Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[Clodfobble]

Wait a second... they got rid of the "no pre-existing conditions" rule, but then they didn't require everyone to get insurance? Who in their right mind wouldn't just wait until they got sick and only then buy into the insurance system?

[classicman]

I thought the same thing. Makes no sense whatsoever.

[skysidhe]

Pelosi raises my hackles. The way people swooned over Obama was quite strange yet I am a democrat. I do not believe this issue is a partisan issue or should be.

If I were doing a health care reform I would start at the pharmaceutical companies and their lobbyists. That is as far as my grand idea goes though.

The problems of health care and it's reform cannot be resolved by ideologies. Who can see clearly the right path through all the agendas?

[classicman]

Originally Posted by skysidhe

Pelosi raises my hackles. The way people swooned over Obama was quite strange yet I am a democrat. I do not believe this issue is a partisan issue or should be.

Agreed.

If I were doing a health care reform I would start at the pharmaceutical companies and their lobbyists. That is as far as my grand idea goes though.

Thats a great start! Service providers and the manufacturers must be addressed.

The problems of health care and it's reform cannot be resolved by ideologies. Who can see clearly the right path through all the agendas?

The right path for whom? When these people are basically being bribed on a daily basis, it obscures ones perspective, I would imagine.

[TheMercenary]

Until we address cost control, insurance premiums, and reimbursement, among others, any of the programs on the table are doomed to fail to fix the problems in health care. The state programs in Mass and Maine show it.

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by classicman

The right path for whom?

Exactly

Who is standing up for the people.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Until we address cost control, insurance premiums, and reimbursement, among others, any of the programs on the table are doomed to fail

It sure feels that way.

[classicman]

Problem is common sense and politicians rarely meet. Its like a rule or something.

[TheMercenary]

Health reform's hidden land mines

© November 16, 2009
By Carrie Budoff Brown and Chris Frates

After all the controversy over the public option, people might think that everyone can sign up right away if Congress passes health reform.

Or that insurance premiums will go down.

Or that they’ll be able to shop around for insurance if they don’t like what their company offers.

Think again.

When it comes to the public option, for instance, only about 1 in 10 Americans will be eligible, mainly people who don’t get insurance through work. Only about 6 million are expected to enroll. The plan doesn’t even start until 2013.

And most people who get insurance on the job would have to stick with it. No shopping in the new “insurance exchanges” for them.

President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress stand to reap the political rewards if they can pull off health reform, by achieving near-universal coverage, toughening regulations on private insurers and transforming the way health care is delivered.

But Democrats have glossed over nagging details of just how limited reform’s reach would be for some Americans. And if voters figure it out, experts warn there could be a political backlash.

“These things can be enormously popular early on,” said Robert Blendon, a Harvard University health policy professor and co-director of a polling project by the Kaiser Family Foundation. “But if the expectations are wrong, then they start to become much less popular.”

Other hidden problems lurk in the plan. Cutting costs relies on everyone owning insurance, but penalties in the Senate Finance Committee bill to force compliance are weak. Skip the fine, and all you’re asked to do is to one day pay up. A so-called millionaires tax in the House bill could eventually snare more and more families.

If the bill becomes law, Blendon said, the campaign for maintaining support for health care reform would only just begin. “It is not really over in people’s mind,” he said.

Here is POLITICO’s list of the biggest land mines in the bill:

http://hamptonroads.com.nyud.net/200...den-land-mines

[Clodfobble]

Skip the fine, and all you’re asked to do is to one day pay up.

But the fine would be filed as part of your taxes, right? You can't really skip the fine unless you skip filing taxes altogether, which has the potential for jail time. No one in their right mind thinks the IRS is a bunch of pansies who don't make good on their punishments.

[classicman]

Lobbyist Healthcare Talking Points Non-Scandal Shows Reform is Too Much, Too Fast

Saturday, the New York Times reported on its website that in the healthcare reform debate, "Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world's largest biotechnology companies."

The outrage on the talk shows began immediately. This morning, MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan kept a running tally of the number of lawmakers caught using the Genentech talking points on a big billboard-type graphic—22 Republicans and 20 Democrats.

While the media was professing shock at this, the working stiffs I know in town were privately laughing. That's because, as an unnamed lobbyist told the New York Times, "This happens all the time. There was nothing nefarious about it." He or she is right. Working as a speechwriter here in Washington, D.C., I can't tell you how many times I've been hired to write similar press statements, opinion editorials, and talking points on any number of issues. That's what lobbyists and public relations firms here in Washington do—they try to get lawmakers to agree with their clients' positions, and they try to get them to say so publicly. The ones who drafted the statements were just doing their jobs.

The problem is not that lobbyists wrote press statements and talking points. The problem is that lawmakers—and really, their staffs—did not reword the boilerplate language and make it their own. The lobbyists were doing their jobs; the lawmakers weren't.

So was it just laziness? Or are members and their staffs too overworked to drill down and do it right? Maybe it's both: Maybe they're too overwhelmed to understand healthcare reform without help from the outside, and so they took the easy way out. I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing is going on with the economic bailouts, cap-and-trade, and any number of issues we're dealing with these days. Life is complicated lately in Washington, and I'm sure it is overwhelming at times.

No matter what the reason, the fact is that the people in the center of all this—the ones who have to write the legislation and vote on it—are relying word-for-word on what others tell them instead of analyzing the issue for themselves. That says something.

Maybe what it says is that this is all too much, too soon, too fast.

Link

This isn't new, but I thought/hoped things were gonna be different.

[TheMercenary]

Very interesting. Thanks.

[classicman]

Dunno how valid this is, but it may answer some questions . . .

HEALTHCARE Q & A
Abortion, wellness and other healthcare bill questions
Also: Benefits available under the 'public option' in the House bill, and who wouldn't be covered under the legislation.

Link

[TheMercenary]

CMS: House health bill will hike costs $289B

The House-approved healthcare overhaul would raise the costs of healthcare by $289 billion over the next 10 years, according to an analysis by the chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

(READ THE FULL REPORT HERE)


The CMS report is a blow to the White House and House Democrats who have vowed that healthcare reform would curb the growth of healthcare spending. CMS's analysis is not an apples-to-apples comparison to the cost estimate conducted by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) because CMS did not review tax provisions, which help offset the price tag of the Democrats' measure.


However, the CMS analysis clearly states that the House bill falls short in attaining a key goal of the Democrats' effort to reform the nation's healthcare system: "With the exception of the proposed reduction in Medicare... the provisions of H.R. 3962 would not have a significant impact on future healthcare cost growth rates."

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/67...ike-costs-289b

[TheMercenary]

Govt: Medicare paid $47 billion in suspect claims

WASHINGTON — The government paid more than $47 billion in questionable Medicare claims including medical treatment showing little relation to a patient's condition, wasting taxpayer dollars at a rate nearly three times the previous year.

Excerpts of a new federal report, obtained by The Associated Press, show a dramatic increase in improper payments in the $440 billion Medicare program that has been cited by government auditors as a high risk for fraud and waste for 20 years.

It's not clear whether Medicare fraud is actually worsening. Much of the increase in the last year is attributed to a change in the Health and Human Services Department's methodology that imposes stricter documentation requirements and includes more improper payments — part of a data-collection effort being ordered government-wide by President Barack Obama this coming week to promote "honest budgeting" and accurate statistics.

Still, the fiscal 2009 financial report — covering the first few months of the Obama administration — highlights the challenges ahead for a government that is seeking in part to pay for its proposed health care overhaul by cracking down on Medicare fraud. While noting that several new anti-fraud efforts were beginning, the government report makes clear that "aggressive actions" to date aimed at reducing improper payments had yielded little improvement.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...7WgKQD9BVQ8Q00

[classicman]

WASHINGTON — The government paid more than $47 billion in questionable Medicare claims including medical treatment showing little relation to a patient's condition, wasting taxpayer dollars at a rate nearly three times the previous year.

What percentage is that? It sounds rather small offhand.