News In Healthcare

Well at least that is Pres­i­dent Bush’s way of deal­ing with the “frus­tra­tions” of the health care cri­sis.  In a round­table dis­cus­sion with small busi­ness own­ers ear­lier this week, Pres­i­dent Bush con­tin­ued to try to sell peo­ple on the idea that through tax incen­tives, peo­ple will be able to get afford­able health care cov­er­age.  He fur­ther stated that small busi­ness own­ers should be able to cross state lines to pool risk with other employ­ers in other states in order to afford bet­ter insur­ance.  Noth­ing really new or excit­ing came out of his dis­cus­sion.  We are still wait­ing on a solution.

Lately, it seems we are hear­ing more and more about global warm­ing, organic foods, and car­ing for the envi­ron­ment.  Was it Earth Day last month that spawned all of this talk and activ­ity?  No.  It was fueld by Al Gore’s Oscar win­ning movie — An Incon­ve­nient Truth, hailed by the New York Times as a “nec­es­sary film.”  Well, we are about to get another nec­es­sary film, Sicko, to address the health­care cri­sis in Amer­ica.  Not yet released in the U.S., Sicko pre­miered at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val recently and received very favor­able reviews.  The Insur­ance Jour­nal reports that the film by Michael Moore had more than 2,000 peo­ple applaud­ing in Cannes.   While it is expected that the film will not be pop­u­lar with con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cians in Wash­ing­ton, advo­cates are already try­ing to cap­i­tal­ize on the doc­u­men­tary.  A report in the San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle details var­i­ous health care advo­cates from around the nation and what they expect the movie will do for the health­care issue.  As stated by Anthony Wright, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Health Access Cal­i­for­nia, “Peo­ple know there’s a prob­lem in the health care sys­tem, but most peo­ple don’t talk about it over din­ner.  This (film) will engen­der those dis­cus­sions around the coun­try.”  I am look­ing for­ward to it. 

Do you want to get up-to-speed on where the pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates stand in terms of fix­ing the health­care cri­sis in the U.S.?  You can view web­casts of both the repub­li­can and demo­c­ra­tic can­di­dates dis­cussing their views on healthcare.

While it may be effec­tive in adver­tis­ing, it isn’t as effec­tive with Hillary Clin­ton.  In a speech ear­lier this week, Sen­a­tor Clin­ton dis­cussed her idea for uni­ver­sal health­care.  While we have heard this idea uttered by prac­ti­cally all of the pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates, what makes this pre­sen­ta­tion unique is Sen­a­tor Clinton’s idea of estab­lish­ing a “Best Prac­tices Insti­tute.”  As explained by the New York Times, the group, funded by both pri­vate and pub­lic monies, would exam­ine new tech­nolo­gies and new drugs to deter­mine whether patients really are bet­ter off because of them or whether big busi­ness is more prof­itable because of them.    Accord­ing to Sen­a­tor Clin­ton, high pro­file drugs are not nec­es­sar­ily more effec­tive than the old stand-by drugs just because they are pro­moted with adver­tise­ments show­ing “peo­ple run­ning through fields of wild­flow­ers.”  Sen­a­tor Clinton’s idea of a “Best Prac­tices Insti­tute” is intrigu­ing to mem­bers of the health insur­ance industry. 

In a recent report put out by Blue Cross Blue Shield, Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date John Edwards’ pol­icy pro­pos­als were put under scrutiny.   The pro­pos­als for uni­ver­sal health care, energy and putting an end to poverty in Amer­ica would cost more than $125 bil­lion per year, accord­ing to an Emory Uni­ver­sity researcher.    The report dis­cusses how Edwards plans on fund­ing these initiatives.

Sen­a­tor Hillary Clin­ton spoke with a group of moth­ers in New Hamp­shire (video of speach) dur­ing her cam­paign visit there recently.  Her mes­sage was that at a min­i­mum, we need to pro­vide health insur­ance cov­er­age to all chil­dren in the U.S.  She men­tions that her ulti­mate goal is to have uni­ver­sal cov­er­age for all Amer­i­cans, but cov­er­ing the chil­dren should def­i­nitely be the first priority.

Speak­ing to a group of roughly 400 union mem­bers in Tren­ton, New Jer­sey, Sen­a­tor Barack Obama (D.-Il) said that if elected Pres­i­dent, the U.S. would have health care for every­one in Amer­ica before the end of his first term.  The Asbury Park Press fur­ther reports that Obama would pay for the cov­er­age by sav­ing $75 bil­lion through empha­siz­ing pre­ven­ta­tive care, bet­ter care for the chron­i­cally ill, and reduc­ing paper­work.  Seems pretty sim­ple when you put it that way.  Why hasn’t any­one done this before?

Today, the Boston Globe gave a sta­tus update on the fund­ing of Mass­a­chu­setts uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age plan enacted under the admin­is­tra­tion of then-Governor Mitt Rom­ney.  The report indi­cates that all of the money to pay for the new pro­gram is com­ing from the tax­pay­ers as the state has not yet col­lected a penny from the busi­nesses that do not help insurer their work­ers.  For the next fis­cal year, which starts on July 1, the state is expected to col­lect $24 mil­lion from busi­nesses on an orig­i­nal expec­ta­tion of $76 million.  Why the shortfall?  According to some­one in the Gov­er­nor Patrick’s cur­rent admin­is­tra­tion, the Rom­ney admin­is­tra­tion “had no inten­tion of col­lect­ing it, so the infra­struc­ture was not put in place.”  The cur­rent admin­is­tra­tion is just now set­ting up the billing process to col­lect the money for next year.  Should this really be the model for other states con­tem­plat­ing uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age?  I am sure the tax­pay­ing cit­i­zens of those states would say NO.  

John Edwards, 2008 demo­c­ra­tic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, is a man with a plan.  Sure he joins the other demo­c­ra­tic can­di­dates in say­ing that health care reform is one of his plat­forms for the race.  How­ever, he is actu­ally lay­ing out a plan to extend health insur­ance to every Amer­i­can.  The Raleigh News & Observer reports that the Edwards plan would require every Amer­i­can to have health cov­er­age by 2012.  Employ­ers would be required to either pro­vide cov­er­age to their employ­ees or to fund cov­er­age through some other means.  Insur­ance com­pa­nies would be required to sell cov­er­age at a fair price regard­less of a person’s med­ical his­tory.  Tax cred­its would be offered to help indi­vid­u­als of mod­est means to pur­chase health insur­ance.  How much would this cost?  Edwards says between $90 bil­lion to $120 bil­lion per year — which would be paid for by repeal­ing tax cuts Pres­i­dent Bush pre­vi­ously pushed through on fam­i­lies with tax­able incomes of more than $200,000 per year.

Well, maybe not but they are going to give it a try.  The chair­man of the Safe­way Gro­cery chain has founded a coali­tion of large busi­nesses that will launch a cam­paign call­ing for med­ical insur­ance to be extended to every­one.  The cam­paign is very sim­i­lar to California’s uni­ver­sal cov­er­age plan.  The L.A. Times reports that the coali­tion includes some of the nation’s largest employ­ers includ­ing Pep­siCo, Gen­eral Mills, The Kroger Co., Aetna, Blue Shield of Cal­i­for­nia, and Eli Lilly.  The coali­tion, called the Coali­tion to Advance Health­care Reform, hopes to help employ­ers to see that inac­tion would be deves­tat­ing.  The Coali­tion plans to start press­ing fed­eral law­mak­ers today in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.