News About Health Care Reform

Mayo Clinic Remedy for Health Care: It's The System, Stupid
Commonwealth Fund
March 24, 2008
An essential element of the Mayo vision, developed through consultations with some 800 "thought leaders" and 1,400 patients over the past year and a half, is the idea of teamwork. To be effective, care must be well coordinated and tailored to the particular patient and his or her particular condition and genetic makeup.

Dirty Words In Health Care
The Boston Globe
Feb. 27, 2008
The closest you can come to heresy in today's healthcare policy debate is to suggest that managed care can help and that capitation is the best way to pay for it. No presidential candidate even whispers the terms. What a shame.

Group Offers Doctors Bonuses for Better Care
Wall Street Journal
January 31, 2008
In an ambitious effort to shore up U.S. primary-care medicine, a coalition including General Electric Co., International Business Machines Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. is launching an initiative to pay doctors hefty bonuses for creating "medical homes" for patients.

U.S. Ranks Worst in Preventable Deaths Among 19 Industrialized Nations
Medical News Today
January 10, 2008
A new report published in the January/February issue of Health Affairs found that Americans get the worst deal in terms of preventable deaths among 19 industrialized nations. The report states that while other countries dramatically reduced deaths preventable by effective health care between 1997-8 and 2002-3, the U.S. did so only slightly. If the U.S. had performed as well as the top ranking countries, 101,000 fewer deaths per year could have been prevented.

The best performers were France, Japan, and Australia.

Top 10 Health Policy Stories of 2007
Commonwealth Fund
December 19, 2007
Health care reform issues - particularly how to achieve universal health insurance - were arguably more important to Americans in 2007 than ever before.

Health Reform Must Make Sure Care, Cost and Quality are Made Public
San Francisco Chronicle
Bill Novelli, Peter Lee, James Guest
December 6, 2007
AARP, Pacific Business Group on Health, and Consumers Union, along with other consumer, purchaser and labor organizations are working hard to make sure a final health care reform plan includes requirements that information health care cost and quality is collected and made public. The authors say that research shows that making information public spurs hospitals and other providers to improve care and reduce costs.

Over 40 Million In U.S. Can't Afford Health Care: Report
Reuters
Dec. 3, 2007
More than 40 million people in the United States say they cannot afford adequate heath care and go without drugs, eyeglasses or dental treatment, according to a federal report released on Monday.

Low-Income Families Face 3 Barriers To Health Care, According To New Study
Medical News Today
Dec. 1, 2007
There are so many problems in our health care delivery system and its financing structure that even families who have health insurance are having problems getting care as well as paying for it, according to a recent study by an Oregon Health & Science University family physician.

Young Adults Use Facebook To Advocate Health Insurance Expansion
The Politico
November 28, 2007
More than 20 groups on the Web site Facebook are "dedicated to advocating expanded government health coverage" and "many of them have hundreds of members," with some who "explicitly tie the issue to the 2008 elections.

CBO Director Says Tests, Treatments Of Dubious Value Drive Up Health Costs
Reuters
Nov. 14, 2007
For all the talk about aging baby boomers bankrupting the U.S. health care system, the real cost culprits may be tests and treatments of dubious value, according to a government study released on Tuesday.

"A lot of what we deliver is of dubious value," says Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag. Orszag called for a national push in public and private sectors to learn which treatments work best, and how they stack up against alternatives that may be older or cheaper but just as effective.

Toward Higher-Performance Health Systems: Adults' Health Care Experiences in Seven Countries, 2007
Commonwealth Fund
Nov. 2, 2007
In a new seven-nation survey by The Commonwealth Fund, U.S. adults were more likely to say they experienced medical errors, more likely to report they went without care because of the cost, and more likely to feel the health care system needs to be rebuilt completely. The results also show that U.S. adults have the highest out-of-pocket costs and greatest problems paying medical bills.

In the survey of 12,000 adults in Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, one-third of U.S. adults called for rebuilding the system, the highest rate of any country surveyed. In addition to cost concerns, the experiences of U.S. patients indicate more fragmented and inefficient care in the U.S., including medical record and test delays.

Audit: FDA Hampered In Review Of Imported Drugs
USA Today
Nov. 2, 2007
The Food and Drug Administration can't adequately inspect foreign drug manufacturers because its database is so outmoded it doesn't even know how many foreign firms are shipping drugs to the United States, a government watchdog group and former FDA officials told Congress on Thursday.

US Health Insurers Suggest Swiss, Dutch as Prototypes
USA Today
Nov. 1, 2007
America's health insurers put the spotlight on their counterparts in Europe Wednesday, part of an effort to demonstrate that not all countries with universal health systems have government-run programs like Canada or the United Kingdom.

Doctors Say They Need Protection To Apologize
The Boston Globe
Oct. 31, 2007
Consumers, insurers, and regulators are pushing for openness about medical errors, but Massachusetts doctors believe they need a change in state law so what they say cannot be used against them in a court of law. The Massachusetts Medical Society, which represents 18,000 of the state's physicians, is lobbying legislators for a special legal exemption for any doctor who apologizes to a patient and admits making a mistake: The statements could not be used as evidence against the doctor in a medical malpractice case.

Overuse May Be Challenge To Quality Health Care
Deseret Morning News
Oct. 28, 2007
U.S. health-care costs are the highest in the world, while we sit near the bottom on key health indicators. But health-care reform bumps into three formidable quality barriers: overuse, misuse and underuse, according to Dr. Mark R. Chassin, chairman of the Department of Health Policy at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, who in January will lead The Joint Commission, which monitors health-facility quality.

How To Heal A Sick System
Newsweek
Oct. 29, 2007 edition
Geraldine A. Ferraro

A politician learns firsthand the need for health-care reform.

Cancer Deaths Drop Off Rapidly
USA Today
Oct. 15, 2007
Deaths from cancer continue to drop, and the decline appears to be accelerating, federal health officials detail in a report out Monday. The rate of cancer started falling in 1992 with improved treatment and Americans taking to heart the message that not smoking, eating better and seeking early detection would reduce their risks. But the new report shows cancer deaths declined on average 2.1% each year from 2002 to 2004, the most recent year for which detailed data are available. That rate was nearly twice the annual decrease from 1993 to 2002.

America's Top Hospitals Are Real Lifesavers
The Washington Post
Oct. 15, 2007
Patients in U.S. hospitals that are considered top-ranked are 71 percent less likely to die than those in the lowest-rated hospitals, according to a study. The study examined 41 million Medicare hospitalization records at 5,000 hospitals from 2004 to 2006. The study authors contend that if all hospitals performed at the level of the top five-star rated hospitals, the lives of 266,604 Medicare patients could have been saved over those three years.

Health Trust to Save GM About $3 Billion a Year
Detroit Free Press
Oct. 15, 2007
General Motors Corp. said this morning it expects a new UAW-managed health care trust fund to save the company about $3 billion a year starting in 2010.

Quality Gap in U.S. Children's Health Care - New Study
Medical News Today
October 11, 2007
A new study on the quality of health care received by American children suggests that half the time, they are not receiving recommended standard care for conditions such as asthma and diarrhea and neither are they getting recommended preventive care and screening to check for things like weight, obesity and developmental problems.

Microsoft Offers System to Track Health Records
The New York Times
Oct. 5, 2007
Microsoft is starting its long-anticipated drive into the consumer health care market by offering free personal health records on the Web and pursuing a strategy that borrows from the company's successful formula in personal computer software.

How GM's Labor Pact Affects Us All
Fortune
Oct. 3, 2007
The historic deal between GM and the UAW on health benefits is the latest and loudest signal that healthcare will be the largest domestic issue facing the next President. That news, combined with Hillary Clinton's announcement of her plan and the Mayo Clinic's release of its proposal, starts to set the firm outlines of the coming debate.

It will be big and messy, taking us places we haven't imagined, but here's one probable - and surprising - consequence: Americans will increasingly realize that their own health depends on business's health.

Healthy Living Could Save U.S. $1 Trillion, Study Finds
Los Angeles Times
Oct. 3, 2007
The rapid rise in preventable chronic diseases — such as obesity and heart disease — over the last 20 years is hurting U.S. economic productivity, escalating treatment costs and causing unnecessary suffering, a new report says. The good news is the trend can be turned around with healthy doses of prevention and early detection.

Showdown Looms As Child Health Bill Passes
The Washington Post
Sept. 28, 2007
The Senate, with an overwhelming bipartisan vote yesterday, sent President Bush a $35 billion expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, setting up the biggest domestic policy clash of his presidency and launching a fight that will reverberate into the 2008 elections.

Health Care: You'd Better Shop Around
The Star-Tribune
Sept. 28, 2007
A small but growing number of patients are calling multiple places to check prices before deciding where to go, something unheard of just a few years ago.

The program's expansion was announced a year after Wal-Mart introduced its $4 generic plan, which has been copied by other retailers. Government economists recently credited those pricing plans with contributing to a slowdown of inflation in the Consumer Price Index for prescription drugs.

State and City Healthcare Reforms Collide With a U.S. Law
The Christian Science Monitor
Sept. 27, 2007
ERISA, which stands for the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, shields businesses from state and local regulation of the benefits they offer workers, including health insurance. Without the law, national companies in particular could achieve little uniformity in their benefit plans.

But that uniformity comes at a cost: The law limits the abilities of state legislatures to serve as laboratories for healthcare solutions. Courts have already applied ERISA to strike down efforts in Maryland and Suffolk County, N.Y., that would compel employers to cover more people.

Revisiting Crowd-Out (PDF)
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
September 2007
The brief updates a previous report on "crowd-out," the phenomenon of public coverage substituting for private insurance. The brief finds that incentives for low-wage workers to purchase affordable health coverage might be a more effective way to prevent crowd-out than anti-crowd-out measures, which have been found to discourage the uninsured as well as those with private insurance from enrolling in public health programs.

With Health Deal, UAW's Clout, Influence Grow
The Detroit News
Sept. 27, 2007
The unprecedented health care deal the United Auto Workers negotiated with General Motors Corp. may do more than insure retiree health care benefits against bankruptcy. It could give the union something it has lacked for a long time — a voice.

Fewer Seniors Live in Nursing Homes
USA Today
Sept. 27, 2007
Despite the graying of the nation, the percentage of elderly living in nursing homes has declined, according to Census data released today. The downturn reflects the improved health of seniors and more choices of care for the elderly.

About 7.4% of Americans aged 75 and older lived in nursing homes in 2006, compared with 8.1% in 2000 and 10.2% in 1990.

Sick in America: It Can Happen To You
The Oprah Winfrey Show
Sept. 27, 2007
The healthcare crisis has become a hot-button issue in American politics. As bills pile up, the cost of medical care is the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States. On average, treatment for a brain tumor costs $200,000. A stroke — $140,000. Leukemia can cost up to $600,000. Would you be covered?

How do they afford it? By cutting benefits and shifting more costs onto their workers. There are also newer insurance products geared to this market.

Health Care Reform: California's Approach has the Potential to Set Standard for US
San Francisco Chronicle
Sept. 18, 2007
It's literally a life-and-death issue for many Americans, yet on health care reform, voters have gotten the same political diagnosis for decades: little or no outlook for improvement. But California, the nation's most populous state - and home to the biggest and thorniest health care challenges in the country - has the potential to play a trendsetting role for reform, some political observers say, should Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic-controlled Legislature reach consensus as the 2008 presidential election looms.

One-Third of US Lacked Health Insurance, Survey Finds
Reuters
Sept. 20, 2007
More than one-third of the U.S. population under the age of 65 went without health insurance for all or part of the last two years, a consumer group said on Thursday.

The nonprofit Families USA group used data from last month's U.S. Census Bureau report that found 47 million Americans went without health insurance for all of 2006.

Families USA broke down that figure and calculated that 89.6 million people under age 65 — 34.7 percent — went without health insurance at some point during 2006-2007. It used a projection for the remaining months of this year.

"The huge number of people without health coverage over the past two years helps to explain why health care has become the top domestic issue in the 2008 presidential campaign," Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said in a statement.

"The expansion of health coverage in America is no longer simply a matter of altruism about other people but a matter of intense self-interest."

The Doctor Will E-Mail You Now
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sept. 20, 2007
Secure connections offer access to medical records, test results

As rising medical costs and long waits in doctors' offices concern patients, medical systems are looking for ways to make health care more affordable and convenient. Providing e-mail access for patients is a logical step, many say.

No Prescription? No Problem Online.
AP/Washington Post
Aug. 23, 2007
Hundreds of illegal online pharmacies ignore federal laws and certification standards as they fill hundreds of prescriptions each day, according to a study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

Coverage, delivery key to health care
Sacramento Bee
Aug. 22, 2007
What good will it do to expand health insurance coverage for millions of Californians who will receive their care in a delivery system that is not nearly as good as it should be, and, at times, is downright dysfunctional? We should make sure that increased coverage does not result in exorbitant cost increases over time because of a lack of incentives for delivering cost-effective, high quality care. To ignore delivery system reform runs the risk of eroding insurance coverage for those most in need, as has happened in Oregon and other states where insurance reform has not been accompanied by delivery system reform.

Seniors head south to Mexican nursing homes
Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report
August 16, 2007
A "small but steadily growing number" of U.S. residents "are moving across the border" into Mexican nursing homes, which provide care at a "fraction" of the price of U.S. facilities, USA Today reports. As millions of baby boomers reach retirement age and health care costs increase, Mexican nursing home officials expect more U.S. residents to move into their facilities. About 40,000 to 80,000 U.S. retirees currently live in Mexico, but no data exist on the number of retirees who live in nursing homes, David Warner, a public affairs professor at the University of Texas, said.

Foreign nursing schools sell to U.S. students
Fierce HealthCare
Aug. 16, 2007
Well aware of the growing nursing shortage in the U.S., foreign medical schools are increasingly pitching U.S. citizens. Not only are more nurses needed than schools can turn out, interested students often can't get a slot in existing programs. That's why countries like India, Britain, Belize and Jamaica are getting into the game, hoping to attract these otherwise qualified students into their schools.

Employer-sponsored health care should be ditched, Bennett says
Deseret Morning News, Salt Lake City
August 12, 2007
Eliminating employer-sponsored health care is a step that Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, says will make health care better and more affordable.

Kids without enough insurance skip vaccines
USA Today
Aug. 8, 2007
A study in today's Journal of the American Medical Association finds that underinsured children — those whose health insurance doesn't cover all the recommended vaccines - may miss out on immunizations that are fully covered for children who are uninsured or who are on Medicaid.

Underinsured Risking Debt to Pay Health Bills
Washington Post
August 7, 2007
One in four Americans with health insurance are still underinsured — meaning they are often using up their savings or turning to credit cards to cover medical expenses, according to a survey in the September Consumer Reports. Overall, the survey of 37,000 people found, 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 64 have inadequate access to health care.

Doctors and Nurses Group Calls for National Health Insurance Act
Medical News Today
Aug. 8, 2007
Recently a group of 15,000 physicians and 75,000 nurses called on Congress to "recall" private health insurance, calling it a defective and obsolete product. "A single-payer style Medicare for all bill, HR 676 — that would finally eliminate Americans' financial worries associated with un-payable medical bills, is the only health reform proposal that is proven to work," said the Physicians for a National Health Program and the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.

Even deep price cuts add few to ranks of insured
USA Today
July 17, 2007
A 50 percent cut in health insurance premiums would only reduce the number of uninsured Americans by 3 percent, estimates a Rand study out Monday, which suggests that incentives and government tax cuts won't lead to universal coverage.

New Web Site To Provide Information About Health Care, Presidential Campaign
Kaiser Family Foundation
July 13, 2007

Massachusetts Begins Universal Health Care
Washington Post
July 1, 2007
"Today, the home of some of the nation's most prestigious hospitals and medical schools becomes the first state to require its residents to have health insurance or face financial penalties. Making insurance mandatory — and more affordable — for Massachusetts's 6.5 million residents is the centerpiece of a law approved by the legislature last year that civic and business leaders hope will dramatically reduce the ranks of the state's 400,000 uninsured and the number of people who seek costly "uncompensated" care in hospital emergency rooms."

A 'Medical Home' Improves Health Care for Minorities
Washington Post
June 27, 2007
"Providing minority patients with a "medical home" — where they have a regular doctor who oversees and coordinates their care — may help eliminate racial disparities in health care and "promote more health-care equity," according to a survey released Wednesday from the Commonwealth Fund."

Kaiser Poll Finds Health Care Remains Top Issue
Kaiser Family Foundation
June 20, 2007
June tracking poll finds that health care remains the top domestic issue that the public wants presidential candidates to address, trailing only Iraq on the public's overall priority list.

What Does a Health Crisis Look Like? See Houston
USA Today
June 19, 2007
As the Houston area struggles to deal with a rising tide of uninsured, it offers a lesson for the nation: Let the problem get out of hand — to a point where nearly 1 in 3 people have no coverage — and you won't just have a less healthy population. You'll have an overwhelmed health care system.

U.S. Low in Primary Care Physician Visits, Study Shows
ScienceDaily
June 15, 2007
The average American spends a total of about 30 minutes a year with a primary care physician in a system that is less comprehensive than that of Australia or New Zealand, according to a new study comparing primary care practice in the three countries. Findings showed patient-physician time in the US is about half the average of New Zealand and one-third of Australia.

Cost-Sharing in Health Plans Prompts Selection of Lower-Cost Services, According to Survey
Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report
June 14, 2007
Consumers with more cost-sharing responsibility in their health plans are more likely to use lower-cost alternatives for medical care, according to a report by Booz Allen Hamilton, the Bergen Record reports. According to the study, "Our research suggests that people with greater cost responsibility are beginning to act like true retail consumers — becoming more aware of both cost and quality differences."

Large Employers Propose New Employee Benefit System
ERISA Industry Committee
June 13, 2007
In one of the first detailed health care reform plans released by big businesses, a coalition of more than 100 of the nation's largest employers proposed a new employee benefit system in which workers would receive health care coverage and retirement plans through competing regional third-party benefit administrators. Members of the ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC), including General Motors, IBM and Tyco International, believe the New Benefit Platform for Life Security will help initiate a nationwide discussion about how better to deliver retirement and health security to the U.S. workforce.

Health Insurance Crisis for Children
ABC News
June 10, 2007
Nine million American children currently don't have health insurance, and child advocates say some government officials deliberately create a blizzard of bureaucracy and red tape.

America's Top CEOs Outline Key Steps to Ensure Access to Affordable, Quality Health Care
June 6, 2007
Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers whose companies represent more than 10 million employees and provide health care coverage for more than 35 million Americans, today issued "Health Care Costs in America: A Call to Action for Covering the Uninsured".

The "Unisurables"
CBS News Investigates The Tactics Used By Insurance Companies To Deny Health Coverage
CBS News
May 23, 2007
A two-month CBS News investigation exposes a system stacked against the individual. Unlike group plans provided by employers, individual insurers can pick and chose their customers, creating guidelines designed to deny coverage for the most common of health problems, acne, asthma, athlete's foot, allergies — and that's just the A's.

Health Centers Increasingly Seek Patient Feedback to Improve Care
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
May 23, 2007
Centers across the nation are surveying former inpatients about a range of issues, including how often doctors and nurses treated them with courtesy and respect, how well their pain was controlled and whether they would recommend the hospitals that served them to friends or relatives. Using information drawn from those surveys, consumers will be able to compare their local hospitals early next year.

In a Bid for Better Care, Surgery with a Warranty
Star-News
May 17, 2007
What if medical care came with a 90-day warranty? That is what a hospital group in central Pennsylvania is trying to learn in an experiment that some experts say is a radically new way to encourage hospitals and doctors to provide high-quality care that can avoid costly mistakes.

Dingell, Kennedy Introduce 'Medicare for All' Bill
Kaiser Family Foundation
April 26, 2007
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) introduced companion bills (S 1218 and H 2034) on April 26, 2007, that would allow U.S. residents younger than age 65 to enroll in Medicare.

Social Security, Medicare Panel Adjusts Forecast
Washington Post
April 24, 2007
New trustees report: Medicare and Social Security are still headed toward insolvency, but not quite as fast as predicted last year. The new report says Social Security will be out of money in 2041. For Medicare, it's 2019. Both dates are one year later than previous estimates.

Cover the Uninsured Week - April 23 - 29
Sponsored by the Alliance for Health Reform
See www.covertheuninsured.org
Many materials available on the site, including a 24-page guide: "Health Care Coverage in America: Understanding the Issues and Proposed Solutions."

Basic Drug Coverage OK'd in Universal Health Plan
Boston Globe
March 21, 2007
Massachusetts is poised to become the first state to require that all adults have health insurance that includes prescription drug coverage.

Lessons for Health Care Could Be Found Abroad
Annals of Internal Medicine
March 20, 2007
No one country's health care system is necessarily better or worse across all measures of success, and research has shown that quality does not necessarily vary with financing mechanisms or with the amount spent on health care; this suggests that the United States and other industrialized countries could learn from one another.

How Changes in Medical Technology Affect Health Care Costs
Kaiser Family Foundation
March 2007
Can the United States continue to spend an expanding share of GDP on health (from 7.2% in 1970 to a projected 20% by 2015)? If the answer is no, then society must consider ways to reduce future health spending growth. And since, as described earlier, the development and diffusion of new medical technology is a significant contributor to the rapid growth in health care spending, it is new technology that we would look to for cost savings.

Poll: The Politics Of Health Care
CBS News
March 1, 2007
Americans think the U.S. health care system is in need of major repairs, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll. Nine out of 10 say the system needs at least fundamental changes ... Two-thirds say the federal government should guarantee that all Americans have health insurance — and a similar number says providing health insurance for all is a more serious problem than keeping health care costs down

Bush Says Tax Reform Could Make Health Care More Affordable
Market Watch
February 17, 2007
One of the most promising ways to make private coverage more affordable and accessible is to reform the tax code. Today, the tax code unfairly penalizes people who do not get health insurance through their job.

Adding Up the Reasons for Expensive Health Care
Washington Post
February 14, 2007
It's hardly an original point, but now that health-care reform is back on the political agenda, it's worth emphasizing: The reason the system has been so resistant to change is that lots of powerful interests do very nicely with things just the way they are.

Businesses, Unions Call for Universal Healthcare by 2012
Boston Globe
February 8, 2007
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., AT&T Inc., Intel Corp., and Kelly Services Inc. joined forces with two labor unions in calling for an overhaul of the US healthcare system that would guarantee universal coverage by 2012.

Healthcare: Diagnosing the Problem But Not the Remedy
MarketWatch
January 25, 2007
Bush, states, and presidential hopefuls put healthcare back on front burner.

Physician Groups Announce Principles for Reforming the U.S. Health Care System
American Medical Association
January 11, 2007
Ten of the nation's leading physician associations have agreed on 11 principles to reform the U.S. health care system. The principles serve as a guide for Congress to improve both individual health and the collective health care system in the U.S.

Sen. Kennedy Seeks Universal Health Plan
Associated Press
January 10, 2007
The federal government should join the state of Massachusetts in enacting universal health coverage, said Sen. Edward Kennedy, the new chairman of the Senate committee with jurisdiction over numerous health issues.

Health Care Spending in the United States and OECD Countries
Kaiser Family Foundation
January 2007
Health spending is rising faster than incomes in most developed countries, which raises questions about how these countries will pay for future health care needs.

States Think Big on Health Reform
Stateline.org
December 28, 2006
While Massachusetts is hailed as a trailblazer, even states with less ambitious goals are setting out to repair the country's broken health care system.

Are Healthcare's Problems Incurable? One Integrated Delivery System's Program for Transforming Its Care
The Brookings Institution
December 15, 2006
Rapid advances in medical knowledge have improved care for many conditions, but also produced unpleasant "side effects," including rising costs and disappointing quality. This brief argues that an important strategy for improving healthcare is the development of provider organizations that can implement electronic medical records (EMR) and other systems that can enhance coordination of clinicians, reduce inefficiency, and improve safety and quality.

Health Care Reform: Tough Choices
WebMD.com
November 14, 2006
Survey Shows Desire for Change, but Not Sacrifice

Marketplace Money
American Public Media
November 3, 2006
Tech sector giant Andy Grove of Intel has some bright ideas about improving the health care system. Editor Chris Farrell says the government should pay attention.

Universal Health Care: We Can't Afford Not To
USA Today
October 19, 2006
The most basic question about health care reform is an old one: Should basic care be a "right" for everyone regardless of income, pre-existing illness or bad genes — or should it be a "privilege" obtained by hard work or bestowed by good birth? We would never argue that police and fire protection should be distributed based on income, so why should health care?

U.S. Health System Performance: A National Scorecard
Health Affairs
Sept. 20, 2006
This paper presents the findings of a new scorecard designed to assess and monitor multiple domains of U.S. health system performance. The scorecard uses national and international data to identify performance benchmarks and calculates simple ratio scores comparing U.S averages to benchmarks. Average ratio scores range from 51 to 71 (out of a maximum 100) across domains of health outcomes, quality, access, equity, and efficiency. The overall picture that emerges from the scorecard is one of missed opportunities and room for improvement. The findings underscore the importance of policies that take a coherent, whole-system approach to change and address the interaction of access, quality, and cost.

My Experience with the Health Care System
Associated Content, CO
Sept. 1, 2006
I have been suffering from lower back pain for the last three months. The pain, as anguishing as it is, pales in comparison to the pain of having to cope with apathetic doctors and the managed health care system. I have come to understand why health care reform is such a heated topic.

Census Finds More Uninsured
United Press International
August 29, 2006
Some 46.6 million Americans now lack health insurance coverage, and as the employer-based system erodes, government safety-net programs are increasingly picking up the slack, according to Census data released Tuesday.

Making Health Care the Engine that Drives the Economy New York Times (requires registration)
August 22, 2006
The United States already spends nearly 16 percent of its gross domestic product on health care, and it is almost impossible to know where all that money goes. Projections are that health care will take up even more of the G.D.P. as the population ages and as more expensive drugs and medical devices are developed. But a new economic approach to health care expenditures views costs in a very different light. Economists agree that huge increases are coming. But some say that may be just fine.

Smart Care Via a Mouse, but What Will It Cost?
New York Times (requires registration)
August 20, 2006
While electronic patient records will help identify cost-saving opportunities, it is not the hoped-for fix for the nation's rising health care bill.

Is the Time Ripe for Universal Coverage? Some Health Care Leaders Say Yes
Minnesota Public Radio
August 20, 2006

Nearly Half of Adults Experience Poor-Quality Care, Study Reveals
Commonwealth Fund
August 17, 2006
More than 40 percent of Americans have experienced "poorly coordinated, inefficient, or unsafe care" at some point during the past two years, according to a new survey from Harris Interactive.

German Health Care Reform: Mission Impossible?
Deutsche Welle
August 8, 2006
Germany has one of the best health care systems in the world, but experts have said for years that it won't stay that way unless it is substantially reformed. The system faces a massive budget shortfall, largely due to a financing structure that no longer works in today's Germany due to rising costs, low birth rates and stubbornly high unemployment.

Defining a High Performance Health System
Commonwealth Fund
August 2006
The Commonwealth Fund's Commission on a High Performance Health System outlines its vision of a uniquely American, high performance health system. It then identifies the most critical sources of our current system's failures and offers a strategic framework for addressing them through specific actions.

Milliman Medical Index 2006
This second annual study determined that the average annual medical cost for a family of four increased by 9.6 percent from 2005 to 2006. The average annual rate of increase for the four-year period 2002-2006 was 9.7 percent. Average total medical spending for a family of four reached $13,382 in 2006.

Health Care Spending: What the Future Will Look Like
June, 28, 2006
National Center for Policy Analysis
If current trends hold in the United States, by 2050 government health care spending will claim one-third of GDP... No country can spend an ever-rising share of its output on health care, indefinitely. There is a limit to how much a government can extract from the young to accommodate the old. When that limit is reached, governments go broke. Of the 10 countries considered here, the United States appears most likely to hit this limit.

Growing health care costs threaten to consume retirees' savings
USA Today
June 26, 2006
As Americans live longer and health care costs surge, underestimating the impact of medical costs could dash your plans for a comfortable retirement. Many Americans are already behind in saving for retirement - and medical care often doesn't even factor into their calculations.

Low Payments by U.S. Raise Medical Bills Billions a Year
June 1, 2006
New York Times (requires registration)
Employers and consumers are paying billions of dollars more a year for medical care to compensate for imbalances in the nation's health care system resulting from tight Medicare and Medicaid budgets, according to Blue Cross officials and independent actuaries.

Retiree benefits grow into 'monster'
USA Today
May 25, 2006
Taxpayers owe more than a half-million dollars per household for financial promises made by government, mostly to cover the cost of retirement benefits for baby boomers, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

Report Reveals Unhealthy Gap in Access to Care Between Americans Who Have Health Coverage and Those Who Do Not
Robert Wood Foundation
April 26, 2006
A new report analyzing government data confirms that there is a significant gap in the amount of health care accessed by people who do and do not have health care coverage. Nationally, uninsured adults are nearly four times more likely not to see a doctor when they need to compared to people who have health coverage.

Mandating health coverage for all
Marketwatch.com
April 5, 2006
With its combination approach, Massachusetts' health-insurance reform may serve as a model for the nation, reflecting the benefits of political compromise, health-care analysts said.

The Doctor Will See You for Exactly Seven Minutes
March 22, 2006
New York Times (requires registration)
When politicians speak of America's health care needs, they often miss an important point: the doctor-patient relationship has become frayed. Patients aren't unhappy just because health care costs too much (though they would certainly like it to be more affordable). Rather, people sense a malaise within the system that has eroded the respect they feel patients deserve.

Americans Lack Confidence In Health Reform, Poll Finds
March 7, 2006
Wall Street Journal Online
A majority of U.S. adults lack confidence in the Bush administration's ability to reform the nation's health-care system.

Onto Something: Health Care Reform is Badly Needed and Help is in Sight
Feb. 24, 2006
The Southern
I've never understood why society is willing to pay for my son's education but not his health care. Personally, I'd prefer it the other way around. I can teach him to read and write, but I can't conjure the life-saving medicines and services he would need in serious illness or injury.