Key GOP Senators Soak Up Thousands At Health-Specific Fundraiser
Top Republican senators involved in crafting health care reform legislation participated in a health care-specific fundraiser Monday evening. Guests were asked for a $2,000 contribution to the National Republican Senatorial Committee to attend a "Roundtable on Healthcare Issues" -- and $5,000 for both the roundtable and dinner with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.).
The nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation cited the event for its upfront offer of special-interest access. All three senators sit on key health committees. Grassley is the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, currently embroiled in negotiations with Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) over the pending reform bill. Enzi sits on the Finance Committee and serves as ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, of which Burr is a member as well. ...
Saturday, August 8, 2009
The Truth about Socialized Medicine���� : Information Clearing House - ICH
The Truth about Socialized Medicine���� : Information Clearing House - ICH
By Audrey Mayer
July 28, 2009 "Commondreams" -- I have been hearing a lot of pundits and politicians bemoan “socialized medicine” and its supposed inefficiencies and inequities. These horror stories are never accompanied by data, just hearsay and anecdotes from “a friend of a friend” in Canada or the United Kingdom. Rarely have I heard from people who have themselves experienced a universal public health care system. As one of those people, I thought I should speak up.
While living in Finland for three years, I experienced socialized medicine up close and personal. I gave birth to my son there.
...
I never had to wait to see a medical professional, nor was any necessary procedure delayed or denied. Every nurse and doctor I saw was caring and knowledgeable, and spent whatever time was necessary to make sure that I received the care I needed.
I have now been living and working back in the US for 6 months, and already I have had problems with my health insurance plan through my employer. I found out the hard way (that is, at the doctor’s office after my son’s vaccination visit) that my son had been arbitrarily dropped from my plan months before, even though I had been paying the premiums for the family plan all along. It took almost a week of phone calls to get him reinstated. All the while, I privately wondered if the two ear infections he had had in the spring had prompted some computer at the health insurance company to calculate that he was “overusing” the system, and automatically drop his coverage.
That may seem like paranoid thinking, but I have seen it all before. In 2001, my mother was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. Instead of focusing her strength and attention on recovering from a double mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation, she spent much of her time arguing with the health insurance company and the hospital over bills she had already paid, and routine treatments that should have been covered by her insurance plan. Ultimately she lost her insurance altogether when she lost her job, and she has since been living in remission, uninsured.
When these pundits and politicians go onto national television and spew all sorts of false rhetoric about the evils of socialized medicine, it makes my blood boil. They are doing an incredible disservice to their fellow Americans, both those with and without health insurance. For every anecdote they have about a Canadian waiting six months for necessary open heart surgery, I can find twenty Americans for whom that equally necessary surgery is completely out of reach. Now is the time for an honest assessment about what (if anything) can be salvaged from our current system, and to put a system in place that does what it is supposed to do: provide health care. ...
By Audrey Mayer
July 28, 2009 "Commondreams" -- I have been hearing a lot of pundits and politicians bemoan “socialized medicine” and its supposed inefficiencies and inequities. These horror stories are never accompanied by data, just hearsay and anecdotes from “a friend of a friend” in Canada or the United Kingdom. Rarely have I heard from people who have themselves experienced a universal public health care system. As one of those people, I thought I should speak up.
While living in Finland for three years, I experienced socialized medicine up close and personal. I gave birth to my son there.
...
I never had to wait to see a medical professional, nor was any necessary procedure delayed or denied. Every nurse and doctor I saw was caring and knowledgeable, and spent whatever time was necessary to make sure that I received the care I needed.
I have now been living and working back in the US for 6 months, and already I have had problems with my health insurance plan through my employer. I found out the hard way (that is, at the doctor’s office after my son’s vaccination visit) that my son had been arbitrarily dropped from my plan months before, even though I had been paying the premiums for the family plan all along. It took almost a week of phone calls to get him reinstated. All the while, I privately wondered if the two ear infections he had had in the spring had prompted some computer at the health insurance company to calculate that he was “overusing” the system, and automatically drop his coverage.
That may seem like paranoid thinking, but I have seen it all before. In 2001, my mother was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. Instead of focusing her strength and attention on recovering from a double mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation, she spent much of her time arguing with the health insurance company and the hospital over bills she had already paid, and routine treatments that should have been covered by her insurance plan. Ultimately she lost her insurance altogether when she lost her job, and she has since been living in remission, uninsured.
When these pundits and politicians go onto national television and spew all sorts of false rhetoric about the evils of socialized medicine, it makes my blood boil. They are doing an incredible disservice to their fellow Americans, both those with and without health insurance. For every anecdote they have about a Canadian waiting six months for necessary open heart surgery, I can find twenty Americans for whom that equally necessary surgery is completely out of reach. Now is the time for an honest assessment about what (if anything) can be salvaged from our current system, and to put a system in place that does what it is supposed to do: provide health care. ...
� Health Care Hypocrisy�� : Information Clearing House - ICH
Health Care Hypocrisy : Information Clearing House - ICH
...
...
His political opponents become bolder with each day as they see his party base in Congress weakening, his polls dropping, and a confused public being saturated with unrebutted propaganda by the insatiable profiteering, subsidized health care giants.
Their campaign-money-greased minions on Capitol Hill and the corporatist Think Tanks and columnists are seizing on President Obama's aversion to conflict and repeated willingness to water down what he will fight for.
The loud and cruel baying pack comes in the form of William Kristol ("This is not time to pull punches. Go for the kill."), Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) ("If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."), and Charles Krauthammer yammering wildly about medical malpractice and tort law. Krauthammer does not substantiate his claims or mention the many victims of malpractice as he gleefully predicts "Obamacare sinking."
All these critics have gold-plated health insurance, of course.
Hillary tried to appease the drug and hospital companies. Obama invites them to the White House, where they presumably pledged to give up nearly $300 billion dollars over ten years without any specifics about how this complex assurance can be policed.
No matter, in return Obama and his aides agreed not to press Congress to authorize the federal government to negotiate drug prices with the drug industry. Don't worry: the taxpayers will pay the bill.
At a meeting on July 7 at the White House between drug company executives, Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), the industry, according to The New York Times, was promised that the final legislative package would not allow the reimportation of cheaper medicines from Canada or other countries even if they meet our drug safety standards. ...
Steve Corrick: 50 Year Olds are Unemployable Without a Public Option | BuzzFlash.org
Steve Corrick: 50 Year Olds are Unemployable Without a Public Option | BuzzFlash.org
BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY | by Steve Corrick
BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY | by Steve Corrick
I have a friend my age (56) with impeccable credentials: She has a Master's Degree; 18 years experience as a successful college administrator; glowing recommendations; she shows up for work every day and is hardly ever sick; she's a team player and works selflessly for whomever she's employed by.
She also has a pre-existing medical condition (as does virtually everyone by the time they reach 50).
Therefore, she is almost completely unemployable by American companies.
Well, not quite. Store clerk jobs, entry level temp jobs, manual data entry jobs, real estate and consulting jobs are all available to her -- as long as they don't offer benefits.
In this experience my friend is like virtually every other 50+ year old. Unless we make a company a couple hundred thousand a year, increased medical premiums make us too expensive to hire.
When a job offers benefits -- like, oh, say, every single job that her many years of successful service qualify her for -- by the end of the training period, employers find that she's just "not quite right for the job," that they were looking for a different kind of experience, and gosh darn it if every person who replaces her isn't about 25 years old with virtually no experience.
However, these 25-year-olds hold one credential my friend will never hold again. They have clean medical records and, at their age, they don't make insurance companies nervous and they don't increase a company's group rates.
I had a similar experience. After 4½ years with a national telecommunications company and the year after I was one of the regional sales leaders, I had a third two-day circulatory problem that landed me in the hospital. When I returned, instead of concern or some assistance in helping me get back on my feet, suddenly everything I'd been taught to do by my company was wrong, and I was suddenly being written up again and again for providing the same exceptional customer service I'd received awards for the previous year -- and, within five months, I was out of a job. ...
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Industries Hurt Most by Soaring Health Costs - Rick Newman (usnews.com)
Industries Hurt Most by Soaring Health Costs - Rick Newman (usnews.com)
One startling outcome of the Rand projections is that every one of the 15 industries they analyzed stands to suffer lost jobs and output if healthcare expenses keep rising. Agriculture and forestry, where just 19 percent of workers have company-paid insurance, would shrink the least. Utilities, which cover 83 percent of their workers, would shrink the most. Here's how 15 major industries would fare if healthcare costs swell to 20 percent of GDP by 2017: ...
It started as a dull throb in the economy, with the pain growing sharper. Now there's finally a diagnosis: Runaway healthcare costs are directly harming businesses and their employees.
...
A new study, however, shows that some industries have become chronically hamstrung by rising healthcare costs, with lower growth and employment than they'd have if costs were lower—or somebody else paid them. Researchers Neeraj Sood, Arkadipta Ghosh, and José J. Escarce of the Rand Corp. analyzed the performance of 38 industries from 1987 to 2005 and found that sectors where a high proportion of workers have company-provided health insurance—such as manufacturing, utilities, communications, education, and finance—showed the lowest growth over the 19-year period. Industries where fewer workers get company-paid health insurance—such as agriculture, hotels, entertainment, retail, and construction—grew more.
... They also compared U.S. industries with their counterparts in Canada—where the government, not business, pays for healthcare—to see if the entire industry was suppressed because of global trends or just the American slice. Their conclusion: Rising healthcare costs in the United States have directly curtailed growth and employment. And the industries with the most generous benefits tend to be penalized for it. "Industries which provide healthcare to a large fraction of workers didn't grow as fast as industries offering health insurance to a small fraction of workers," says Sood.
[See 8 industries that will sit out an economic recovery.]
... Only 59 percent of small firms offer health insurance to their employees, down from 68 percent in 2000. Many business owners say they limit hiring or try to get by with part-timers because the costs of full-time benefits are too high. ...One startling outcome of the Rand projections is that every one of the 15 industries they analyzed stands to suffer lost jobs and output if healthcare expenses keep rising. Agriculture and forestry, where just 19 percent of workers have company-paid insurance, would shrink the least. Utilities, which cover 83 percent of their workers, would shrink the most. Here's how 15 major industries would fare if healthcare costs swell to 20 percent of GDP by 2017: ...
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist - Health Care Realities - NYTimes.com
Op-Ed Columnist - Health Care Realities - NYTimes.com
...
The key thing you need to know about health care is that it depends crucially on insurance. You don’t know when or whether you’ll need treatment — but if you do, treatment can be extremely expensive, well beyond what most people can pay out of pocket. Triple coronary bypasses, not routine doctor’s visits, are where the real money is, so insurance is essential.
Yet private markets for health insurance, left to their own devices, work very badly: insurers deny as many claims as possible, and they also try to avoid covering people who are likely to need care. Horror stories are legion: the insurance company that refused to pay for urgently needed cancer surgery because of questions about the patient’s acne treatment; the healthy young woman denied coverage because she briefly saw a psychologist after breaking up with her boyfriend.
And in their efforts to avoid “medical losses,” the industry term for paying medical bills, insurers spend much of the money taken in through premiums not on medical treatment, but on “underwriting” — screening out people likely to make insurance claims. In the individual insurance market, where people buy insurance directly rather than getting it through their employers, so much money goes into underwriting and other expenses that only around 70 cents of each premium dollar actually goes to care.
Still, most Americans do have health insurance, and are reasonably satisfied with it. How is that possible, when insurance markets work so badly? The answer is government intervention.
Most obviously, the government directly provides insurance via Medicare and other programs. Before Medicare was established, more than 40 percent of elderly Americans lacked any kind of health insurance. Today, Medicare — which is, by the way, one of those “single payer” systems conservatives love to demonize — covers everyone 65 and older. And surveys show that Medicare recipients are much more satisfied with their coverage than Americans with private insurance.
Still, most Americans under 65 do have some form of private insurance. The vast majority, however, don’t buy it directly: they get it through their employers. There’s a big tax advantage to doing it that way, since employer contributions to health care aren’t considered taxable income. But to get that tax advantage employers have to follow a number of rules; roughly speaking, they can’t discriminate based on pre-existing medical conditions or restrict benefits to highly paid employees.
And it’s thanks to these rules that employment-based insurance more or less works, at least in the sense that horror stories are a lot less common than they are in the individual insurance market.
So here’s the bottom line: if you currently have decent health insurance, thank the government. ...
Open Left:: Democrats Preparing Health Care "Plan B"
Open Left:: Democrats Preparing Health Care "Plan B"
...
... There were several problems with the Baucus "bi-partisan" plan:
- Over-representative of Republicans. The mini-committee of six included an even number of Democrats and Republicans (three on each side), even though Democrats control 60% of the seats in both the House and the Senate.
- Negotiating with the wrong Senators. Two of the three Republicans being negotiated with (Enzi and Grassley) weren't even the key swing votes to reach 60 Senators.
- Nothing in it for Republicans. Republicans have no political interest in passing health care legislation. they will be better off if it fails, electorally speaking.
- Republicans weren't negotiating in good faith This is demonstrated by Enzi's demand that, other than the gang of six, all other negotiations in Congress and with the Obama administration must be dropped until they three Republicans in the gang agree to anything. Demanding total power over all negotiations is not actual negotiation. It is just a power grab.
- Unrepresentative of the country. Those six Senators represented states that collectively formed only 3% of the national population.(Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Maine, New Mexico and Iowa)..
At this point, if Democrats don't circumvent Baucus and Republicans, we are doing ourselves, and the country, far more harm than good. Abstract process concepts like bipartisanship won't reduce the percentage of GDP spent on health care, and certainly won't cover any more uninsured Americans.
Raw Story � Blue Dog opposition may be ‘underwritten’ by pharmaceutical giants
Raw Story � Blue Dog opposition may be ‘underwritten’ by pharmaceutical giants
Typical “Blue Dog” Democrats — moderate members of Congress who have been the most ardent among Obama’s own party in thwarting ongoing national healthcare legislation — receive 25 percent more campaign cash from the healthcare and insurance industry than other Democrats, an investigation has found.
In fact, a Blue Dog’s average receipts from the medical industry was just $3,625 lessthan that of the average Republican. Republicans have worked to block plans to enact universal health insurance legislation, saying that it would restrict individual choice and lead to the rationing of medical care.
Blue Dog Democrats say they’re for moderate fiscal policy and aim to reduce the overall cost of a health insurance measure. It appears, however, that their ideological opposition is underwritten by the industry most affected by proposed changes.
Notably, the Blue Dog Political Action Committee has received lavish financial support from pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Novartis; insurers WellPoint and Northwestern Mutual and the trade group American’s Health Insurance Plans.
The average Blue Dog got more than half (54 percent) of total 2009 financial contributions from the medical care industry. Its PAC has more than doubled in size since 2005 — at a time when both national Republican and Democratic campaign committees reported double-digit drops in funding. ...
Doctor Self-Referrals Part of Health-Care Cost Trend - washingtonpost.com
Doctor Self-Referrals Part of Health-Care Cost Trend - washingtonpost.com
By Shankar Vedantam | Washington Post Staff Writer | Friday, July 31, 2009
In August 2005, doctors at Urological Associates, a medical practice on the Iowa-Illinois border, ordered nine CT scans for patients covered by Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance. In September that year, they ordered eight. But then the numbers rose steeply. The urologists ordered 35 scans in October, 41 in November and 55 in December. Within seven months, they were ordering scans at a rate that had climbed more than 700 percent.
The increase came in the months after the urologists bought their own CT scanner, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Instead of referring patients to radiologists, the doctors started conducting their own imaging -- and drawing insurance reimbursements for each of those patients.
[... AN OBVIOUS CONFLICT OF INTEREST ??!! ed.]
Sunday, July 26, 2009
David Sirota: 1-percenters launch attack on health care | tallahassee.com | Tallahassee Democrat
David Sirota: 1-percenters launch attack on health care | tallahassee.com | Tallahassee Democrat
According to government figures, 1-percenters' share of America's total income is the highest it has been since 1929, and their tax rates are the lowest they've faced in two decades. Through bonuses, many 1-percenters will profit from the $23 trillion in bailout largesse the Treasury Department now says could be headed to financial firms.
And, most of them benefit from IRS decisions to reduce millionaire audits and collect zero taxes from the majority of major corporations.
But what really makes the ultra-wealthy so fortunate, what truly separates this moment from a run-of-the-mill Gilded Age, is the unprecedented protection the 1-percenters have bought for themselves on the most pressing issues.
To review: With 22,000 Americans dying each year because they lack health insurance, Congress is considering universal health care legislation financed by a surcharge on income above $280,000 — that is, a levy almost exclusively on 1-percenters. This surtax would graze just 5 percent of small businesses and would recoup only part of the $700 billion the 1-percenters received from the Bush tax cuts.
In fact, it is so minuscule, those making $1 million annually would pay just $9,000 more in taxes every year — or nine-tenths of 1 percent of their 12-month haul.
Nonetheless, the 1-percenters have deployed an army to destroy the initiative before it makes progress.
The foot soldiers are the Land Rover Liberals. ...
Echoing that demand are the Corrupt Cowboys — those like Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who come from the heartland's culturally conservative and economically impoverished locales. ...
That fantastical fairly tale, of course, couldn't exist without the Millionaire Media — the elite journalists and opinionmongers who represent corporate media conglomerates and/or are themselves extremely wealthy. Ignoring all the data about inequality, they legitimize the assertions of the 1-percenters' first two battalions, while actually claiming that America's fat cats are unfairly persecuted.
For example, Washington Post editors deride surtax proponents for allegedly believing "the rich alone can fund government." Likewise, Wall Street Journal correspondent Jonathan Weisman wonders why the surtax "soak(s) the rich" by unduly "lumping all of the problems of the finances of the United States on 1 percent of (its) households?"
And most brazenly, NBC's Meredith Vieira asks President Obama why the surtax is intent on "punishing the rich?"
For his part, Obama has responded with characteristic coolness — and a powerful counter-strike. "No, it's not punishing the rich," he said.
"If I can afford to do a little bit more so that a whole bunch of families out there have a little more security, when I already have security, that's part of being a community." ...
David Sirota: Attack of the One-Percenters: Land Rover Liberals, Corrupt Cowboys & the Millionaire Media
David Sirota: Attack of the One-Percenters: Land Rover Liberals, Corrupt Cowboys & the Millionaire Media
The health care debate has reminded us that there really are three separate but coordinated armies that defend the status quo in Washington -- and will defend that status quo, whether on health care or any other economic issue. In my newspaper column today, I look at who these factions are, and what their motives are. You can read the column here.
In a nutshell, you have the Land Rover Liberals, many coming from the 14 out of 25 wealthiest congressional districts that Democrats now represent. Right now, their opposition to health care and tax reform is being led by Boulder, Colorado Rep. Jared Polis (D).
You also have the Corrupt Cowboys -- those lawmakers from very poor, mostly Southern and Western parts of the country. These people give themselves Americana sounding nicknames like "Blue Dog Democrats" or "Main Street Republicans" so as to pretend their opposition to health care comes from their being down home guys "representin' the folks back home." Of course, these same lawmakers are among the most rapacious corporate fundraisers and lobbyist-connected insiders in Congress. And as I pointed out yesterday, there's no evidence that the districts and states the Corrupt Cowboys represent despise health reform by virtue of the fact that they are culturally conservative bastions. In fact, Nate Silver says there'sexactly the opposite evidence:
There's not really any evidence that health care reform is unpopular in the Blue Dog districts. Although there are exceptions, most of the Blue Dog districts are fairly poor. A Quinnipiac poll released earlier this month suggested that while 53 percent of voters overall think "think it's the government's responsibility to make sure that everyone in the United States has adequate health care," 61 percent of voters making under $50,000 do. Also, while Quinnipaic did not break out the results for moderate and conservative Democrats, which are plentiful in these Districts, one can reasonably infer them. In this poll, 79 percent of liberals agreed with the statement as did 77 percent of Democrats -- not a very big difference. Since almost all liberals are Democrats and about half of all Democrats are liberals, that suggests that support for health care reform among non-liberal Democrats is something like 75 percent. ...
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Study Links Rise in Health Care Costs to Job Losses - BusinessWeek
Study Links Rise in Health Care Costs to Job Losses - BusinessWeek
Posted by: Cathy Arnst on July 23
In a first-of-its-kind study, the non-profit Rand Corp linked the rapid growth in U.S. health care costs to job losses and lower output. The study, published online by the journal Health Services Research, gives weight to President Barack Obama’s dire warnings about the impact of rising costs if Congress does not enact health care reform.
The Rand researchers examined the economic performance of 38 industries from 1987 through 2005, in an attempt to assess the economic impact of “excess” growth in health care costs on U.S. industries. Excess growth is defined as the increase in health care costs that exceeds the overall growth of the nation’s GDP—a yearly occurrence in the U.S. The team compared changes in employment, economic output and the value added to the GDP product for industries that provide health benefits to most workers to those where few workers have job-based health insurance.
After adjusting for other factors, industries that provide insurance had significantly less employment growth than industries where health benefits were not common. Industries with a larger percentage of workers receiving employer-sponsored health insurance also showed lower growth in their contribution to the GDP.
For example, the study estimated that a 10% increase in excess health care costs would reduce employment by about 0.24 percent in the motor vehicles industry, where 80% of workers are covered by employers. The retail industry, however, where only one third of workers are covered, saw only a 0.13% percent drop in employment. Economy-wide, a 10% increase in excess health care costs growth would result in about 120,800 fewer jobs, $28 billion in lost revenues, and $14 billion in lost GDP value. ...
Research Firm Cited by GOP Is Owned by Health Insurer - washingtonpost.com
Research Firm Cited by GOP Is Owned by Health Insurer - washingtonpost.com
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 22, 2009; 6:46 PM
Wednesday, July 22, 2009; 6:46 PM
The political battle over health-care reform is waged largely with numbers, and few number-crunchers have shaped the debate as much as the Lewin Group, a consulting firm whose research has been widely cited by opponents of a public insurance option.
To Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip, it is "the nonpartisan Lewin Group." To Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, it is an "independent research firm." To Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the second-ranking Republican on the pivotal Finance Committee, it is "well known as one of the most nonpartisan groups in the country."
Generally left unsaid amid all the citations is that the Lewin Group is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest insurers.
More specifically, the Lewin Group is part of Ingenix, a UnitedHealth subsidiary that was accused by the New York attorney general and the American Medical Association, a physician's group, of helping insurers shift medical expenses to consumers by distributing skewed data. Ingenix supplied its parent company and other insurers with data that allegedly understated the "usual and customary" doctor fees that insurers use to determine how much they will reimburse consumers for out-of-network care. ...
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Ignoring Watchdog Report, Treasury Gives Three Major Banks Sweetheart Deals
Ignoring Watchdog Report, Treasury Gives Three Major Banks Sweetheart Deals
Four major banks have repurchased warrants from the Treasury Department since a congressional watchdog reported that the backroom deals where the prices were negotiated were ripping off the taxpayer.
In three of the subsequent four transactions, the deals have only gotten worse.
The Congressional Oversight Panel report was based on 11 transactions with small banks and concluded that taxpayers walked away with about 66 percent of what they could have gotten. At a hearing on the warrant repurchase program in the House on Wednesday, Herbert Allison Jr., a senior Treasury official, insisted that the sweet deals the banks got were needed to aid the liquidity of the smaller institutions.
The four transactions since then have all been with major institutions. Three of them returned between 54 and 65 percent of what the taxpayer could have gotten on the open market. ...
Crisis: Nearly Five Million Adults Have Lost Insurance Since Sept. '08
Crisis: Nearly Five Million Adults Have Lost Insurance Since Sept. '08
As President Barack Obama prepares to address the nation tonight, a new survey provides a boost to his claim that the health care system is at a perilous place and in need of reform. Since September of last year, nearly five million adults have lost their insurance.
A survey of more than 29,000 individuals in June by Gallup shows that 16 percent of Americans over the age of 18 are currently without health insurance. That number reflects what the survey's authors describe as a "small but measurable uptick in the percentage of uninsured adults."
Indeed, the average number of uninsured adults recorded by Gallup in 2008 was 14.8 percent. In September 2008, the monthly total recorded was at a yearly low of 13.9 percent.
While the difference in percentage may seem small, the aggregate number of additional uninsured is vast.
According to 2007 U.S. Census data, the population of those 18 years or older stood at 228,196,823. By using that figure, in September of 2008, the number of uninsured adults would have totaled approximately 31.7 million. Today, the figure stands at 36.5 million -- meaning that 4.8 million adults have, in less than a year, lost their insurance coverage.
That said, the percentage of uninsured adults stood at 16.6 percent in May 2009, meaning that the situation has improved slightly but still remains dire. ...
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Why We Must Ration Health Care - NYTimes.com
Why We Must Ration Health Care - NYTimes.com
You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?
...
In the current U.S. debate over health care reform, “rationing” has become a dirty word. ...
...
Health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another. In the United States, most health care is privately financed, and so most rationing is by price: you get what you, or your employer, can afford to insure you for. But our current system of employer-financed health insurance exists only because the federal government encouraged it by making the premiums tax deductible. That is, in effect, a more than $200 billion government subsidy for health care. In the public sector, primarily Medicare, Medicaid and hospital emergency rooms, health care is rationed by long waits, high patient copayment requirements, low payments to doctors that discourage some from serving public patients and limits on payments to hospitals.
...
Rationing health care means getting value for the billions we are spending by setting limits on which treatments should be paid for from the public purse. If we ration we won’t be writing blank checks to pharmaceutical companies for their patented drugs, nor paying for whatever procedures doctors choose to recommend. When public funds subsidize health care or provide it directly, it is crazy not to try to get value for money. The debate over health care reform in the United States should start from the premise that some form of health care rationing is both inescapable and desirable. Then we can ask, What is the best way to do it?
...
In Britain, everyone has health insurance. In the U.S., some 45 million do not, and nor are they entitled to any health care at all, unless they can get themselves to an emergency room. Hospitals are prohibited from turning away anyone who will be endangered by being refused treatment. But even in emergency rooms, people without health insurance may receive less health care than those with insurance. Joseph Doyle, a professor of economics at the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T., studied the records of people in Wisconsin who were injured in severe automobile accidents and had no choice but to go to the hospital. He estimated that those who had no health insurance received 20 percent less care and had a death rate 37 percent higher than those with health insurance. This difference held up even when those without health insurance were compared with those without automobile insurance, and with those on Medicaid — groups with whom they share some characteristics that might affect treatment. The lack of insurance seems to be what caused the greater number of deaths.
...
One final comment. It is common for opponents of health care rationing to point to Canada and Britain as examples of where we might end up if we get “socialized medicine.” On a blog on Fox News earlier this year, the conservative writer John Lott wrote, “Americans should ask Canadians and Brits — people who have long suffered from rationing — how happy they are with central government decisions on eliminating ‘unnecessary’ health care.” There is no particular reason that the United States should copy the British or Canadian forms of universal coverage, rather than one of the different arrangements that have developed in other industrialized nations, some of which may be better. But as it happens, last year the Gallup organization did ask Canadians and Brits, and people in many different countries, if they have confidence in “health care or medical systems” in their country. In Canada, 73 percent answered this question affirmatively. Coincidentally, an identical percentage of Britons gave the same answer. In the United States, despite spending much more, per person, on health care, the figure was only 56 percent.
You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?
...
In the current U.S. debate over health care reform, “rationing” has become a dirty word. ...
...
Health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another. In the United States, most health care is privately financed, and so most rationing is by price: you get what you, or your employer, can afford to insure you for. But our current system of employer-financed health insurance exists only because the federal government encouraged it by making the premiums tax deductible. That is, in effect, a more than $200 billion government subsidy for health care. In the public sector, primarily Medicare, Medicaid and hospital emergency rooms, health care is rationed by long waits, high patient copayment requirements, low payments to doctors that discourage some from serving public patients and limits on payments to hospitals.
...
Rationing health care means getting value for the billions we are spending by setting limits on which treatments should be paid for from the public purse. If we ration we won’t be writing blank checks to pharmaceutical companies for their patented drugs, nor paying for whatever procedures doctors choose to recommend. When public funds subsidize health care or provide it directly, it is crazy not to try to get value for money. The debate over health care reform in the United States should start from the premise that some form of health care rationing is both inescapable and desirable. Then we can ask, What is the best way to do it?
...
In Britain, everyone has health insurance. In the U.S., some 45 million do not, and nor are they entitled to any health care at all, unless they can get themselves to an emergency room. Hospitals are prohibited from turning away anyone who will be endangered by being refused treatment. But even in emergency rooms, people without health insurance may receive less health care than those with insurance. Joseph Doyle, a professor of economics at the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T., studied the records of people in Wisconsin who were injured in severe automobile accidents and had no choice but to go to the hospital. He estimated that those who had no health insurance received 20 percent less care and had a death rate 37 percent higher than those with health insurance. This difference held up even when those without health insurance were compared with those without automobile insurance, and with those on Medicaid — groups with whom they share some characteristics that might affect treatment. The lack of insurance seems to be what caused the greater number of deaths.
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One final comment. It is common for opponents of health care rationing to point to Canada and Britain as examples of where we might end up if we get “socialized medicine.” On a blog on Fox News earlier this year, the conservative writer John Lott wrote, “Americans should ask Canadians and Brits — people who have long suffered from rationing — how happy they are with central government decisions on eliminating ‘unnecessary’ health care.” There is no particular reason that the United States should copy the British or Canadian forms of universal coverage, rather than one of the different arrangements that have developed in other industrialized nations, some of which may be better. But as it happens, last year the Gallup organization did ask Canadians and Brits, and people in many different countries, if they have confidence in “health care or medical systems” in their country. In Canada, 73 percent answered this question affirmatively. Coincidentally, an identical percentage of Britons gave the same answer. In the United States, despite spending much more, per person, on health care, the figure was only 56 percent.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Vets with post-traumatic stress are at high risk of dementia - USATODAY.com
Vets with post-traumatic stress are at high risk of dementia - USATODAY.com | By Mary Brophy Marcus, USA TODAY
Veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have a significantly higher risk of developing dementia compared with veterans who don't have the disorder, a study reports today.
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During the follow-up period from 2001 to 2007, the researchers learned that 53,155 veterans were diagnosed with dementia or cognitive impairment. Veterans who had post-traumatic stress developed dementia at a rate of 10.6% over seven years, while those who didn't have the disorder had a rate of 6.6%, the researchers reported. ...
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During the follow-up period from 2001 to 2007, the researchers learned that 53,155 veterans were diagnosed with dementia or cognitive impairment. Veterans who had post-traumatic stress developed dementia at a rate of 10.6% over seven years, while those who didn't have the disorder had a rate of 6.6%, the researchers reported. ...
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Study: 1 in 3 breast cancer patients overtreated
Excite News - Study: 1 in 3 breast cancer patients overtreated | Jul 9, 11:49 PM (ET) | By MARIA CHENG ...
Overall, Jorgensen and Gotzsche found that one third of the women identified as having breast cancer didn't actually need to be treated.
LONDON (AP) - One in three breast cancer patients identified in public screening programs may be treated unnecessarily, a new study says. Karsten Jorgensen and Peter Gotzsche of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen analyzed breast cancer trends at least seven years before and after government-run screening programs for breast cancer started in parts of Australia, Britain, Canada, Norway and Sweden.
Once screening programs began, more cases of breast cancer were inevitably picked up, the study showed. If a screening program is working, there should also be a drop in the number of advanced cancer cases detected in older women, since their cancers should theoretically have been caught earlier when they were screened.
However, Jorgensen and Gotzsche found the national breast cancer screening systems, which usually test women aged between 50 and 69, simply reported thousands more cases than previously identified.
Some cancers never cause symptoms or death, and can grow too slowly to ever affect patients. As it is impossible to distinguish between those and deadly cancers, any identified cancer is treated. But the treatments can have harmful side-effects and be psychologically scarring.
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Experts said overtreatment occurs wherever there is widespread cancer screening, including the U.S. Britain's national health system recently ditched its pamphlet inviting women to get screened for breast cancer, after critics complained it did not explain the overtreatment problem. Laura Bell of Cancer Research UK said Britain's breast cancer screening program was partly responsible for the country's reduced breast cancer cases. "We still urge women to go for screening when invited," she said, though she acknowledged it was crucial for women to be informed of the potential benefits and harms of screening.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
The Work-Up - Insured but Unprotected, and Driven Bankrupt by Health Crises - Series - NYTimes.com
The Work-Up - Insured but Unprotected, and Driven Bankrupt by Health Crises - Series - NYTimes.com | By REED ABELSON | Published: June 30, 2009
Health insurance is supposed to offer protection — both medically and financially. But as it turns out, an estimated three-quarters of people who are pushed into personal bankruptcy by medical problems actually had insurance when they got sick or were injured.
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Health insurance is supposed to offer protection — both medically and financially. But as it turns out, an estimated three-quarters of people who are pushed into personal bankruptcy by medical problems actually had insurance when they got sick or were injured.
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“Underinsurance is the great hidden risk of the American health care system,” said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor who has analyzed medical bankruptcies. “People do not realize they are one diagnosis away from financial collapse.”
Last week, a former Cigna executive warned at a Senate hearing on health insurance that lawmakers should be careful about the role they gave private insurers in any new system, saying the companies were too prone to “confuse their customers and dump the sick.”
“The number of uninsured people has increased as more have fallen victim to deceptive marketing practices and bought what essentially is fake insurance,” Wendell Potter, the former Cigna executive, testified. ......
But advocates for broad changes to the health care system say Congress can succeed only by making sure health reform goes beyond giving every American a buyer-beware insurance card. One such person is Len Nichols, a health economist for the New America Foundation.
“Conceptually,” he said, “insurance means normal people should not go bankrupt from serious medical conditions.” ...Healthcare Horror: Care Denied Over $7 Debt for Insured Patient | CommonDreams.org
Healthcare Horror: Care Denied Over $7 Debt for Insured Patient | CommonDreams.org
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On Friday, my husband was denied a blood test because a computer record from some distant time past and some other state showed he had a $7 balance with LabCorp. I am not making this up.
My husband had a heart attack this week. He woke up one morning sweating profusely and with a heart rate dropping. I watched his color turn first ruddy then ashen, and then he felt as though he was going to pass out. He would not allow me to call 911 as he slowly began to feel sick to his stomach and he believed his symptoms were digestive rather than cardiac.
We have learned over the years to wait to seek care - it is expensive to do otherwise and dooms us to the endless loop of bills and collection notices and more damage to our already badly bruised credit rating. So we always wait to seek care until there seems to be no other option. We are not alone. Millions of Americans do the same. We do not want to use the emergency rooms or doctors' offices. We don't want anything to do with the whole mess.
We moved to Maryland in March, but have fought Humana insurance and Medicare transfer since then to even make sure my husband can get any care at all. And, by God, we were paying the premiums the whole time the insurance folks hemmed and hawed and stalled. It took three months to get that all straightened out, during which time they repeated over and over, "we're not denying treatment," and technically I suppose they weren't as they want us all just to get out our checkbooks and debit cards and pay up. And in the meantime, my husband waited for any doctors' appointment and got meds by calling back to Chicago to get prescriptions refilled. ...
Gavin Newsom: A Model for Universal Health Care Coverage
Gavin Newsom: A Model for Universal Health Care Coverage
President Obama is right -- the only way we are going to have real health care reform in the United States is by providing a public plan.
But right now, special interests in Washington, D.C. are doing everything they can to stop public health care from materializing. They say it is too expensive, will limit choice and diminish the quality of care.
This is simply not true and we need to fight back.
Americans struggle to pay for healthcare: study | Health | Reuters
Americans struggle to pay for healthcare: study | Health | Reuters | Mon Jun 22, 2009 12:40am EDT | By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans are struggling to pay for healthcare in the ongoing economic recession, with a quarter saying they have had trouble in the past 12 months, according to a survey released on Monday.
Baby boomers -- the generation born between 1946 and 1964 -- had the most trouble and were the most likely to put off medical treatments or services, said researchers at Center for Healthcare Improvement, part of the Healthcare business of Thomson Reuters.
The study, available here, found that 17.4 percent of households reported postponing or delaying healthcare over the past year. ///
Americans pay more per capita for healthcare than people in any other country, yet have high rates of infant mortality, diabetes, untreated heart disease and other conditions. Americans are often dissatisfied with their access to care.
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"The percentage of households that had difficulty in paying for care in the last year was statistically unchanged between March and April (about 25 percent)."
They found 40 percent of all households planned to postpone care in the coming three months ...Costs are keeping patients from care - The Boston Globe
Costs are keeping patients from care - The Boston Globe | By Kay Lazar Globe Staff / June 21, 2009
People with robust health insurance are putting off doctors’ appointments and skimping on prescriptions because they can’t afford the increasing costs of copayments and deductibles, according to managers of patient-assistance hot lines in Massachusetts.
People with robust health insurance are putting off doctors’ appointments and skimping on prescriptions because they can’t afford the increasing costs of copayments and deductibles, according to managers of patient-assistance hot lines in Massachusetts.
Not that long ago, such dilemmas were typically faced by lower-income families, often on publicly subsidized insurance. But with many consumers struggling to pay rising healthcare costs amid today’s shrinking family budgets, these tough choices are becoming commonplace - even among families with employer-provided health insurance, consumer advocates say.
“Our medical debt resolution program is hearing repeatedly that copayments are a problem,’’ said Mark Rukavina, executive director of the Boston-based Access Project, a nonprofit organization that helps consumers with healthcare issues.
“Previously it was the uninsured,’’ Rukavina said. “Now we are seeing people with insurance, but they are struggling to pay their bills.’’
The problem appears particularly acute for people with chronic illnesses such as diabetes, asthma, and cancer. They make frequent visits to doctors and often take multiple medications. ...
In Poll, Wide Support for Government-Run Health - NYTimes.com
In Poll, Wide Support for Government-Run Health - NYTimes.com
Americans overwhelmingly support substantial changes to the health care system and are strongly behind one of the most contentious proposals Congress is considering, a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
The poll found that most Americans would be willing to pay higher taxes so everyone could have health insurance and that they said the government could do a better job of holding down health-care costs than the private sector.
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Across a number of questions, the poll detected substantial support for a greater government role in health care, a position generally identified with the Democratic Party. When asked which party was more likely to improve health care, only 18 percent of respondents said the Republicans, compared with 57 percent who picked the Democrats. Even one of four Republicans said the Democrats would do better.
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The poll found that most Americans would be willing to pay higher taxes so everyone could have health insurance and that they said the government could do a better job of holding down health-care costs than the private sector.
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Across a number of questions, the poll detected substantial support for a greater government role in health care, a position generally identified with the Democratic Party. When asked which party was more likely to improve health care, only 18 percent of respondents said the Republicans, compared with 57 percent who picked the Democrats. Even one of four Republicans said the Democrats would do better.
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But they clearly indicate growing confidence in the government’s ability to manage health care. Half of those questioned said they thought government would be better at providing medical coverage than private insurers, up from 30 percent in polls conducted in 2007. Nearly 60 percent said Washington would have more success in holding down costs, up from 47 percent.
Sixty-four percent said they thought the federal government should guarantee coverage, a figure that has stayed steady all decade. Nearly 6 in 10 said they would be willing to pay higher taxes to make sure that all were insured, with 4 in 10 willing to pay as much as $500 more a year.
And a plurality, 48 percent, said they supported a requirement that all Americans have health insurance so long as public subsidies were offered to those who could not afford it. Thirty-eight percent said they were opposed. ...
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