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 NewslettersOur newsletter features a commentary by Grace-Marie Turner on the major developments and issues of the week as well as summaries of writings by participants in the Health Policy Consensus Group and other articles of interest from the health policy world, plus announcements of coming events. It is emailed in an HTML format from the galen@galen.org email address, via Constant Contact, and you may have to adjust your email settings and junk mailbox to ensure that you don’t miss an issue.1 2 3 4 5 Next >September 5, 2008
A Tale of Twin CitiesIn addition to all of the televised political activities this week in the Twin Cities, there also were a number of serious policy discussions taking place. I spoke at several of them, including forums on health care organized by Congressional Quarterly and the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. More on those in a minute. But first, I attended a breakfast hosted by PhRMA at the Science Museum in St. Paul featuring Emmy Award-winning talk show host Montel Williams, who spoke about the pain and daily challenges of his 20-year struggle with multiple sclerosis.August 29, 2008
The Rest of the StoryThe Census Bureau's report on Tuesday surprised all of us, showing the number of uninsured had fallen last year to 45.7 million. But, as I wrote in my commentary for The Wall Street Journal, that's unfortunately not the whole story. The number of people with private insurance was flat (at 202 million), but because of population growth, there was actually a decline in private insurance in percentage terms.August 15, 2008
Cost, Cost, CostThe cost of health care is on everyone’s mind, so it’s nice to have good news to report: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported on August 14 that average beneficiary premiums for the standard Medicare drug benefit will increase by just $3 a month in 2009, to $28. That is 37% lower than the $44 a month that legislators estimated seniors would pay this year when the Medicare Modernization Act was enacted in 2003.August 8, 2008
Summer ShortsOur colleague Philip Stevens of the International Policy Network in London alerted us to an article in this morning's Times that offers fair warning to those who want to create a new government body to determine the effectiveness and value of new drugs, as many in the U.S. are proposing. The writer is Jonathan Waxman, a professor of oncology at Imperial College in London, who clearly is a die-hard fan of the British National Health Service. He began his article saying that "Our Government has been a fabulous custodian of healthcare…with a doubling in NHS spending" over the last decade.August 1, 2008
Slowly, SlowlyThe Senate Finance Committee got to the heart of the issue during a hearing yesterday on "Health Benefits in the Tax Code: The Right Incentives." Three prominent economists were in solidarity in targeting the tax treatment of health insurance as key to health reform. The value of the subsidy for job-based health insurance was a whopping $245 billion in 2007, according to Eward Kleinbard, chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation. (This compares to government spending of $372 billion that year for Medicare and $340 billion for Medicaid.)
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Tax Treatment of Health Insurance July 25, 2008
A Crystal Ball?House action on changes to government health programs this year foretell more sweeping changes that are likely to come next year if Democrats make expected gains in the November elections. First example: Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, plans to introduce a bill soon that will extend price controls in the Medicaid program to some private Medicare Part D prescription drug plans. The legislation would target the plans that serve the six million people who qualify both for Medicare and Medicaid.
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Medicare July 18, 2008
High StakesSen. Barack Obama this week announced a plan designed to help businesses afford health insurance, but the ideas would perpetuate today's problems and add new bureaucracy in the process. Small businesses would get refundable tax credits to offset 50% of the amount they pay for health insurance for their workers and have the government take over a portion of the catastrophic costs of high-cost employees. What's wrong with that? Several things.
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Small Business July 11, 2008
Outside the BoxThere really wasn't a controversy about whether to delay Medicare's scheduled cuts in physician fees, but you'd never know it from reading about this issue in the mainstream media over the last month. Both sides wanted to undo the cuts, but the real debate was over how to pay for the "fix" since the cuts were built into the federal budget. The leadership's solution was to get the money from the popular Medicare Advantage program, particularly private Medicare fee-for-service plans.
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Medicare, physician fees, Paul Ryan, Roadmap for America's Future, HSAs, World Health Organization, international health systems, Joe Antos, Medicare, PhRMA, mandates, John Graham, The Heritage Foundation, Greg D'Angelo, Edmund Haislmaier, Medicaid, fraud, medical tourism, health care polls
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