Means testing is politically problematic but necessary and probably unavoidable if we are to shore-up Medicare.The Bush administration is pushing a proposal to begin means testing on the new Medicare Part D drug benefit. They would increase deductibles and premiums on single seniors with incomes over $82,000 a year and couples with incomes over $164,000 a year.We already have a means test on
Read full post »
Browse » Home » All posts
An Important and Disciplined Review of the Health Care Marketplace--The Latest Site Visit Report From 12 Markets
Good health care market intelligence is hard to come by. Information tends to come in the form of detailed and narrow, often backward looking, surveys that give us little texture for what key players are thinking. Or, at the other extreme, market information is often based on a relatively few almost random anecdotal impressions by "experts" as they do their work in the market.The highly respected
Read full post »
Health Wonk Review is Up
Jane-Hiebert-White has the latest Health Wonk Review up over at the Health Affairs blog.This sample of some of the best recent posts in the health blog world not surprisingly has lots to say about the SCHIP debate and other timely health reform issues.I wonder what 1993 would have been like if we'd had the blog world?
Read full post »
SCHIP Supporters Are At Least Ten Votes Short to Override a Bush Veto
The Democrats are now going to take two weeks to try to change some minds before they attempt to override the Bush veto of the SCHIP bill--scheduling a vote for October 18th. If nothing else they will continue to hammer on the President and his Republican supporters over what is turning out to be a very unpopular stand by the President.The Senate approved the SCHIP compromise by a vote of 67-29.
Read full post »
Now That The UAW Is On The Hot Seat to Manage Its Retiree Health Costs Will Their View of Health Care Management Change?
Brian Klepper joins us again today this time with an astute analysis of the UAW/GM deal. Now that the UAW owns their GM retiree plan will they look at health care management differently?The Hot Seatby Brian KlepperI agree with Bob that the GM-UAW deal is a turning point for American health care. In a stroke – OK, it was a 456 page stroke – GM agreed to turn over as much as $35 billion, about 70
Read full post »
Reforming Our Health Care Financing System Won't Mean Anything if Americans Don't Start Taking Better Care of Themselves
Ken Thorpe, along with associates David Howard and Katya Galactionova, of Emory University has expanded on his earlier work on chronic disease in the U.S. and its impact on our health care costs in a web article for the journal Health Affairs. He compares chronic disease in the U.S. and Europe and looks at the difference as a means to help explain our higher health care costs.As all of the
Read full post »
The Country's Political Center is Shifting and With it the Health Care Reform Debate
I always thought it was shortsighted for the Republicans to avoid comprehensive health care reform in the six years they controlled the White House and the Congress (2001-2006). Instead they just added $8 trillion in unfunded liability (Part D) to a Medicare system they've been telling us from the beginning is unsustainable as it is.Eventually the political pendulum swings to the other side.
Read full post »
The GM-UAW Deal--If UAW Workers Can No Longer Count on Employer-Provided Health Care Then Neither Can Harry and Louise
I'm not the first one to suggest the GM-UAW deal to set up a VEBA is a watershed event. Most observers are focusing on the trend it will accelerate in the employee benefits market--and it will.I will suggest another dramatic impact that it will have--on voters.The polls already tell us that health care is by far the top domestic policy issue and second overall only to Iraq.This deal is also going
Read full post »
If the $35 Billion Expansion of SCHIP is About Moving to Government-Run Health Care Why Does the Insurance Industry Support It?
Both the House and Senate have now passed the $35 billion expansion of SCHIP. The House by 265-159 and the Senate by a vote of 67-29. The Senate bill got exactly the two-thirds it needs to override the expected Bush veto and the House fell 25 votes short of the 290 it will need.Opponents of the bipartisan compromise to renew and expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program primarily
Read full post »
Who's More Frustrated With Bush Over His SCHIP Veto Threat--Republicans or Democrats?
These days its hard to get Democrats and Republicans to agree on anything. But there is one bipartisan bill that has incredible support in both parties--the $35 billion expansion and renewal of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).By any measure SCHIP has been an incredibly good success--covering 6 million kids. There have been some legitimate questions about it growing beyond
Read full post »
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)