Recently in Health Care Reform Category
I have a simple theory to explain why health reform legislation has stalled -- it is an echo of why the Clinton plan failed -- most Americans are ultimately unwilling to abandon today's imperfect system for a new one that would require them to adapt to changes that ultimately could prove more uncomfortable than the status quo.This has nothing to do with partisan bickering, timing, communications campaigns or any of ...
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Are health insurers interested in building a better mousetrap? If they came up with one, would consumers beat a path to their door?These questions are provoked by a recent Massachusetts study concluding that health insurance costs are rising because insurers are being forced to pay what seem to be abnormally high reimbursement rates to hospitals that have banded together to get greater bargaining power. It is fleshed out by health ...
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And has evidence based medicine become the third rail of health reform?Consider what President Obama said to ABC News's George Stephanopoulos: "We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people," ..."We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don't, then our budgets are going to blow up, and we know that small businesses are going to need ...
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The ongoing reform debate often tends to obscure a very basic fact - that insurance is expensive for groups of beneficiaries that consume a lot of care. Basically insurance premiums track the cost of care. Administrative costs and profits are merely icing on the cake. So it is impossible to have much impact on premiums without cutting care.A basic goal of healthcare reform is bringing costs under control, which will ...
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Successful enactment of health reform legislation using the Senate bill as the foundation would suggest that America remains a centrist country and that progress is a possibility as long as a majority of our elected officials are open to compromise and a few leaders have the patience and skill to find the center. The Senate health care bill does an impressive job of reducing the uninsured population, but is tentative ...
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The new CNN poll like many others finds greater support (53% to 46%) for a "public option" than for the Senate Health Care Bill which just 36% support, and 61% oppose. The smart conclusion is that the Senate Bill would be more popular if it included a Public Option. But an even smarter question would be to ask why the overall effort is so unpopular. The worst statistic in ...
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The health policy team at the Urban Institute is out with a new paper arguing that health reform legislation will do little to constrain costs unless it includes the threat of a government-run program that unilaterally imposes rates the way Medicare does that providers who now serve Medicare patients would be required to participate in.The mere threat of such a strong public plan might be adequate to induce change, the ...
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One reason Congressional leaders are elected is that they can competently count an upcoming vote. That skill stays with them and explains why they seldom bring major legislation to a vote without confidence that it will ultimately pass.Given such precedents, the perils-of-Pauline press coverage that health reform proposals have been receiving leads to an obvious question - who doesn't get it, those producing the news or those consuming it? Reporters ...
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House passage of health reform legislation is very good news. It is particularly important for those of us who've done such a conscientious job cataloguing the flaws in this bill - and the foibles of Washington politics generally -- to acknowledge that. The good news lies in the fact that millions of Americans whose health is at risk because they are uninsured will get insurance coverage. Its worth mentioning ...
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There is growing reason to believe that new health reforms will do little to constrain costs in the short-run and minimal confidence they will significantly bend the cost increase curve over the longer period. The message is clear -- even tools that experts say are too modest to get the job done are the subject of ongoing opposition. Optimists who report impressive results think systemic change will take decades. It is possible that ...
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