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Tag: Policy/Politics

Interview: TR Reid on healthcare reform around the world

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By Matthew Holt

TR Reid is a former foreign correspondent with the Washington Post. He spent two years (partly funded by the Kaiser Family Foundation) looking at health care systems across the world and has been featured heavily in many media venues lately asking the simple question, if everywhere else can cover everyone at half the cost, how do they do it?  I had a great and not too long interview with him last week.

His book is called The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care and here's an interview he did as part of Frontline's Sick Around The World.

Funnily enough I'm posting this from Barcelona, Spain where hopefully I won't have to use the healthcare system unless I get carried away with the late night Sangria…

Expect to hear a whole lot about this…

• 10

By Matthew Holt

Seniors care about death panels (apparently) but they usually really care about drug prices and costs. Part of the political rationale for the Republicans passing Medicare drug coverage in 2003 was to deny the Democrats the ability to bundle seniors’ desire for drug coverage with a universal coverage bill. So far the Republicans have to say the least muddied the waters as to whether universal coverage is a good thing for Medicare recipients—or at least the ones that don’t care about their kids or grand-kids.

But there’s one minor trick. The deal with big Pharma that’s part of HR 3200 cuts the donut hole in half. That’s real money for seniors.

And when the cuts to Medicare Advantage become apparent, that donut hole is going to affect many more seniors who now are getting good benefits from Medicare Advantage and are pretty unaware about what’s about to happen to those benefits, according to this recent Silverlink/Suffolk University poll. (Hint, many Advantage plans will get much less generous).

In that case, knowing that there is something in the bill that helps them might change some seniors’ minds. Right now the Silverlink/Suffolk poll does not make happy reading for the Administration:

The survey also polled Medicare recipients on healthcare reform. Despite high levels of satisfaction and relatively strong amounts of optimism, nearly half of Medicare recipients polled (48%) say they do not believe the Obama administration is looking out for their best interests when it comes to healthcare reform. The remaining are split, with 28% believing the administration is looking out for them and 24% unsure.

We’ll be back here in 2016, unless

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By Matthew Holt

I’ve been meaning for a while to put up a common sense post that points out that if we don’t do reform now, we’ll end up with cost at close to $30K per family as opposed to the $15K as they are now, and in turn that will mean 80–100 million uninsured as opposed to 50–60 million we have now, and of course the end result will be a health care industry that looks like General Motors.

But luckily Joe Paduda just wrote the post for me and added a date—go read at Managed Care Matters.

Which just leads to one conclusion. The health care industry had better buckle down with the Blue Dogs, put more on the table, and get something passed that they can live with now. AND in addition, they need to figure out some way to stop the loony fringe at the town halls and listening to Rush Limbaugh from making the next best alternative be doing nothing—which is what they want.

Otherwise the conversation they’ll be having with the President and the Chinese central bank in 2016 will be very, very unpleasant.

“Money driven medicine” on PBS tonight

• 15

By Matthew Holt

Tonight the documentary based on Maggie Mahar’s book Money-Driven Medicine is on Bill Moyers’ show on PBS.

Meanwhile if you haven’t seen this clip of Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn seriously suggesting to a completely desperate woman that her neighboors should be the ones helping her look after her husband with a traumatic brain injury, you’ll be illuminated by how out of touch (and that’s putting it very kindly) he and lots of his colleagues are on the real life actual needs of people suffering now as opposed to inciting vitriol from the fringe over vague concerns in the future.

Can Social Media Save Healthcare Reform?

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By Daniel Palestrant

Daniel Palestrant is the Founder & CEO of Sermo, the largest online physician community, and a friend of THCB’s from the Health 2.0 world. Lately Dan has been seen on cable TV representing the 110K+ Sermo members in the health reform debate—including a very public break-up with Sermo’s former partners at the AMA, which has endorsed the House 3200 bill. I’ve been asking Dan, if his members’ don’t want the House bill, what do they want? This is the piece he sent me in reply—Matthew Holt

Daniel Palestrant

Speaking at Fortune’s Brainstorm Technology Conference last month, longtime healthcare reform advocate, Howard Dean pointed out that the “dirty secret” of social media is that it can put a whole lot of politicians out of business because it allows the truth to bubble up. For the sake of healthcare reform, let’s hope he is right.Continue reading…

Ditching the Public Option

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By ROBERT LASZEWSKI

6a00d8341c909d53ef01157023e340970b-pi It looks to me like the popular objections to a health care bill being expressed by voters this month are concentrated in two primary areas:  

  1. A concern about “government control of the health care system”—mostly around the public plan option.
  2. The trillion-dollar cost of a health care bill at a time deficits are swelling and worries about who will really end up paying for it.

As a result of the first concern, we are getting the first indications that some Democratic leaders are ready to ditch the robust Medicare-like public option and are beginning the process of talking the party out of demanding it be included in a health care bill.

This from Politico today:

After the toughest week yet for health reform, leading Democrats are warning that the party likely will have to accept major compromises to get a bill passed this year – perhaps even dropping a proposal to create a government-run plan that is almost an article of faith among some liberals…"Trying to hold the president's feet to the fire is fine, but first we have to win the big argument," former President Bill Clinton said Thursday at the Netroots Nation convention, a gathering of liberal activists and bloggers who will prove most difficult to convince. "I am pleading with you. It is OK with me if you want to keep everybody honest. . . .But try to keep this thing in the lane of getting something done. We need to pass a bill and move this thing forward."

It has been clear to me for months, and I have been saying so on this blog, that the public option has not had the votes even among Democrats to make the finals. With all the heat “a government takeover” of health care has attracted from those at the town hall meetings either the Democrats ditch it or get used to the idea they have no chance of passing health care reform.

Continue reading…

Enthoven’s ABCDs and why that socialist Gingrich is wrong on standardized benefits

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By Matthew Holt

Here's Alain Enthoven's four part plan for fixing healthcare. As THCB regulars might guess, it's familiar and very sensible stuff. (Here’s the PDF)

A. Create an exchange with standardized plans, make individuals buy through the exchange and limit outside subsidies to the value of the lowest cost plan.

B. Tax health benefits (starting with those over the value of the cheapest plan)

C. Phase in the same system for Medicare

D. Phase out employer based insurance, giving everyone a voucher for the lowest cost plan based on a dedicated tax like a VAT.

Meanwhile in the LA Times, Newt Gingrich, who continues to smell blood in the Palin-infested waters, spouts BS that would destroy any sensible Enthoven-style reform. Apparently in Newt-world a regulated insurance package of standardized benefits is government bureaucracy run amok.

Continue reading…

Voices from the deserving mob

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By Matthew Holt

From the (UK) Independent. Real quotes from real people attending the free care in LA this week:

“I had a gastric bypass in 2002, but it went wrong, and stomach acid began rotting my teeth. I’ve had several jobs since, but none with medical insurance, so I’ve not been able to see a dentist to get it fixed,” she told The Independent. “I’ve not been able to chew food for as long as I can remember. I’ve been living on soup, and noodles, and blending meals in a food mixer. I’m in constant pain. Normally, it would cost $5,000 to fix it. So if I have to wait a week to get treated for free, I’ll do it. This will change my life.”

***

She works for a major supermarket chain but can’t afford the $200 a month that would be deducted from her salary for insurance. “It’s a simple choice: pay my rent, or pay my healthcare. What am I supposed to do?” she asked. “I’m one of the working poor: people who do work but can’t afford healthcare and are ineligible for any free healthcare or assistance. I can’t remember the last time I saw a doctor.”

***

“You’d think, with the money in this country, that we’d be able to look after people’s health properly,” she said. “But the truth is that the rich, and the insurance firms, just don’t realise what we are going through, or simply don’t care. Look around this room and tell me that America’s healthcare don’t need fixing.”

And that last one is the money quote.

Continue reading…

KP lawsuit doesn’t sniff quite right

• 10

By Matthew Holt

It’s about time we had a fun Kaiser Permanente scandal, as it’s been a while, and it appears that they’re having some influence on the side of the angels in DC these days. And tracking vis HISTalk apparently there is one. You can wonder over to this blog to get the full rhetoric but basically it comes down to KP being sued by a former relatively senior techie in the Northern California region who has had a big time falling out with his boss.He has three main accusations.

1. KP kept a registry of dementia patients on an open internal network2. KP employees were dumping personally identified data in the trash3. KP was and is not tracking deductibles and was forcing their members to count up to them—presumably costing their members money for those who were paying cash when they’d already met their deductible.

So let’s parse these apart.

Continue reading…