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Tag: Robert Laszewski

A Health Insurance Premium Tax Would be a Chicken Tax

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By ROBERT LASZEWSKI

The Congress has looked at taxing about everyone and everything to pay for half the cost of a health care bill.

They’ve considered sugary soft drinks, beer, “millionaires,” and “gold plated” health benefits to name a few. Every time they come up with one it gets shot down by the interests it would offend.First, as I have asked on this blog before, why do we need to use at least $500 billion in new taxes to pay for half the cost of a health care entitlement expansion bill? We will spend somewhere between $35 trillion and $40 trillion on health care in this country over the next ten years. Many experts contend there is as much as 30% waste in what we spend.Advocates of a health care bill say we need it to reduce the cost of health care in this country that will otherwise bankrupt us if we don’t fix it.

With as much as $10 trillion to $12 trillion in waste, and cost containment as the stated goal, why do we need to raise people’s taxes $500 billion to pay for an expansion of coverage?But since it is clear that the Congress and the White House have all but given up on real health care reform that would really “bend the curve” they are adamant they are going to raise taxes to pay for at least half the cost.

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Fantasy League Baseball — Beltway Series Edition

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By MICHAEL MILLENSON

Millenson_122k_3Bob Laszewski’s Health Care Affordability Model has the same connection to the reality of the current  battle over health care reform as a Fantasy Baseball League does to the actual outcome of a major league baseball game; i.e., none.

 Actually, while those who play Fantasy Baseball – might we call them “baseball wonks”? – are affected by what happens in the real world to the players they have selected, they have no illusions of reciprocity. Laszewski is a brilliant analyst whose examination of the various political proposals for health-care reform have become a “must-read.” But in making his own proposal, Laszewski, a strategy consultant based in Washington, has managed to completely ignore the fact that reform is an intensely political process.

 “The Health Care Affordability Model…could be attached to virtually any health care reform plan now on the table,” he writes.

 No, it couldn’t. Just like managing a Fantasy Baseball team has no connection to managing real major league players. Given Laszewski’s timing, his proposal is somewhere between almost irrelevant and completely so. Which is not to say his ideas are wrong.

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Why Congress Should Consider Bob Laszewski’s Health Care Affordability Model

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By BRIAN KLEPPER

ALP_H_BK_0010 Over the last few months, I have become increasingly disheartened over the prospects for meaningful health care reform.

First, the process is terribly conflicted, and it shows. In the first quarter of 2009, the Center for Responsive Politics reported that the health care industry contributed $128 million to Congress. Now that the tide has turned, this has gone mostly to Democrats who, as it turns out, are just as receptive as their Republican predecessors.

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The Affordability Model

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By ROBERT LASZEWSKI

Capital_2Most health care experts agree the reason our system is so
unaffordable is because of all of the waste  and unnecessary care—up to
30% of what we spend.I will suggest that it will take the
genius of individual creativity to separate the 70% of this health care
system that is the best in the world from the 30% that is waste.So
far, the Congress has focused more on entitlement expansion then
fundamentally reforming the system and tackling the real
problem—getting all the excess costs out. The result so far is
expensive health care proposals and no real reform.How can we actually make the health care system affordable as we expand coverage? I will suggest a three-pronged attack:

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Unions May Get a Pass on Health Care Benefits Tax

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By ROBERT LAWSZEWSKI

6a00d8341c909d53ef01157023e340970b-pi There is a major bipartisan effort going on in the Senate Finance Committee to reform the health care system.Reportedly, one of the elements of that effort may be a tax on "gold plated" health insurance benefits
above a certain threshold–$17,000 for family coverage is one option
being discussed. The new tax could raise close to $300 billion over ten
years to help pay for a health care bill.

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The Public Plan–Mutual Assured Destruction?

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By ROBERT LASZEWSKI

6a00d8341c909d53ef01157023e340970b-piI typically don’t talk about my travels on this blog but something happened this week that bears reporting.

Whether
the federal government should or should not offer a public health plan
alternative to compete with private insurers in the under-age-65 market
is a hot topic in Washington and in the market.

I recently posted on it in detail: The Public Plan Option for the Under-Age-65 Market—The Biggest Health Care Controversy on the HillThis
past week I met separately with two health insurance CEOs—both
well-known leaders in the business and both from highly regarded
not-for-profit plans.

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The Biggest Health Care Controversy on the Hill

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By ROBERT LASZEWSKI

Capital

Since when was a two-tiered health insurance system a Democratic policy goal?

Among Democrats in the Congress and at the White House there is a great deal of interest in creating a government-run health plan in the under-age-65 market. Such a plan would compete with the existing private health insurance market in a head-to-head showdown between private and public health insurance.

Such a plan was part of the President Obama's campaign health proposal—albeit limited to the small employer and individual market. We are told the President’s greatest interest here is in “keeping the private health insurance market honest.” That is, creating competition in order that private insurers do a better job of controlling costs.

While
most observers assume that this would mean paying providers at
Medicare—or even Medicaid—rates the administration says not necessarily.

The respected and non-partisan Lewin Group recently issued a report evaluating the idea, “The Cost and Coverage Impacts of a Public Plan: Alternative Design Options.”
It looks to me to be a credible job. They made the assumption providers
would be paid at Medicare rates—a logical conclusion if the objective
is lowering costs.

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Sustainable Healthcare Reform

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By ROBERT LASZEWSKI

Senator Harry Reid speaking at a press conference announcing the opening an art exhibit benefiting the State Children's Health Insurance Program
Last week Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was quoted as raising the possibility
we could take the $600 billion in new revenue projected from a
"cap-and-trade" plan to cut green house-gas emissions and use some or
all of it to help pay the estimated $1.5 trillion cost for
comprehensive health care reform.

Energy and climate change issues aside that would be a bad idea–a really bad idea.

The biggest health care challenge we face in America is the cost of health care. To really reform the system we have to bring its costs under control. The only way we can achieve sustainable health care reform
is to pay for most of the cost of any reform plan out of the savings we
achieve fixing the system and its perverse incentives to spend more
without regard to what we receive.

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The Stimulus Pregame

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By ROBERT LASZEWSKI

"Drug Makers Fight Stimulus Provision"
Capital

"Lobbying War Ensues Over Digital Data"

The first was a recent and the second headline comes from the Washington Post. Both refer to what were supposed to be two already agreed on health
care reform ideas–comparative research about which treatments work
best and the creation of a nationwide system of medical records.

The lesson here is that in health care nothing is easy, simple, or widely agreed to.

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