Healthcare

In Friday’s New York Times, Oakland Athletics’ General Manager Billy Beane, along with two politicians, co-wrote an op-ed arguing for the use of greater statistical analysis to bring down the costs of healthcare, while also increasing its efficacy. While the oddball pairing of former Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) are the powerhouse names on the letter, it’s Billy Beane’s that should inspire the most confidence.

There are some people who are so talented that they make things more interesting no matter what the medium or format. If you are a Tony Kornheiser devotee, you probably have gone to great lengths to follow him in print, radio and TV. I feel this way about Billy Beane. I was intrigued to learn that Beane has already turned his analytical eye on soccer (my favorite sport), and now it turns out that he has a plan to fix healthcare. What’s next? Is it possible Beane would be willing to serve on a presidential commission to fix the Metro escalators? Read more...

Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) rather embarrassing conversation onboard a bus recently, in which he was left speechless when asked whether insurance companies’ coverage of Viagra and not of birth control constituted gender discrimination, revealed a surprisingly timid and indecisive side of the prospective president.

McCain’s inability to stand up for his belief is a disturbing flaw that is hard to reconcile with real leadership. The simple answer to the question should have been “absolutely not.” Insurance companies should be in the business of protecting people’s health, not enabling people’s lifestyle choices. Read more...

I am reading a very interesting book by Peter Gosselin titled High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families that analyzes the current economic situation of many in this country.

Gosselin’s thesis is that the new economy is a bad deal for many American families, because while they may have access to the possibilities of more economic success, they also have a greater chance of taking a great fall from which they may never recover.

He profiles several people who seemed to have it going all their way, until a minor slip puts them in an economic abyss from which they never recover. Read more...

Although clinical preventive health is equally important to personal health, just 14 percent of voters identified physicals and screenings as the most important preventive healthcare practice.  “We know that preventive services such as mammograms, colonoscopies and simple dental exams are vital tools in the fight against serious disease,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) recently stated. “We now have to act on this knowledge; procrastination costs lives and fuels the high cost of healthcare.”

If Congress wants to help on the issue, they need to shift themes in the ongoing debate. Recently, prominent healthcare professionals and senior congressional staff from both sides of the aisle were brought together to discuss current preventive health legislation. The Politics of Prevention forum hosted folks such as renowned chronic disease expert Dr. Ken Thorpe, along with a bipartisan, pioneering group of senators and House members leading the charge on this effort.  Those are the steps Washington should now be taking to build the bridges for action. Read more...

Although clinical preventive health is equally important to personal health, just 14 percent of voters identified physicals and screenings as the most important preventive healthcare practice. “We know that preventive services such as mammograms, colonoscopies and simple dental exams are vital tools in the fight against serious disease,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) recently stated. “We now have to act on this knowledge; procrastination costs lives and fuels the high cost of healthcare.”

If Congress wants to help the issue, they need to shift themes in the ongoing debate. Recently, prominent healthcare professionals and senior congressional staff from both sides of the aisle were brought together to discuss current preventive health legislation. The Politics of Prevention forum hosted folks such as renowned chronic disease expert Dr. Ken Thorpe, along with a bipartisan, pioneering group of senators and House members leading the charge on this effort. Those are the steps Washington should now be taking to build the bridges for action. Read more...

There’s truth in the adage “Don’t talk the talk if you can’t walk the walk.” This week, the Clinton campaign continues to talk the talk, but has somehow tripped (OK, fell on its face) over Hillarycare … I mean, healthcare. Although HRC pronounces it as her passion, news reports out this week indicate she has left $292,000 worth of her own employees’ health insurance premiums unpaid.

What Hillary seems to have forgotten was that “free” healthcare isn’t really free — someone has to pay for it, and in this case, it’s her. If her presidential campaign budget can’t handle the cost of healthcare on this small scale, how does she expect taxpayers to manage that same health program for all Americans? When you stop and look at the litany of domestic programs she’s proposing and the billion-dollar price tags that come with them, I suspect she’s not too worried about paying the bills. Read more...

Taking a break from politics for a moment, earlier this week, the Ways and Means Committee (Republican side) put out a statement regarding the startling success of the Medicare reform/prescription drug legislation passed by the Republican Congress and signed by the president in 2003.

“According to the CMS actuaries, the cost of the Medicare drug benefit (known as Part D) will be $117 billion lower over the next 10 years, compared to the estimate that was prepared just last summer. This is the third year in a row where Part D cost projections have decreased. Compared to its initial estimate in 2003, the next ten year cost of the Medicare drug benefit is nearly $250 billion (almost 40%) lower than originally estimated. The success of Part D stands in stark contrast to the dramatic increases in overall healthcare spending during the same time period.” Read more...

It's time to get real. Let's ignore the politicians with their nibble-around-the-edges happy-talk "solutions" to our biggest problems, and let's talk about what it will actually take to solve them.

Why start with illegal immigration and try to ignore the bigoted hang-'em-high shamefulness of the Republican candidates? Maybe one answer is that employers need to offer wages that will attract citizens and others who are here legally. What they do now is fatten their profits by paying substandard amounts to undocumented laborers who are so desperate to stay hidden they'll accept any pittance they can get. Maybe by doing away with this shadow economy, the jobs that cause so many to sneak across the border will not be waiting for them. Read more...

Thanks to Robert Pear of The New York Times, a tireless reporter who knows healthcare better than most of us know anything, for exposing the real story behind the political battle over children's health insurance. It is depressing.

In his account Monday, Pear explained that a group of Republican and Democratic senators lead by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and his GOP Vice Chairman Chuck Grassley (Iowa) embarked last spring on what can only be described as a mission these days on Capitol Hill to forge a compromise on an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Meeting nearly every day into the summer months, often for up to two hours, the senators defied the culture of partisan gridlock that has chilled progress in Congress for years. Read more...

There they go again …

With all the wailing and gnashing of teeth these days surrounding the State Children's Health Insurance Program maelstrom, a few nuggets of legitimate concern are worthy of attention.

One of those concerns, raised constantly by Republicans, deals with a provision that would provide coverage to children of high-income families. In a rare glimpse of candor, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Wednesday acknowledged that oversight, stating in his weekly pen and pad, “That was a somewhat Alice-in-Wonderland approach to it, but we are willing to address that, because that was not our intent.” Go ahead and pick yourself up off the floor, because that doesn’t happen every day! Read more...