Posts Tagged ‘Senate’
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
Posted in 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
Posted in Healthcare | No Comments »
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 »
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
Posted in Healthcare, Hospital Systems | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
In an historic move, the Senate voted to reform the way healthcare coverage is structured in the United States. The 2,077-page Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which passed 60 - 39, has the goal of restructuring the $2.5 trillion annual healthcare sector in just 10 years.
With an $871 billion price tag, the legislation will extend coverage to 41,000,000 Americans who currently lack any healthcare insurance. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 94 percent of citizens will have healthcare coverage by 2019. Of that, 26,000,000 will have coverage through innovative insurance exchanges; an additional 15,000,000 will be covered by expanded Medicaid and children’s health insurance programs.
In essence, the bill requires all legal residents to buy healthcare insurance. To offset the cost, the government will offer hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies and expands Medicaid to people earning less than 133 percent of the federal poverty level. Individuals who fail to buy coverage face a $95 penalty in 2014, which rises to $750 in 2016. Companies with more than 50 employees who do not offer coverage would be subject to a $750 penalty for each full-time worker who has subsidized coverage through an insurance exchange.
In one little-discussed provision, the legislation creates an Independent Payment Advisory Board, which would control Medicare payment formulas. The board also would make yearly recommendations to the president, Congress and private entities on actions they would like to take to improve quality and control the rate of cost growth in the private sector. The Medicare recommendations are non-binding in years where growth is slower than the targeted rate.
Tags: Congressional Budget Office, healthcare reform, insurance exchanges, Medicaid, Medicare, Senate, subsidies
Posted in Healthcare | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
The powerful Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has blasted Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) for his opposition to making Medicare available to Americans aged 55 - 64 as part of healthcare reform. SEIU strongly supports the expansion of Medicare, a move that Lieberman supported as recently as last September.
According to Andy Stern, SEIU president, “We have a handful of senators who think their point of view is so essential that they can stop progress. We think it’s time to take a vote, let the chips fall where they may.”
Stern expressed hope that some of the union’s healthcare reform objectives will be resolved in conference committee, which ultimately will resolve the Senate and House versions of the legislation.
Tags: Andy Stern, healthcare reform, House of Representatives, Joseph Lieberman, Medicare, SEIU, Senate
Posted in Healthcare | No Comments »
Monday, January 4th, 2010
Just when you thought that the Congressional debate over healthcare reform couldn’t get uglier than talk of “death panels”, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) went that extra step by inferring that a Democratic senator needed to die or become incapacitated so the legislation would fail. Just hours before a 1 a.m. procedural vote requiring a 60-vote majority, Coburn - who is a practicing physician - went to the Senate floor and proposed a prayer. He said, “What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can’t make the vote tonight. That’s what they ought to pray,” Coburn said.
It was clear to shocked Senators that Coburn was referring to Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), who is 92, in frail health and wheelchair-bound. Bringing Senator Byrd to the Senate for a middle-of-the-night vote in a city that had been walloped by an 18-inch snowfall the day before would be no easy task. So incensed was Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), the Senate majority whip, that he responded “When it reaches a point where we’re praying, asking people to pray, that senators wouldn’t be able to answer the roll call, I think it has crossed the line.”
The Democrats were no innocents either when it came to over-the-top oratory. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) earlier gave a speech in which he referenced the French Revolution, Kristallnacht and Southern lynch mobs. In Whitehouse’s words, “Too many colleagues are embarked on a desperate, no-holds-barred mission of propaganda, obstruction and fear. History cautions us of the excesses to which these malignant, vindictive passions can ultimately lead. Tumbrils have rolled through taunting crowds. Broken glass has sparkled in darkened streets. Strange fruit has hung from Southern trees.”
Coburn’s wish was thwarted. Shortly before 1 a.m., Senator Byrd was wheeled into the Senate, eager to vote. As his name was called, the West Virginia senator held up his right index finger as he shouted “aye”, then pumped his left fist in defiance.
Tags: Congressional Budget Office, death panels, healthcare reform, Robert Byrd, Senate, Sheldon Whitehouse, Tom Coburn
Posted in Healthcare | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
Conservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer wants to toss both the House of Representatives’ and Senate’s healthcare reform bills and start from scratch. His primary objection to the legislation is that “it wildly compounds the complexity by adding hundreds of new provisions, regulations, mandates, committees and other arbitrary bureaucratic inventions. Worse, they are packed into a monstrous package without any regard to each other. The only think linking these changes - such as the 118 new boards, commissions and programs - is political expediency. Each must be able to garner just enough votes to pass. There is not even a pretense of a unifying vision or conceptual harmony.”
Rather, Krauthammer’s vision of healthcare reform centers primarily on tort reform, which he estimates wastes half a trillion dollars every year - primarily dollars going into the legal system. The rest, according to Krauthammer, is wasted on millions of unnecessary tests, procedures and referrals whose sole purpose is to avoid lawsuits. Krauthammer also advocates for individuals being able to purchase healthcare insurance across state lines, which he says will increase competition and reduce premiums. Nine states have one insurer covering 70 percent of the people (in Alabama, it’s 83 percent).
According to Krauthammer, the next step is to “Tax employer-provided health insurance. This is an accrued inefficiency of 65 years, an accident of World War II wage controls. It creates a $250 billion annual loss of federal revenue - the largest tax break for individuals in the entire federal budget” - even though that proposal is strongly opposed by labor unions.
Suggesting that the Democrats “have chosen the worst possible method”, Krauthammer says “The better choice is targeted measures that attack the inefficiencies of the current system one by one - tort reform, interstate purchasing and taxing employee benefits. It would take 20 pages to write such a bill, not 2,000 - and provide the funds to cover the uninsured without wrecking both U.S. healthcare and the U.S. Treasury.”
Tags: Charles Krauthammer, conservative, healthcare reform, House of Representatives, Senate, tort reform
Posted in Healthcare | No Comments »
Monday, December 14th, 2009
One of the most surprising votes in the process to pass comprehensive healthcare reform is Senator Russell Feingold’s (D-WI) vote against an amendment sponsored by Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) to fund women’s preventive health services. The amendment, which will eliminate deductibles and co-payments for screenings like mammograms, passed by 61 - 39, with two Democrats voting “nay” and three Republicans voting “yea”.
Writing on AlterNet, a syndication service and online community of the alternative press, featuring news stories from alternative newsweeklies, magazines and the web, Daniela Perdomo notes that the amendment “guarantees that all women will receive a free annual gynecological exam, which would include screenings for the leading killers of women - breast, cervical, ovarian and lung cancers; heart disease; and chronic illnesses such as diabetes. It also requires insurance plans to cover a whole slew of comprehensive preventive care and screenings specific to women, with no copayments.”
Feingold’s official statement says that he cast his “nay” vote to assure fiscal responsibility. According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, the amendment will cost $980 million over the next 10 years. Feingold has a history of voting for fiscal responsibility, Perdomo notes. “I can’t rail against Feingold and say that he’s shown little fiscal restraint when voting for other measures. He voted against the bailout giveaway to the banks. In other words, I think Feingold’s votes are often sound. But I do think he is wrong on this one, and I pick on him because he’s normally so level-headed.”
The other Democrat who voted against the Mikulski amendment was Ben Nelson (D-NE). Republicans voting in favor were Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME) and David Vitter (R-LA).
Senator Mikulski herself sums it up the best: “Simply being a woman is a pre-existing condition.”
Tags: cancer, Congressional Budget Office, Daniel Perdomo, deductibles, diabetes, mammogram, Senate, Senator Barbara Mikulski, Senator Ben Nelson, Senator David Vitter, Senator Olympia Snowe, Senator Russell Feingold, Senator Susan Collins, Wisconsin
Posted in Healthcare | No Comments »
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
Posted in Healthcare | No Comments »
