Healthcare

This month, yet another horrific gun tragedy struck a seemingly safe community in our nation and shattered the hearts of Americans everywhere. The event put a stop to our country’s detachment from the disturbing trend of gun violence and replaced it with a resolute call for change. The president, in response, established a working group on gun violence tasked with presenting real reforms. Public figures like Joe Scarbrough, an ardent supporter of gun ownership, spoke eloquently and passionately about the need to reform our gun laws. All these signs point to a real opportunity for an adult discussion about this problem. This can be achieved in three ways.

Five years ago, the Pancreatic Cancer Research & Education Act was introduced in the 110th Congress. Back then, many didn’t believe the bill would overcome the gauntlet of obstacles in Congress and become law. In the years since then, Congress has become more polarized, and when it was re-introduced in the 112th Congress, the road to passage looked bleak. 

The massacre at Newtown, whose victims included three children with autism and special needs and two heroic and dedicated special education teachers, was yet another wakeup call to a society that still refuses to confront in any meaningful way the gross deficiencies in our mental health system.

In addressing the nation the other day, President Obama cited the need for a multi-faceted approach in developing a plan to reduce gun violence. Importantly, the president also referenced the inaccessibility of mental health care in America. If past experience is any guide, we can expect meaningful conversation about reforming our mental health system to be drowned out in the coming days and weeks by the gun control debate, the fiscal cliff negotiations and whatever events the next news cycle may bring.

As the father of an eight-year-old son and the grandfather to six children under the age of 10, I am horrified by the incredible act of violence that killed 20 young students and the teachers who fought to protect them last week in Newtown, Conn.

In the wake of this tragedy, there’s no doubt that we need a serious and thoughtful national discussion about preventing this kind of senseless violence and protecting our children in their schools. I believe that should include a discussion about finding ways to spend federal dollars more wisely when it comes to treating and identifying people who are mentally ill. It should also include a conversation about ways that we can intervene before someone who is mentally ill does something that tragically impacts their lives and the lives of others.

I’m wrapping up my term as Governor here in Montana, and we’ve had a great run -- eight years of record budget surpluses, huge investments in education, tax cuts for most everyone, the largest increase in college graduation rates in America, and one of the lowest jobless rates in the country. We’ve brought this about by doing the opposite of what the U.S. Congress does: thinking out of the box, challenging expenses small and large, and driving hard bargains for whatever the government must purchase.

When CODEPINK, MoveOn and representatives of other organizations marched into Senator Harry Reid’s D.C. office on Tuesday, December 18, they wanted a simple answer to a simple question: Does the Senator support a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity clips, such as the legislation proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein and supported by President Obama and Vice President Biden? It would seem like a no-brainer for the Senate majority leader to fall in line with the leadership of his party in backing a modest bill that would ban the sale of weapons that are only good for mass murder. Unfortunately, Reid’s senior policy advisor Kasey Gillette was unable to give an answer.

Have you noticed the pattern?  A private company cuts corners on risk control; a terrible disaster occurs; and then politicians and the public blame . . . the U.S. regulatory system.

The latest example: a Massachusetts drug compounding pharmacy that contaminated vials of steroids and caused hundreds of cases of fungal meningitis, including dozens of deaths. Even while the Food and Drug Administration was still responding to the serious public health threat, the FDA Commissioner had to answer angry questions from members of Congress. Representative Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) told Commissioner Margaret Hamburg that the meningitis outbreak “was a complete and utter failure on the part of your agency.”

The federal government will soon close the public comment period for an important new healthcare regulatory ruling.

A key element of the President's 2010 health bill is the establishment of "essential health benefits" (EHB) for all insurance plans sold on the new state-level exchanges. In order for private insurance companies to participate in the exchanges, the plans they offer will have to include coverage for a predetermined set of drugs and medical services, at a minimum.

Numbers are a big deal in Congress right now. Strategies are being planned and compromise is being attempted, but it all comes down to whether the numbers add up to a budget framework that will avoid the fiscal cliff. Some big dollar figures can be attributed to Medicare and Medicaid. However, nursing homes only make up a small sliver of each of those programs’ spending and yet, over recent years, have been dealt billions of dollars in cuts. So, as Congress begins examining its budget sheets and crunching the figures, they should consider some new numbers.

We don’t know if soda, beer, wine, or liquor will be on hand when Democratic and Republican negotiators meet to decide how to avoid letting the economy drop over the fiscal cliff. But taxes on those products definitely should be on the table.

As far back as 1776, Adam Smith, the “father of free market economics,” wrote that “sugar, rum, and tobacco are commodities which are nowhere necessaries of life, which [have] become objects of almost universal consumption, and which are therefore extremely proper subjects of taxation.”  Smith’s sentiment is echoed today by the Bipartisan Policy Commission, the Economic Policy Institute, the American Medical Association, and dozens of groups interested in health and government revenue. The Congressional Budget Office includes these taxes in its catalogue of revenue options.