Great Northern States Health Care Initiative

HELP Is on the Way - Krugman

2009-07-06T20:54:00.001-06:00

Op-Ed Columnist - HELP Is on the Way - NYTimes.com

"....last week the budget office scored the full proposed legislation from the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP). And the news — which got far less play in the media than the downbeat earlier analysis — was very, very good. Yes, we can reform health care."

Krugman sounds optimistic here. He still says it will be mostly in the hands of the insurance companies but at least even with that he says it will be affordable relative to current projections continuing business as usual. I just wish he hadn't caved and gave up on the possibility of single payer.

Editorial: Payment is key in health care reform

2009-06-29T06:38:00.000-06:00

Editorial: Payment is key in health care reform I still wonder how much the media is in bed with insurance companies. I wonder if they have been bought off the way elected officials have. This editorial misses the main problem with our payment system.
Reform in the payment system is critical. Actually, it is so simple that most don't see it. Remove the insurance companies from the system. We can't seem to believe that you don't have to have employer based access to coverage and that you don't have to have a profit driven, high admin. cost, red tape filled insurance industry controlling cost and access. Imagine a world where access to health care does not depend on where you work. Imagine a doctor or hospital office where you don't have to deal with 500 different payment sources with all different forms and procedures. Imagine a world without co-pays, deductibles or premiums that depend on where you live and your health history. You have now imagined a world without the insurance industry sticking their nose in between you and your health care providers. You have imagined a world that will cost 30% less by removing the $ that go to feed the middle man. Providing access to all and equalizing payment rates can be done with that 30%. If we try to cover all with new insurance policies by paying the insurance companies to cover the uninsured, we will not be able to afford it. The only way is to kick out the middle man. Have one source of payment and put hospitals on a budget based reimbursement system instead of fee for service and we can afford real reform. Without payment reform like that all we will do is feed the insurance monster.

Doctors deeply divided over national health care reform

2009-06-28T05:34:00.000-06:00

Doctors deeply divided over national health care reform
"A study published by the Annals of Internal Medicine last year found that 59 percent of about 2,200 physicians surveyed supported national health insurance. The researchers from Indiana University found that was up from 49 percent in a 2002 survey.

Yet the results show the many faces of medicine. Doctors in lower-paid practices -- psychiatry, pediatrics, emergency medicine and internal medicine -- were most likely to support national health insurance. Those in higher-paid areas -- surgical subspecialties, anesthesiology and radiology -- were least likely."

One thing safe in health reform: Jobs

2009-06-24T05:41:00.001-06:00

One thing safe in health reform: Jobs
Follow the link to this article. Statements being made by those companies and politicians fighting any reform in our health care payment system are often untrue or very mis-leading and NOT based on sound research or real facts. This column shows one of these concerning the assertion that requiring employers to pay in will cause a lose of jobs. NOT.
But, I also urge you focus on how this relates to the real reform we need -- a one payer system that allows access to care for all - "everyone in - nobody out".
We can accomplish this reform by shifting around how our system is paid for. If I am an employer who provides insurance, I am contributing money. If that money now goes to a single payer system and stays about the same, I don't see how I get hurt. I will gain by not having to put the insurance out for bids and have my human resource employees dealing with insurance coverage issues. If I work for that place, I am paying toward my premiums, I am paying a co-pay and I am paying a deductible. If I pay that amount of money to a single payer system and I stop having to deal with bills and figuring out what I really owe and fighting to get things covered and trying to hide certain medical facts that will put my coverage at risk - I am better off. If I look at my doc's office and see that I now only have to bill one place instead of 200 insurance companies, a couple of welfare programs, Medicare and deal with collections of co-pays and deductibles from patients and have rates set uniformly instead of private payers needing to subsidize for non or under payers -- I will save money and net out as much as I now have as income. So, we need to stop having coverage tied to a job. Requiring empoyers to help pay for this -- but likely not more than they now pay anyway - will not cause layoffs and will put them all on a more even playing field for recruitment.

Costs are keeping patients from care - The Mass. Experiment is Costly

2009-06-21T05:44:00.000-06:00

Costs are keeping patients from care - The Boston Globe: "People with robust health insurance are putting off doctors’ appointments and skimping on prescriptions because they can’t afford the increasing costs of copayments and deductibles, according to managers of patient-assistance hot lines in Massachusetts."

Tangled up in American health care - Salt Lake Tribune

2009-06-21T05:01:00.000-06:00

Tangled up in American health care - Salt Lake Tribune
"It's time to turn the medical profession back over to the doctors. The government must step in, eliminate health insurance companies and create the single payer system, one government-owned insurer that has no bottom line, no conflict of interest, but responds only to the needs of doctors and their patients. The single payer system doesn't tell the doctors what to do; the doctors dictate the system. Americans will save trillions of dollars in wasted costs, paperwork, redundancy and corporate profits."

Op-Ed Columnist - This Time, We Won’t Scare - NYTimes.com

2009-06-13T06:07:00.000-06:00

Op-Ed Columnist - This Time, We Won’t Scare - NYTimes.com: "Rick Scott, a former hospital company chief executive, leads a group called Conservatives for Patients’ Rights. He was forced to resign as C.E.O. after his company defrauded the government through overbilling and is now spending his time trying to block meaningful health care reform by terrifying us with commercials of “real-life stories of the victims of government-run health care.”
So here’s a far more representative “real-life story.”"

t r u t h o u t | The Rise of Single-Payer Health Care

2009-06-13T04:33:00.001-06:00

t r u t h o u t | The Rise of Single-Payer Health Care
" The president always rejects single payer on the grounds that some Americans are too fond of their health insurance companies to part with them. A report by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting last week found that the corporate media still virtually bans coverage of single payer. A Senate bill being championed by Sen. Chris Dodd in place of ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy, does not include single payer (which is supported by only one US senator, Bernie Sanders). The Kennedy-Dodd bill, at least in its initial draft, does not even include a "public option," that is a Medicare-like program to exist alongside the private insurance companies. The House bill is being drafted by one current and two former co-sponsors of HR 676, Congressmen George Miller, Henry Waxman and Charles Rangel, but it avoids single payer, championing a public option instead. Other competing Senate bills are expected to complicate things further."

Why Not Single-Payer? | OurFuture.org

2009-06-08T12:36:00.000-06:00

Why Not Single-Payer? | OurFuture.org
"But we progressives are not the ones who need to be convinced. In any great national political debate, there are partisans on our side and partisans against us. To achieve victory, we have to persuade people in the middle—and they don’t know what we know about health care.

Consider three central facts:

Nearly all persuadable voters—those who don’t automatically side with or against us—have health insurance. (In fact, about 94 percent of voters are insured. The uninsured, unfortunately, don’t tend to vote.)
About 3/4ths of insured Americans are satisfied with their health insurance.
When Americans hear about a health care proposal, they immediately think “how is it going to affect me and my family.” That’s their overarching, overwhelming concern.
That means when average American voters consider a new health care policy, their paramount concern is that the policy allows them to keep the health insurance they have. Union members—who usually can be counted on to support progressive policy—are among the most adamant that they be permitted to keep their health insurance. Why? Because unions tend to negotiate better insurance for their members than the rest of us have!"

t r u t h o u t | "Single-Payer" Supporters Challenge Democrats

2009-06-08T04:44:00.001-06:00

t r u t h o u t | "Single-Payer" Supporters Challenge Democrats: "The 'single-payer' activists had struck again. As Obama and congressional Democrats work to hammer out landmark health-care legislation, they face increasingly noisy protests from those on the left who complain that a national program like those in Europe has been excluded from the debate."

Should Health Insurance Be Mandatory? - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com

2009-06-08T04:26:00.002-06:00

Should Health Insurance Be Mandatory? - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com
This NYT piece shows various views on "manadatory insurance". I just wish it would be universal access and not something to build the business of the insurance companies -- but this article helps see the issues under debate right now. Then the Washington Post has one on Kennedy and what he is now pushing, which includes reference to 'mandatory' being in legislation.

Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies - CNN.com

2009-06-08T04:16:00.000-06:00

Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies - CNN.com
"Unless you're a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, you're one illness away from financial ruin in this country," says lead author Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., of the Harvard Medical School, in Cambridge, Mass. "If an illness is long enough and expensive enough, private insurance offers very little protection against medical bankruptcy, and that's the major finding in our study."

Private insurance companies push for 'individual mandate' - Los Angeles Times

2009-06-07T07:41:00.000-06:00

Private insurance companies push for 'individual mandate' - Los Angeles Times
This is a great summary of where things are at in Washington right now in terms of any health financing reforms.

Moyers on Health Care

2009-06-07T07:07:00.002-06:00

Op-Ed Columnist - Keeping Them Honest - NYTimes.com

2009-06-05T15:03:00.000-06:00

Op-Ed Columnist - Keeping Them Honest - NYTimes.com:
"So let me offer Congress two pieces of advice:
1) Don’t trust the insurance industry.
2) Don’t trust the insurance industry."

Baucus Tells Single-Payer Advocates No | AfterDowningStreet.org

2009-06-05T04:02:00.000-06:00

Baucus Tells Single-Payer Advocates No | AfterDowningStreet.org
I found this summary about the recent meeting Baucus had an interesting summary and it includes a letter from Obama you might find of interest.

Sun, sand, and surgery - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com

2009-06-04T12:54:00.000-06:00

Sun, sand, and surgery - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com: "Sun, sand, and surgery
Everyone knows that lots of Canadians come to America in search of medical care. But what everyone knows is wrong: a careful study concluded,
The numbers of true medical refugees—Canadians coming south with their own money to purchase U.S. health care—appear to be handfuls rather than hordes.
On the other hand:
Driven by rising health care costs at home, nearly 1 million Californians cross the border each year to seek medical care in Mexico, according a new paper by UCLA researchers and colleagues published today in the journal Medical Care."

Sanders on Single Payer and Politics

2009-05-03T06:33:00.000-06:00

Reject drug industry perks, doctors urged - JSOnline

2009-04-29T04:29:00.000-06:00

Reject drug industry perks, doctors urged - JSOnline
"With the integrity of the medical field at stake, the influential Institute of Medicine said financial deals between the drug industry and doctors, medical schools and the medical profession need to be restricted.

The institute's sweeping recommendations call on medical professionals — from university professors to family doctors — to shun financial arrangements with companies that flourished over the past three decades."
Also, note the side bar list of past articles about the conflict of interest issues.
Now, in addition to stopping this drug trade business with docs, I sure hope Congress will outlaw those drug ads on TV.

Health group launches $1M ad buy - Carrie Budoff Brown - POLITICO.com

2009-04-28T04:23:00.000-06:00

Health group launches $1M ad buy - Carrie Budoff Brown - POLITICO.com: "A conservative group is launching a $1 million ad buy Tuesday designed to tap into fears about the U.S. moving toward a nationalized system of health care.

Conservatives for Patient Rights will run a month of 60-second ads on CNN and Fox News that feature doctors from Britain and Canada describing the pitfalls of their nations’ health care."

Michele Swenson: Insurance Does Not Equal Health Care: Specious Arguments by 'Free-Market' Opponents of Colorado Single Payer Bill

2009-04-26T08:40:00.000-06:00

Michele Swenson: Insurance Does Not Equal Health Care: Specious Arguments by 'Free-Market' Opponents of Colorado Single Payer Bill
"Paralysis around health care reform is exacerbated by specious rhetoric surrounding Single-Payer health care. Lazy media fail to look behind corrupted rhetoric, while corporate interests spin the debate to serve their bottom lines."

Interview with Robert Kuttner on single-payer health care

2009-04-26T06:49:00.001-06:00

http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/84766/#
Thanks to Tim at GMHCC for this link.

Testimony of David U. Himmelstein

2009-04-24T05:50:00.002-06:00

"Testimony of David U. Himmelstein, M.D.
Before the HELP Subcommittee
April 23, 2009
Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee. My name is David Himmelstein. I am a
primary care doctor in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Associate Professor of Medicine at
Harvard. I also serve as National Spokesperson for Physicians for a National Health
Program. Our 15,000 physician members support non-profit, single payer national health
insurance because of overwhelming evidence that lesser reforms will fail."
Full five minute testimony - click here.

A Five Point Plan -- Funny But All TOO True

2009-04-22T04:04:00.000-06:00

A Disruptive Innovation

2009-04-20T05:05:00.008-06:00

I ran across Behzad Mohit articles in the Huffington Post. His first one is on how Universal Health Care Can Save our Econonmy. The next one was on Quality Control.
He has all this summarized in a short book available for free on line at
http://uhc.helpeachother.com/
The direct link to the pdf file for the book is
http://uhc.helpeachother.com/download/uhc.book.download.pdf

Some of his ideas may be off base but some are right on. He is trying to present a simple solution and some of his ways of explaining things could be useful.
Tying the possibility for major change to the concept of Disruptive Innovation is intriguing. Focusing on one payment system that is non-profit as a way to get past the anti-government arguments has possibilities.