Dodd: No More Delay For Health Care Reform

By Michael Combier-Talk Radio News Service

Businesses in the the U. S. and ordinary citizens are struggling with their medical expenses, resulting in 62 percent of personal bankruptcies in 2008. Congress can no longer delay instituting healthcare reform, said U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), temporary Chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions at a press conference this morning in Washington.

Leading the committee as a replacement for Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) who is suffering from a brain tumor, Dodd said that healthcare reform “will affect every single one of our citizens for years and years to come. And so getting busy about it is important, getting it right is important... (It is) the single most important domestic issue that we have to grapple with and we have to get going on it. We can’t delay in my view,” he said. “The estimates that families can be spending 50 percent of their gross income on health care premiums is just not sustainable.”

A legislative text of the Health Committee bill would be announced later today and is expected to contain “an aggressive schedule,” said Todd. The Committee wants to start having hearings by Friday and start to mark up the legislation on Tuesday of next week.

“This is a beginning...of a journey that will go on for weeks,” said Dodd adding that on the legislation to be introduced later today, “there are some gaps in it (the legislation), and done so intentionally but there are no gaps in our determination.”

This legislation will not make U.S. citizens change their health coverage if they are satisfied with it. “If you like what you’ve got, you get to keep it,” said Dodd. Additionally, no one will dictate to Americans what to choose and the choice of coverage will be left to the customers.

Every American needs to “have access to an affordable, high quality health care...Our economy depends upon it,” said Dodd. The constant rise in medical bills and the fact that health care represents around 18 percent of the country’s gross domestic product “is not only unacceptable, it is completely unsustainable. We just cannot sustain that.”

New Study On Healthcare Reform Shows Economic Advantages

A new White House study shows that the economic advantages of reforming healthcare could be beneficial for the majority of Americans. According to Dr. Christina Romer, the chair of the Council for Economic Advisors, expanding coverage for all Americans would not only help with controlling healthcare costs but it would have an enormous effect on lowering the deficit.

“Doing healthcare reform well, is incredibly important for the economy...this is a realistic goal, albeit a challenging one,” said Romer.

By having reform more Americans will be able to see their physician on a regular basis, Romer said. This would improve life expectancy and keep people working which will presumably have a strong impact on the economy.

The fifty-one page report focuses on slowing the growth rate of costs, primarily due to changing provider incentives, health information technology and providing the incentives for consumers so that they can make better choices. There were no short term effects of healthcare reform discussed.

The report can be found at the White House website.

A Full House

Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News

House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) presented the House Democrats’ agenda for the economy, energy, education and healthcare.

The economy remains the top item, divided between the budget and legislation to address the crisis. “The economy is continuing to suffer, we’re continuing to see the loss of jobs, many Americans continue to be put at risk,” Hoyer said.

The budget focuses on making “strategic investments” and reversing “years of irresponsible Republican policies,” he said. “We believe all of the bills we’ve passed are consistent with trying to create jobs and invest (in economic recovery).”

Two corrective legislations arebeing proposed. The “Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009”, which is designed to require fairer interest rates and practices for consumers. For example, it would require that the highest interest rate-bearing part of a debt be reduced first by payments, rather last, as is now the often the case.

“In addition, the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act should come out of committee this week or next,” Hoyer said.

There is a 600 page “discussion document” and four more hearings to shape the American Security and Clean Energy Act, which the House hopes to consider in early summer. He noted that this is this is the 39th anniversary of Earth Day, “I remember because I’ve been working here since the first one.”

The Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means and the Education and Labor Committees are all simultaneously working on healthcare reform. Democrats hope to have healthcare legislation on the House Floor for consideration by the August break. The goal is universal coverage and accessibility, though probably not a publicly funded single-payer model.

Hoyer discussed his recent trip to South America. Mexico seems to be committed to working with the U.S. to fight drug smuggling and related violence. Panama is willing to work on their role as a drug smuggling highway, which has increased as American forces become more successful at interdiction at sea, and on money laundering. Columbia has reduced the power of the drug lords. He described the discussions with Brazil as “positive’” “useful” and “engaging,” and said they are interested in advancing a partnership with the U.S.

Gun control may have to remain in the DC voting rights bill, if it is to pass within this session, according to Hoyer, who said, “The biggest objective is to enfranchise the roughly 600,000 citizens of the United States who happen to live in the District of Columbia.” He called their current lack of voting rights “an egregious hole in the integrity of our democracy.”

Next congress looks at hate crimes legislation

Healthcare Reform: Ain't None of 'Em Pretty, Pick One You Can Live With.

Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News
 
 
 At the Alliance for Health Reform briefing, Covering the Uninsured: Options for Reform, Diane Rowland (Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured) said that 15 percent of us are uninsured.
That’s 45 million people out about 298 million. This uninsured figure includes the fact that 81 percent of the uninsured actually have an employed member of the household. These figures are from 2007 and she expects the number to have risen due to the recession.
 Even at 400 percent of the poverty level, 10 percent are not covered.
These rates are not evenly distributed, but tend to be least in the Great Lakes region and progressively worse south and west. The uninsured are about ten times more likely to forego needed medical attention.
Adults without children were the most likely to lack insurance because the eligibility rules are strictest for them even before the recent expansion and extension of SCHIP.
Between 2000 and 2008 the average premium for a family rose from $6,438 to $12,680, with the worker’s share rising from 25 percent to 26.5 percent, for an annual increase of $1,735 per family.
Public support was about two-thirds for healthcare reform both before and after the Wall Street crash, she said.
Ah, but what sort of reform?
Jack Ebeler,  Ebeler Consulting, presented the main alternatives, which he boiled down to tweaking the present system or restructuring it. In the first case, he said, we could go with individual or employer mandates. And/or expand existing public coverage, such as Medicaid, Medicare, and SCHIP. And/or revise regulations affecting private insurance.
The other main approach he described would be to move away from employers, either by going to single payer or by redirecting both responsibility and subsidies away from employers toward individuals.
What we are actually going to get is “mix and match.”
Bradley Herring, PhD, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, presented some pros and cons of each of the major proposals. There are only four to consider:
Single Payer: HR 676
It would be easy to understand, relatively easy to apply, vs. the others, and would deliver large administrative cost savings. While workers and employers would be glad to be rid of premiums, the increase in taxes, especially for the wealthy, would be substantial.
He described this as a transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor, from the well to the sick, and from the Great Lakes region to the poorer states. He also noted that providers would likely see their incomes fall.
The McCain-Republican vision bets on tax code revisions and a competitive market to control costs and drive enrollment. The downside is basically everything we don’t like now: High risk/high cost individuals are separated from the low-risk/high profit pool. There would also be less consumer protections, less standardization of coverage, and high administrative costs at all levels.
The Obama-Baucus plan adds mandates to the current system and gradually brings public sector insurance into competition with the private sector. Advantage: least change. Disadvantage: least change.
The Wyden-Bennett regulates and subsidizes private markets. This one actually gets more bipartisan support, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates it could break even after only a few years. It was almost no one’s favorite.
And there’s the rub.
Rowland notes that two thirds of the people want healthcare reform. Most of them have a first choice among the four plans, and the status quo is most people’s second choice. Most of those polled would rather keep what we have than accept reforms that are not their first choice.

In Health Care Reform, We Don't Know What Works, But We know What Doesn't

In Health Care Reform, We Don't Know What Works, But We know What Doesn't

Coffee Brown,MD, University of New Mexico, for Talk Radio News Service


 
 "We just have to try some of these, knowing some of them will fail," Director Douglas W. Elmendorf, Director of the Congressional Budget Office, told Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND). Elmendorf reinforced Conrad's statement that healthcare costs will rise from 16 percent of the GDP to 20 percent if nothing is done. One dollar out of five would then go to healthcare in 2020, and the total Medicare-Medicaid burden would rise to 52 Trillion dollars over the next 75 years if nothing were done and if that money existed, according to both Conrad and Elmendorf. This would occur within the lifespans of most of the children who are alive now.
Elmendorf told the Senate Budget Committee, that none of the projections in the CBO's report on the costs of medical reform are certain, that some are much more speculative than others, and that there is simply  no way to know ahead of time which strategies will be most cost effective.
The most promising way to pay for some form of universal healthcare access,Elmendorf said, would be to completely or partially roll back tax credits for employer and personal health insurance premiums. "That saves the government money, but the cost is transferred to individuals," he said.
To achieve universal health coverage, it will be necessary to pool risks and to enforce and subsidize health insurance mandates, he said.
Medical insurance premiums increased by 78 percent during the same period,( 2003-2007) that wages increased 19 percent. So long as medical costs rise faster than wages, more of every dollar will go into medical care.
Chairman Conrad then pointed out that we pay almost twice as much, 8,300 dollars per person per year, as any other nation, yet we rank below 20th on international quality scales. Even within the U.S., he pointed out, the regions that spend the least tend to have the best outcomes. Clearly, he said, higher cost does not equal higher quality. To save healthcare, we need to put less, rather than more money into it, though he accepted that there may be transition costs.