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An Analysis of Senator John McCain’s Health Care Reform Plan By Robert Laszewski

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RobertlaszewskiRobert Laszweski has been a fixture in Washington health policy circles for the better part of three decades. He currently serves as the president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates of Alexandria, Virginia. Before forming HPSA in 1992, Robert served as the COO, Group Markets, for the Liberty Mutual Insurance Company. You can read more of his thoughtful analysis of healthcare industry trends at The Health Policy and Marketplace Blog.

John McCain’s campaign reinvigorated, I am reposting my earlier analysis of his health reform plan.

McCain very rightly points to health care costs as the biggest issue, "We are approaching a ‘perfect storm’ of problems that if not addressed by the next president will cause our health care system to implode."

Therefore, his focus  is on the health care costs that make health insurance so expensive that individuals can’t afford it for themselves, employers can’t afford to provide it to their employees, and government can’t afford a wider safety net for the poor. He also reminds us that costs can’t be improved without dealing with quality in tandem. so expensive that many

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What healthcare ideas did Edwards and Giuliani leave behind?

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StoltzCraig Stoltz is a web consultant working in the health 2.0 space. He has previously served as health editor for the Washington Post and editorial director of Revolution Health. He blogs at Web 2.0 … Oh really?

Whenever candidates drop out of a race, the first question is, Who’s going to get the stuff?

News reports said that both Clinton’s and Obama’s people immediately starting picking John Edwards’ pockets–for delegates, supporters, fundraisers, gold teeth, etc.–while the former candidate’s body was
still warm.

Rudy Giuliani gave it all to McCain immediately. But it’s hard to imagine that there hadn’t been
negotiations over the former mayor’s little stash of blood and treasure before the announcement was made.

But what I want to know is a bit more focused, if wonky: What happens to Edwards’ and Giuliani’s healthcare ideas now that they’re gone?    

First, let’s see if they had any.

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POLICY: The Best-Kept Secret of Campaign ’08: A Bipartisan Solution to Health Reform by Wendy Everett

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Wendy Everett is president of the New England Healthcare Institute. She thinks that the candidates for President from both parties agree on the important stuff for health care–dealing with chronic care prevention. I can’t say that I’m totally in agreement with her political analysis, but her ideas about chronic care and prevention for the basis of bipartisan action are interesting (and as Wendy used to be my boss at IFTF I thought that it would be polite of me to let her have shot on THCB!)

The presidential candidates are doing a disservice to the voters and to themselves when they emphasize their differences over how to fix the broken health care system. They can argue all they want about the likes of universal coverage, tax incentives and employer mandates, but that cacophony obscures the fact that the candidates, regardless off party, actually share a major position on health reform. Though little-noticed to date, there is a breakthrough bipartisan consensus that the key to health reform is to redirect the system to prevention and management of chronic illnesses.

This unanimity is huge. Chronic diseases – including conditions such as diabetes, asthma and hypertension – are a major threat to both our health and our economy. More than half of all Americans already suffer from one or more chronic ailments, and the rate is rising as the population ages.And the price tag is staggering. Some 80 percent of the more than $2 trillion in annual health expenditures already goes to taking care of patients with chronic diseases. A recent Milken Institute study found that in 2003, chronic care cost the country $277 billion for treatment and another $1 trillion in lost worker productivity. If nothing is done to halt the rise of chronic illness, the Milken Institute projects that treatment and lost economic output will rise to $4.2 trillion by 2023.

And yet much of this cost is completely avoidable.

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PODCAST/TECH: Interview with Todd Cozzens, CEO of Picis

Todd Cozzens is the CEO of Massachusetts-based Picis, a company that’s made a lot of headway in selling clinical automation software to operating rooms, emergency departments and ICUs in American hospitals and abroad. Last week I got the chance to talk to him about what the company does, the state of the health care IT business (he’s not too worried about the big guys!), whether public money should buy IT for health care, and who was going to win the Superbowl. To find out everything — including whether Todd’s forecast matched the actual score — listen to the interview.

Rising Asthma Rate Leaves Cities Short of Breath, by Dr. David R. Donnersberger, Jr

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Asthma, a respiratory condition that develops when air passages in the lungs are inflamed and airways narrow, kills some 5,000 people in the United States annually. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 255,000 people died of asthma world-wide in 2005. Of these, 80 percent occurred in low and lower-middle income countries.

Currently, experts are struggling to understand why the number of asthma sufferers is rising by an average of 50 percent every decade worldwide. In the United States alone, according to the WHO, the number of asthmatics has leapt by over 60 percent since the early 1980s.

These numbers prove that asthma is an increasingly social disease. Neutral environmental factors, cold weather and pollen, for example — are responsible for some 60 percent of asthma attacks. However, an alarmingly disproportionate number of asthma-related deaths come from children of low-income, inner-city households.

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Bill would make it illegal to feed the obese by Eric Novack

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NovackReally.

From USA Today:

Three legislators want to make it illegal for restaurants to serve obese customers in Mississippi.

House Bill No. 282, which was introduced this month, says:

Any food establishment to which this section applies shall not be allowed to serve food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health after consultation with the Mississippi Council on Obesity Prevention and Management established under Section 41-101-1 or its successor. The State Department of Health shall prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese, and shall provide those materials to all food establishments to which this section applies. A food establishment shall be entitled to rely on the criteria for obesity in those written materials when determining whether or not it is allowed to serve food to any person.

The proposal would allow health inspectors to yank the permit from any restaurant that "repeatedly" feeds extremely overweight customers.

While it has little support today…

And note that it has both Republican and Democrats as sponsors… 

‘Health Care That’s Always There’. Really? by Eric Novack

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We haven’t heard from our favorite orthopedic surgeon in a while but Eric Novack is back to change the world…or at least express his annoyance at some people in it! I suspect that we’ll be hearing lots of arguments like this in years to come!

The initiative that SEIU aims to get on the ballot this November to amend the Michigan Constitution:

Michigan Health Care Security Ballot Campaign – ‘Health Care That’s Always There’

The State Legislature shall pass laws to make sure that every Michigan resident has affordable and comprehensive health care coverage through a fair and cost-effective financing system. The Legislature is required to pass a plan that, through public or private measures, controls health care costs and provides for medically necessary preventive, primary, acute and chronic health care needs. 

Will it pass? Should it pass?  Who wins?  Who loses?

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POLICY/PHARMA: DEA’s insane persecution of pain patients continues

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Just in case you needed to be reminded that the DEA is a refuge of evil scumbags and needs to be abolished, here’s another exhibit (from the good people at DRCNet):

Federal agents arrested Dr. Stephen Schneider, operator of the Schneider Medical Clinic, and his wife and business manager, Linda, on a 34-count indictment charging them with operating a "pill mill" at their clinic. The indictment charges that Schneider and his assistants "unlawfully" wrote prescriptions for narcotic pain relievers, that at least 56 of Schneiders’ patients died of drug overdoses between 2002 and 2007, and that Schneider and his assistants prescribed pain relievers "outside the course of usual medical practice and not for legitimate medical purpose."

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BLOGS: Vote rigging? No, not in the primaries…

Accusations of malfeasance, fraud, vote-rigging and corruption — about an awards show which doesn’t even have an interesting category (still no "Worst health care blog" category despite my pleas to be in it)! and which is sponsored by a blog which itself caused one of the more interesting blogging scandals of 2007.

I love it. Surely Entertainment Tonight is around the corner, what with the writers strike and all….

(None of this detracts from the fact that the big winner Paul Levy has a great blog which we are happy to feature here on THCB)

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