Word from all those town hall meetings members of Congress are having back home this week is that lots of seniors are showing up scared that all the talk of health care reform in Washington, DC might just hurt them.The seniors’ reasoning goes that Congress is getting ready to cut Medicare in order to pay for the uninsured grandkids' newfound access to a health insurance policy of their own.Watch
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Will Eliminating Medical Underwriting and Merging the Small Group and Individual Market Into a New Insurance Exchange Work? Lessons From Massachusetts
Creating a universal system of health insurance is everyone’s objective. But even if we pass an expensive health care bill in 2009 we won’t achieve it. We just don’t have enough money to cover everyone. Maybe, in the most expensive proposals, we would make it possible for 90% to be covered. In others, far less.The problem is that without an absolutely seamless system there will still be people
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Wyden-Bennett Touted as an Alternative
I have to say I was a bit surprised watching Meet the Press this morning to hear the pundits on both sides of the political spectrum discussing the Wyden-Bennett Healthy Americans Act as an alternative to the more partisan Democratic health care reform bills already on the table in the House and Senate HELP Committee.The Republican spin seemed to be that, "We've always been for Wyden-Bennett,
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Unions May Get a Pass on Health Care Benefits Tax
There is a major bipartisan effort going on in the Senate Finance Committee to reform the health care system.Reportedly, one of the elements of that effort may be a tax on "gold plated" health insurance benefits above a certain threshold--$17,000 for family coverage is one option being discussed. The new tax could raise close to $300 billion over ten years to help pay for a health care
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The Co-op Version of the Public Plan—It’s a Camel!
I am sure you have heard the story about the committee that was charged with designing a horse but, because of the bureaucratic ways of the committee process, instead ended up creating a camel.We will not see a Medicare-like public health plan as part of any health care reform bill in 2009. I know proponents don’t want to hear that but it is crystal clear to me there simply are not the Democratic
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Time to Take Another Look at the Wyden-Bennett Healthy Americans Act?
This from today's Kaiser Health News:"A bipartisan proposal from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., to replace the tax exclusion for employer-based health benefits with a standard deduction would do more to contain healthcare spending than Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus' plan to cap the exclusion, according to a recent assessment by the Joint Committee on Taxation,' Congress Daily reports. 'The
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Senate Finance Scrambling to Find a Way to Pay for Health Care Reform While CBO Warns That the Congress Needs to Get Serious About Cost Containment
Toldjaso.As I have been posting, it has been my observation that the Democrats were headed for a health care bill that had a little cost containment window dressing, would take a little off the top in provider payments, and use lots of new taxes to pay for at least half of it. I also argued that would not be health care reform but just entitlement expansion.Apparently the CBO (God bless’em)
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The Dumbest Thing I have Ever Seen a Health Insurance Company Do––And Three of Them Took Their Turn Doing It in Front of the United States Congress
And, I’ve been in the business for 37 years.First, let me stipulate we really need a system of universal care where everyone gets to have insurance. But we don’t yet so certain rules are unavoidable until we do.Here are a few separate clips from today's Los Angeles Times article, "Health Insurers Refuse to Limit Rescission of Coverage:""Executives of three of the nation's largest health insurers
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Just Which $2 Trillion Were They Talking About?
Just two weeks after putting $2 trillion in health care cost reductions on the table, the response to President Obama's plan to cut the health care providers by a total of $618 billion over the next ten years ($305 billion in his original budget and another $313 billion this week) is startling--if not in the final analysis predictable.Given that, at present trends, we are on our way to spending
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It’s NOT the Prices Stupid!
Out here on Kent Island, the federal government says that I like to watch the Baltimore TV stations and therefore forbids my satellite provider to give me access to the local DC channels. (We’re about an hour from both Baltimore and DC.)There is reason number one never to put the government in charge of any more than absolutely necessary.While my new digital converter box had been working just
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