 16.2 percent of the GDP.
The culprit is the recession, which achieved what a generation of public officials attempted without success. Federal officials said the slowdown in health spending resulted from the soft economy, people delaying elective procedures, for example, and did not cite any factors that will alter the long-term outlook for continued increases as baby boomers age and physicians rely more on new technologies to treat patients.
According to Micah Hartman, a government statistician who contributed to the report, federal spending for health services and supplies grew 10.4 percent in 2008 and equaled 36 percent of federal receipts, up from 28 percent in 2007. “In 2008, federal Medicaid spending increased 8.4 percent - the highest rate of growth since 2003 - while state spending declined by 0.1 percent, the first decline in these expenditures in program history,” Hartman said. “Spending for healthcare by private businesses grew just 1.2 percent in 2008, in part because of a drop in the proportion of employer-sponsored insurance paid by employers. Private business’ health spending remained relatively flat as a share of compensation at 7.9 percent.”
In other findings, the report noted that “private health insurance premiums and benefits grew in 2008 at their slowest rate since 1967, 3.1 percent and 3.9 percent respectively.” The slowdown reflects a drop in the number of Americans with private health insurance. That fell to 195.4 million in 2008, compared with 196.4 percent in 2007.
Tags: GDP, Healthcare, healthcare reform legislation, healthcare spending, Medicaid, Medicare, Micah Hartman, President Barack Obama, recession
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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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Thursday, January 7th, 2010
Why did Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) threaten to filibuster and insist on dropping the public option and a Medicare buy-in for people aged 55 - 64 in the healthcare reform bill? Even more puzzling is the fact that Lieberman had supported a public option as recently as this past September. Lieberman, who may classify as a liberal, is pro-choice and supports some gay rights, angered Democrats in his home state of Connecticut when he openly campaigned for Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin in the 2008 presidential election.
In The Guardian, Chris McGreal writes that “Now, in the view of some, he is plumbing new depths of betrayal by using his deciding vote as an independent member of the Senate to hold hostage Barack Obama’s reform of America’s dysfunctional healthcare system. Lieberman’s tactics have upset Democratic party members of Congress who are asking why a popular president’s agenda is being stalled by a senator who has repeatedly turned his back on his old party.”
Critics see Lieberman’s opposition to the public option as a result of his acceptance of approximately $1 million in campaign donations from the medical insurance industry - many of which are headquartered in his home state — over his 21-year Senate career. Lieberman’s wife, Hadassah, works for a lobbying firm as its health and pharmaceutical specialist. Her previous employers include big pharma companies Pfizer and Hoffmann-LaRoche. Lieberman’s supporters thought he was “genuinely an independent” who agrees “more often than not with Democrats on domestic policy. I agree more often than not with Republicans on foreign and defense policy,” Lieberman once told Fox News.
According to McGreal, “Detractors paint a picture of a vain, bitter man still stung by his rejection by Democratic voters who came close to scuppering his Senate career three years ago and now reveling in the power he wields to block Obama’s first piece of major legislation.” Lieberman says he is not acting out of spite. “That’s just poppycock,” he said. “If I had any sense of vendetta against the Democratic party, I wouldn’t be in the Democratic caucus today.”
Tags: filibuster, Hadassah Lieberman, healthcare reform, insurance industry, John McCain, Joseph Lieberman, pfizer, President Barack Obama, public option, Sarah Palin, Senate
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Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
Over and over, history has been manipulated to defeat universal healthcare. When the United States declared war on Germany in April, 1917, the goal of adopting universal healthcare died as the concept was said to be “made in Germany” and would result in the “Prussianization of America”. Germany, you’ll remember, led the world by adopting universal healthcare in 1883. In California, the state legislature passed a constitutional amendment providing universal healthcare and the issue was put on the ballot for ratification. Voters in the state received brochures with an image of the Kaiser and the copy: “Born in Germany. Do you want it in California?” Not surprisingly given the times, Californians voted against the amendment.
That attitude still characterizes some of the healthcare reform debate. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has suggested that President Obama and supporters of healthcare reform are engaged in “an audacious effort to Europeanize the country.”
Tags: American Association for Labor Legislation, Bolshevik, Committee on Social Insurance, Franklin Roosevelt, Irving Fisher, Isaac Rubinow, Jane Addams, Louis Brandeis, Mitch McConnell, National Insurance Act, President Barack Obama, Sheldon Whitehouse, Shelia Jackson-Lee, Woodrow Wilson, Yale University
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Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Declaring that “failure is not an option” on healthcare reform, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said that the legislation will be passed with or without Republican support. “We’re not going to not pass a bill,” Schumer said, pointing to a healthcare system that is broken because some 47 million Americans lack any kind of insurance coverage.
Before this can happen, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has the task of resolving issues within his own party regarding abortion, taxes and allowing the government to sell health insurance in competition with private insurers. Democratic leaders are working to persuade Senator Olympia Snow (R-ME) to cross party lines and vote in favor of the ultimate bill, even though she sided with her fellow Republicans on the recent procedural vote to move the debate to the full Senate floor.
Both the Senate and House of Representatives bills require all Americans to have healthcare insurance, and plan to make government subsidies available to help pay premiums. Insurance companies would be banned from denying coverage or charging extra for individuals with pre-existing conditions. New insurance marketplaces would be created for those Americans who have difficulty finding affordable coverage - such as the self-employed and those who own small businesses. Americans who currently have employer-provided coverage won’t see any big changes in their coverage. Senior citizens will see improvement in their prescription coverage.
As for paying for these bills? The House bill depends primarily on an income tax hike on upper-income individuals. The Senate bill would tax Cadillac insurance plans, increase the Medicare payroll tax for the wealthy and mandate fees on medical industries.
Tags: Blue Dog Democrats, Cadillac insurance plans, Democrats, Healthcare, House of Representatives, Medicaid, Medicare, President Barack Obama, public option, Republican, Senate, Senator Ben Nelson, Senator Blanche Lincoln, Senator Charles Schumer, Senator Harry Reid, Senator Olympia Snowe
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Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Healthcare reform’s worst news could be former vice presidential candidate Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), who is threatening to join a Republican filibuster should a public option in any form be included in the final legislation. Senators possibly joining Lieberman in opposing a public option are Ben Nelson (D-NE), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA). Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is exploring compromise measures with his 60-member caucus.
So opposed is Lieberman that he has vowed to filibuster the ultimate bill if it contains any form of public option. This includes “the trigger” or “fallback” that is favored by Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Under this plan, the trigger would let states opt out of a public plan. Lieberman also opposes Senator Tom Carper’s (D-DE) “the hammer”, which would allow states to opt into a public plan. Blue Dog Democrats like Landrieu have expressed some support for both “the trigger” and “the hammer”.
Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) remains optimistic. “I think that what happens is there are two weeks, three weeks, whatever, of debate. Senator Lieberman, everybody gets a chance to offer amendments. I don’t want four Democratic senators dictating to the other 56 of us and to the country, when the public option has this much support, that it’s not going to be in it,” he said, noting that a majority of the American people support a public option. According to Brown, the four dissenters will “look at this bill in the end and say, I don’t think they want to be on the wrong side of history. I don’t think they want to go back and say, you know, on a procedural vote, ‘I killed the most important bill in my political career.’ I don’t think they want to be there on that. So I think in the end, we get them.”
Pat of the dilemma, the Democrats find themselves in is that two Democrats - Roland Burris and Bernie Sanders - have vowed not to vote for the bill if there’s no public option.
Tags: Blue Dog Democrats, filibuster, healthcare reform, Joe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, Michael Steele, Olympia Snowe, President Barack Obama, public option, Senator Harry Reid, Tom Carper
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