Health Care For America Now

The Institute for America's Future has a new report out on the Massachusetts health care plan. Here's the gist:

Massachusetts has implemented new and innovative health care reform that provides subsidies for people under 300 percent of the federal poverty level unable to afford coverage. While reform has been very effective at increasing accessibility of insurance to residents across the socioeconomic spectrum, resulting in the lowest rate of uninsurance in the nation, the Massachusetts model is unsustainable, with skyrocketing costs and no systems in place to drive value.

Key problems include:

• Overall Health Care Cost Containment – Since the Massachusetts plan does not contain any mechanisms for reining in the rapidly increasing cost of health care, the plan has limited potential for long-term sustainability.

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• Meaningful Competition – The Massachusetts plan promotes health insurer oligopolies in the state. It offers no countervailing power through a public health insurance plan to drive competition, offset insurer market power and rein in costs; rather it maintains the status quo that has led to spiraling health care costs.

While Massachusetts continues to be a leader in providing affordable health care to its residents, using it as a model for national reform would not address many of the significant issues facing our health care system. The public health insurance plan option proposed by President Obama and Senator Baucus would compete with private insurance plans on a level playing field, control costs, provide guaranteed back-up coverage for anyone who needs it and set a benchmark for ensuring everyone in America quality, affordable health care.

Basically, the Massachusetts model is good because it has indeed expanded coverage, but it's bad because it hasn't controlled costs, mostly because it lacks a public health insurance option to force private insurance to compete. Thus, it's unsustainable as a national model.

NEWS

Obama's traveling forum on healthcare visits Vt. - Boston Globe

A retiree from Concord, N.H., spoke of the agony of having to beg a foundation for money to help her afford the drug she needs to stay alive.

President's Budget Strategy Under Fire - Washington Post

Senior members of the Obama administration are pressing lawmakers to use a shortcut to drive the president's signature initiatives on health care and energy through Congress without Republican votes, a move that many lawmakers say would fly in the face of President Obama's pledge to restore bipartisanship to Washington.

Team Effort in the House to Overhaul Health Care - New York Times

Three powerful House committee chairmen have agreed to work together on legislation to overhaul the health care system, starting with the view that most employers should help finance coverage and that the government should offer a public health insurance plan as an alternative to private insurance.

UPDATE: Senate, House Bills Would Ban Preexisting Exclusions - CNN

Senate and House bills to be introduced Tuesday would bar insurance companies from keeping those with preexisting medical conditions off their rolls.

Fairs aim to inform immigrants on health care - USA Today

Sayed Rahman, a student from Bangladesh, has learned that health care in the USA can be expensive. He has had to pay high fees, sometimes $500, he says, to see a doctor when he is sick.

City's insurance cheaper than private plans - San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco's unique universal health care program costs significantly less than private insurance plans, according to a new report by the Department of Public Health.

House Minority Leader House Republican Roy Blunt (R-MO) has been named the chairman of the Republican "health care solutions working group." I'll wait while you finish laughing.

This is what Blunt had to say about health care last week:

Repeating the lies about Obama's health care plan rationing care, socialized medicine, all that. Does that sound like someone who's looking for solutions? Do you really think Blunt will be anything but an obstructionist?

When it was announced that Blunt was chairing this working group, he put up a page on his website asking for comments on health care from the public. So why don't you head over there and tell him what you think? We've got a couple suggestions, plus a special email address for you to use when you fill out his form, so he knows we're watching.

NEWS

Comparison Shopping for Medicine - Washington Post

What's best for insomnia — Lunesta, at about $6 a pill, or Zolpidem, at $2?

Should a man with prostate cancer choose radiation, surgery or "watchful waiting"?

GOP uneasy as allies stray on healthcare - The Hill

Maneuvering by the healthcare industry and other business interests to cozy up to Democrats on health reform is causing unease among their traditional Republican allies on Capitol Hill.

Wal-Mart lends muscle to health reform - Politico

Wal-Mart is ramping up its Washington activity to push for comprehensive health care reform, and the world’s largest retailer says it is ready to use its economic muscle to get out in front and influence the discussion.

Medicare Advantage Sellers Trick Elderly Into Giving Up Benefits - Huffington Post

Curtis Smith is retired, but his body doesn't know it yet. The 72-year-old's eyes still pop open at five a.m. every morning, just as they did for decades. With no job to go to, he lays there.

Last week, Health Care for America Now rallied with health care reform supporters from across the political spectrum - from doctors to union members to single payer activists - and tried to present Karen Ignagni, CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, the insurance industry lobby, with an award for "Best Protector of Profits at the Expense of Our Health."

Needless to say, Ignagni was either too scared or too flattered to accept this prestigious award in person. That's alright, though. We'll follow her around the country and make sure she has ample opportunity to receive it. Check out the video:

However, we thought it might be nice for Ignagni to receive an even more high-profile and coveted award: Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World" award.

So, we've created a petition to ask Olbermann to bestow this honor on Ignagni. Our petition reads:

Keith Olbermann, you unfailingly shine a light on evil doers in this world with your "Worst Person in the World" award on your show "Countdown" on MSNBC. You unflinchingly call out those who lie, cheat or steal, those who put their personal gain over the common good. Your award brings more truth and justice to politics by calling out those who do wrong. With that in mind, we have a perfect nominee for you!

Here's some reasons why Karen Ignagni deserves your "Worst Person in the World" award:

• Ignagni has been lying to the American people for months. She's been traveling around the country saying the health insurance industry is working for real reform in good faith. However, AHIP has already come out against the heart of Obama's health care plan, the public health insurance option
• AHIP has a history of bargaining in bad faith. AHIP's predecessor organization ran the "Harry and Louise" ads that killed Bill Clinton's health care reform efforts. They have spent $7 million on lobbying for their business interests in 2006, and will spend many times more than that this year.
• While someone goes bankrupt in this country every 30 seconds due to medical costs, Ignagni has presided over a huge increase in insurance industry profits and has been rewarded for her protection of those profits with $1.4 million in compensation this year alone.
• Ignagni used to work for the AFL-CIO, the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Finance Committee, and the Department of Health and Human Services. She is intimately familiar with the failings of our private-only health care system, and yet she has chosen personal profit over public good. She should know better.

Keith, please bestow on Karen Ignagni the great honor of being your "Worst Person in the World." She is deeply deserving.

So far, we've got almost 5,000 signatures in just a few days. We're going to deliver our petition directly to Olbermann this week, but we want to break 5,000. So, dear readers, can you sign the petition and pass it along to your friends?

Click here to sign the petition!

Wouldn't it be great to see Ignagni's face on Olbermann? Really, there are few people more deserving of this award. Help make it happen!

NEWS

Administration Is Open to Taxing Health Benefits - New York Times

The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system.

Health insurers try for a major image makeover - Associated Press

The health insurance industry is working on a transformation that could come right out of "Extreme Makeover."

Long cast as villains for denying coverage or refusing to pay for treatment, insurers now are representing themselves as indispensable partners in health care overhaul.

Blue Dogs not demanding paygo for health reform - The Hill

Leaders of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition are asking House and Senate budget lawmakers to abide by the Obama administration’s request that healthcare reform legislation be deficit neutral.

Health Care Solutions Working Group Launches Website - The American Chronicle

The House Republican Health Care Solutions Working Group launched a website in an effort to seek input from American families and small businesses as it works to craft solutions to increase Americans´ access to quality, affordable health care. The website´s address is blunt.house.gov/healthcare.

Massachusetts Faces Costs of Big Health Care Plan - New York Times

Three years ago, Massachusetts enacted perhaps the boldest state health care experiment in American history, bringing near-universal coverage to the commonwealth with Paul Revere speed.

Vermont to follow Michigan as host of health care forum - Associated Press

Vermont will host the second of five White House health reform forums on Tuesday.

Health care hinges on Senate insiders - Politco

If you want to know whether President Barack Obama can get a health care overhaul done by year’s end, keep an eye on the Board of Directors.

New debate on how to decide best health treatments - Associated Press

People's lives and plenty of money are at stake when it comes to determining which medical treatments work best.

A must read from Chris Hayes at The Nation:

Having Scott lead the charge against healthcare reform is like tapping Bernie Madoff to campaign against tighter securities regulation. You see, the for-profit hospital chain Scott helped found–the one he ran and built his entire reputation on–was discovered to be in the habit of defrauding the government out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

This is the man who will be delivering what Politico called the "pro-free-market message."

A Texas lawyer who shared a business partner with George W. Bush, Scott started his health company, Columbia Hospital Corporation, in 1987. Its growth was meteoric, expanding from just a few hospitals to more than 1,000 facilities in thirty-eight states and three other countries in 1997. As his firm gobbled up chains, like the Frist family's Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), it became the largest for-profit hospital chain in the country. By 1994, Columbia/HCA was one of the forty largest corporations in America, and Scott had acquired a reputation as the Gordon Gecko of the healthcare world. "Whose patients are you stealing?" he would ask employees at his newly acquired hospitals.

…Not long after joining the company in 1993 as the supervisor of reimbursement for the Fort Myers, Florida, office, Schilling noticed things weren't quite kosher. "They were looking for ways to maximize reimbursement…which ultimately would improve the bottom line."

One way they did this was to fudge the costs on their Medicare expense reports. They were "basically keeping two sets of books," says Schilling. The company would maintain an internal expense report, what it called a "reserve" report, which accurately tallied its expenses. "And then they would have a second report, which…they would file with the government, which was more aggressive." That report would "include inflated costs and expenses they knew weren't allowable or reimbursable. The one they filed with government might claim $5 million and the reserve would claim $4.5." Columbia/HCA would pocket the difference.

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By 1997 the FBI was investigating Columbia/HCA. Days after agents raided company facilities armed with search warrants, Scott was forced to resign. In 2000 the company pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to pay the government $840 million. Other civil settlements would follow, ultimately totaling a staggering $1.7 billion, making it the largest fraud case in American history.

This isn't an isolated incident. Scratch the surface of the opponents of health care reform and you'll find the insurance industry, the drug industry, or big-business HMOs, and vice-versa. In just the most recent example, Politico reports on how the GOP still dominates the drug industry lobby:

The in-house lobbying shops of at least eight of the nation’s largest drug companies are still run by Republicans, even as the industry’s major trade association, PhRMA, is desperately trying to cozy up to Democrats who now control both the Congress and the White House.

It’s a point that has not been lost on Democrats on Capitol Hill.

“They’re dealing with us the same way they dealt with us when we were in the minority, and we’re not,” said a Democratic House health staffer. “We literally don’t know where all the different companies stand on anything, so we just don’t care.”

It's hard to make this point loudly enough. The insurance industry is the enemy of health care reform. The drug industry is the enemy of health care reform. They will always be the enemies, they will not compromise, and they should be treated as such.

The henchmen they send out to lead the charge against health care reform, like the intrepid Rick Scott, are simply industry tools. They may cloak their arguments for the status-quo in the mantle of "principles," but they are towing the industry line, and they always will.

It is our job to marginalize their voice. For too long, they have run the insurance industry. We seek to change that, and to give people a choice whether to do business with people like Rick Scott, or to choose a public health insurance option out of their reach. If we succeed, we can win real health care reform.

NEWS

Blue Dogs ask for another healthcare plan - The Hill

Blue Dog Democrats are asking President Obama to come up with a revenue-neutral healthcare plan in lieu of his initial proposal, according to a letter being drafted by the growing bloc of fiscally conservative House Democrats.

GAO cites fraud in Medicare in-home services billings - USA Today

Fraud and abuse helped boost Medicare spending on home health services 44% over five years as some providers exaggerated patients' medical conditions and others billed for unnecessary services or care they did not provide, a Government Accountability Office report out Friday says.

Obama's public health insurance idea draws fire - Reuters

A big new public health insurance program envisioned by President Barack Obama is shaping up as one of the most contentious issues in his drive to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system.

Healthcare Enemy No. 1 - The Nation

Rush Limbaugh offers Democrats an irresistible target as the de facto leader of the Republican Party, but for my money, Rick Scott is the man who best embodies the spirit of the current conservative opposition. The name may not exactly be a household word, or it may ring a faint bell, but Politico recently reported that the millionaire Republican would be heading up Conservatives for Patients' Rights (CPR), a new group that plans to spend around $20 million to kill President Obama's efforts at healthcare reform.

Bipartisan Senate Group Makes Health Care Progress - Time

A bipartisan group of nine U.S. senators, after meeting for nine months behind closed doors, is nearing an agreement on the broad strokes of a health care reform bill. The so-called Gang of Nine — though its number expands and contracts depending on the meeting — is hammering out the finer points as they prepare to enter the drafting phase of the negotiations, sources from three Senate offices involved in the talks tell TIME.

Healthcare fix crucial to recovery: Michigan forum - Reuters

"Michigan is the poster child of why reform needs to happen," Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm told President's Barack Obama's first regional healthcare forum on Thursday.

U.S. business leaders say hobbled by healthcare costs - Reuters

U.S. business leaders urged lawmakers on Thursday to act quickly on healthcare reform, saying American companies were losing out to other countries with cheaper healthcare and healthier workers.

Recent Republican attacks on President Obama's proposal to give everyone the option of buying into a new Medicare-like public insurance plan have, put ideological arguments about "Big Government" and "The Market" right at the heart of our public debate once again. Republican opponents of a public insurance plan claim, as ever, that they are the righteous defenders of "Competition." And they cast the public plan's supporters as competition's enemies. But when it comes to health care reform, nothing could be further from the truth.

Read more…

(FYI, I'm participating in a "debate," more of a friendly discussion, on Change.org about the differences between President Obama's health care plan and single-payer. Check it out.)

Before they pull out the lie about "socialized medicine," the insurance industry, the drug industry, and the business interests who are against health care reform will use seemingly rational arguments to explain why their against providing quality, affordable health care for all.

By reasonable, I mean complicated, official-sounding, and at the end of the day, untrue. Like the argument about something the industry calls "cost-shifting."

Cost-shifting, according to the industry, is what happens when you have more people enrolling in public health insurance plans like Medicare. Their arguments is because Medicare pays so little to doctors (not quite true, their payment rates are now the industry standard), doctors have to raise their rates for people not on Medicare, shifting the cost from those on public insurance to those on private insurance.

As Representative Becerra explains, it's a lot of BS:

Health insurance is so expensive that so many in America go without it, or don't have the amount that they need to truly cover their medical needs. When they get sick, guess who picks up the tab? Taxpayers. So, yes, there is cost-shifting going on, but it's in the other direction. Because the health insurance and drug industries have done so little to slow skyrocketing health care costs and actually make care affordable, the public must pick up the slack for those who can't afford to pay.

This is why we need a public health insurance option, so people can always be covered and pay what they can afford, lessening or completely eliminating cost shifting.