Tag: Uncategorized

Single-payer folks still determined

Oct 7, 2008• 1

By Shuka Kalantari

John McCain would never endorse it, and Barack Obama’s plan carefully steered away from it, but the proponents of a single-payer national health care plan are as determined, and hopeful, as ever to bring it the U.S. Conyers

Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, who introduced HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act, to Congress in 2003, isn’t giving up. Under his plan, a single agency would organize health financing — cutting out the insurance companies as the middle men — but health care delivery itself would be mostly private.

On Sept. 19, single-payer advocates gathered at the 1199/SEIU building in midtown Manhattan to honor Conyers as he received a lifetime achievement award from members of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). He concluded his speech with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."

Conyers spoke to me that evening about how he thinks a national health care plan is inevitable – because every other plan has led the country into dead ends. Click here to listen to the interview.

The single-payer advocates gathered that evening were also celebrating the release of PNHP’s new book, "10 Excellent Reasons for National Health Care."

I spoke with the editors, Mary E. O’Brien, M.D., and Martha Livingston, PHD, about the book and their views on McCain and Obama’s health care plans. Click here to listen to Dr. O’Brien and Dr. Livingston.

Around the Web in 60 Seconds (Or Less)

Oct 7, 2008

iHealthBeat: The
Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel is seeking comments
on six draft interoperability specifications designed to support the
electronic exchange of health information, Health Data Management reports.

Academic medicine representatives told the Medicare Payment Advisory
Commission that medical education training needs to move into the 21st
century by focusing on IT adoption, and other clinical outcomes and quality measures, Modern Healthcare reports.

California fails to reprimand and revoke licenses of registered nurses with criminal pasts, including multiple felony convictions, ProPublica reports.

A McCain aide has said the presidential candidate would be for his health plan by cutting back the Medicare and Medicaid programs, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Health 2.0 NorthEast mixer TONIGHT in Cambridge, MA

Oct 7, 2008

The Health 2.0 gang in the Boston area (they call themselves “North-east,” but that’s Yankee imperialism) is having a stellar networking evening on October 7 at the Marriott in Cambridge, MA. Steve Wardell, Peter Mueller, Vince Caprio & Mark Modzelewski have put together a great evening.The line up includes:Ben Heywood, Co-Founder, PatientsLikeMeAaron Day, Chairman & CEO, Tangerine WellnessStan Nowak, President, SilverlinkMatthew Jarman, VP, Corporate Development, American WellJack Barrette, Founder and CEO of WegoHealthRobert Reid, President of Endovascular ForumModerator: Wade Roush, Chief Correspondent for XconomyBut of course the real action will be the networking and discussions before and after the event. Indu & I were at the first one back in January, and it was just an excellent evening.If you’re anywhere close to Boston you should make a point of being there. For more details and to get tickets (they’re cheap and include an open bar!) go to http://www.healthforum2.com/And if you need help setting up your own local Health 2.0 “chapter”, we in the “mother ship” are happy to help in any way we can.And of course don’t forget that this is all a little teaser for the main event in San Francisco, October 22-23 http://www.health2con.com

Obama’s new ad is clever, but why aren’t they taking the open shot?

Oct 6, 2008• 10

By Matthew Holt

One of the few virtues of getting on a plane and leaving California is that you get to see Presidential political ads on actual TV. Obama has a new ad about health care which explicitly attacks “government run health care” on the left of an arrow and then attacks unregulated insurance companies on the right end. Geddit? Yup it’s 1996 Bill Clinton all over again. The man is a triangulator. Or an arrownator…

(Apologies for the poor quality but it’s the only version I can find online).

Obama’s plan is in the middle of the arrow of course. It’s a little bizarre that he attacks government-run health care — given that his plan involves both extending FEBHP and creating a separate version of Medicare/Medicaid that everyone can buy into. And of course Medicare is the most popular health insurance plan in the nation by a long way. I think the government still runs it.

But I guess that’s just politics. And of course nothing as major as what he’s talking about is going to happen once he gets elected anyway, (as I’ve been saying for more than a year).

But talking about politics, what I cannot get over is how the Obama team has not bothered to connect the McCain plan’s designs to push more people into the individual insurance market to specific actions of health insurers in California. There are still smart intelligent people running major health care lobbying organizations in DC (one of who I had dinner with last week in my professional life) who still have not heard about the retroactive policy cancellations in California despite the fact that all of the big insurers were doing it. And yet McCain’s plan is designed to explicitly put people into a situation where they’re at the mercy of those insurers!

This isn’t hard to explain. Why isn’t the Obama campaign featuring it? Especially as he’s now talking about health care. They are not taking the open shot (or as the English say, they’re missing an open goal!)

Obama vs. McCain on health care

Oct 6, 2008• 10

By Donald Johnson

Sen. Barack Obama’s attack on health insurance reforms proposed by Sen. John McCain shows that Obama’s not for real change in health insurance.

Obama wants more government-sponsored health insurance schemes, like
the VA health care system, Medicare and the unaffordable Medicaid scheme
that’s bankrupting the states and the Feds.

Obama wants to keep employers involved in the insurance markets,
even though they limit consumer choice, increase costs for consumers
and make their workers buy expensive policies they don’t want nor need.

Please, can we now re-structure health care, too?

Oct 5, 2008• 16

By David Kibbe

Kibbe I respectfully disagree with my friends and colleagues who believe that the recent financial crises will make it more difficult to reform health care. In fact, now that we’re socializing large chunks of the financial system, we may find it a lot easier to socialize health service delivery assets, too. You’ll know a federal health system bailout is around the corner when you hear someone say, "The hospital is simply too large to allow it to fail."

Let me explain.

In the past three weeks we’ve all become regulators. Amazing. Almost overnight the federal government, we the taxpayers, have taken ownership of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, financial organizations that own about half of the mortgage debt in this country. We’ve nationalized AIG, one of the world’s largest insurance companies, and we are now owners of a large share of several of the country’s biggest commercial and financial banking institutions, with much more government transfers anticipated in the coming weeks and months.

Half-baked Alaska: Palin short on health care explanations in debate

Oct 3, 2008• 12

By Merrill Goozner

Merrill Goozner has been writing about economics and health care for many years. The former
chief economics correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, Merrill writes the blog Gooznews.com, where this post first appeared.

Palin

It must be disconcerting to health care economists to see one of their pet peeves about the inequities of the employer-based insurance system so poorly used by the Republicans, who would repeal it. I’m referring, of course, to the tax deductibility of health insurance premiums.

Gov. Sarah Palin repeated Sen. John McCain’s promise to give every American household a $5,000 check to buy health insurance. They would raise the money to fund the program by repealing the deductibility of employer-based coverage. I can’t recall if she gave one of her trademark winks when she said it, but she certainly gave an enthusiastic nod. Health care will become just like Alaska! The government will be sending you money every year so you can go out and buy your own insurance.

There is an argument that can be made in favor of repealing tax deductibility. Like the home mortgage deduction, the higher your tax bracket, the more valuable the tax deduction. So if your employer buys you a gold-plated health care plan that costs $15,000 and you’re in the highest tax bracket (around 30 percent), you get the equivalent of a $4,500 tax break from the government. But if your employer buys you a plan that only covers hospitalization and serious illnesses for $7,000 a year and you’re in the 10 percent income tax bracket, the tax deduction is only worth $700. Repealing all tax deductibility and distributing the revenue equally to buy individual insurance policies seems simpler and more equitable — both appealing traits.

Hospitals going green

Oct 3, 2008• 4

By Sarah Arnquist Green

Hospitals generate 6,600 tons of waste per day, and about 80 percent of that is nonhazardous waste. There are lots of opportunities to get greener, and some hospitals really are making concerted efforts to do so.

While they might gain some positive PR from it, there is definitely a financial motivation to cutting energy costs and reducing waste.

Kaiser Permanente is promoting its new facility in Modesto, Calif. as one of the "greenest" hospitals in the country. The hospital saved $500,000 by using green building materials, according to a press release. It also has solar panels, asphalt parking that filters water, and supplies its cafeteria with locally grown produce.

The Green Guide published by National Geographic ranked the top 10 green U.S. hospitals in 2006, and indicated the trend was growing. Then this August, Hospitals & Health Networks Magazine’s cover story about green hospitals.

Practice Green Health has loads of good information and practical steps to make your hospital or health care facility more sustainable and efficient.

Health Care and the Broader Economic Crisis

Oct 2, 2008• 9

By Brian Klepper

Over at HealthLeaders, Dr. Richard Reece and I have an article, Will Primary Care Be Re-Empowered By An Ailing Economy?, arguing that the turmoil in the larger US economy – and particularly the tightening of credit – is going to significantly enhance the pressures on purchasers and industry players, and grease the wheels of meaningful change throughout health care.

Consider, for example, the fact that most hospitals and health systems
have remained in the black only as a result of investment income. Many
lose money on operations. How will health systems remain afloat if the
returns on their investments are diminished?

Then there was the Wall Street Journal story
a couple weeks ago in which Vanessa Fuhrmans described significant
drops in office visits, filled prescriptions, elective surgeries as
consumers cope with the economic downturn. That was before the big
crashes that began a few weeks ago.

Around the Web in 60 Seconds (Or Less)

Oct 2, 2008• 2

A computer and one expert are as effective at spotting breast cancer as the two experts who usually used to read mammograms in the UK, according to a New England Journal of Medicine study. The BBC reports that these results may help the NHS expand mammagraphy to more women without placing greater demand on the existing workforce.

Wal-Mart is the first of eight Dossia members to offer its employees a personal health record.

California will become the first state to require restaurants to post calorie information on menus. Will consumers think twice before ordering that 2,000-calorie fettuccine alfredo?

A judge ordered Medtronic and Boston Scientific to pay Johnson & Johnson $1.2 billion in a lawsuit over patent infringement on a stent. It’s quite the time to have to deal with the 10-year-old lawsuit.