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Newsletters

Our 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.
October 23, 2009

The Fix Is Not In

Cost matters: The cost of health care remains the central issue in the health reform debate, and that's why the news this week was so bad for leaders on both sides of Capitol Hill. First, the Senate. Wednesday's vote on the "Doc Fix" stunned everyone, even, apparently, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. His plan was to shove $247 billion under the carpet and pretend that a permanent increase in Medicare's payment rates to doctors shouldn't count as part of overall health reform. But he ran into a firestorm of opposition, with 12 Democrats plus Independent Joe Lieberman voting with all 40 Republicans to reject the ploy (final vote 47-53).
Tags:
doc fix, Dave Camp, Rick Foster, Medicare Advantage, Galen poll, Washington Examiner, National Review Online, Tom Miller, American Enterprise Institute, Jim Capretta, Ethics and Public Policy Center, private insurance, WHO, The Wall Street Journal, Carl Bialik, Scott Harrington, competition, McCarron-Ferguson, America's Health Insurance Plans, Senate Finance Committee, Alex Brill, medical device manufacturers, Medicaid
Categories:
Health Reform


June 26, 2009

Change Vs. Security

ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson shook his head after Wednesday night's broadcast from the White House, frustrated he had not been able to draw out more details from President Obama about the sweeping health reform plan that he is pushing. Gibson, as well as the doctors, patients, businesspeople, and others in the audience, posed some tough questions. But most of the president's answers came from his standard talking points and went unchallenged. He spoke for 45 minutes of the 75 minutes of actual airtime.
Tags:
ABC News, President Obama, health reform, Massachusetts, opinion polls, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Joseph Antos, American Enterprise Institute, John Calfee, public option, single-payer, government-run, Governor Michael Leavitt, Jeffrey Anderson, Pacific Research Institute, The Washington Times, David Brooks, Senate Finance Committee, physicians, Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, uninsured, June O'Neill, Dave O'Neill, Employment Policies Institute, socialized medicine, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, RealClearMarkets, National Health Service, New Jersey, Assemblyman Jay Webber, Energy and Commerce Committee
Categories:
Health Reform


June 19, 2009

Bombshells

The Congressional Budget Office told the Senate health committee its bill would cost $1 trillion over the next 10 years and would only provide health insurance for a net 16 million more people. It said 15 million would lose their coverage at work and eight million would lose coverage from other sources, leaving 36 million uninsured. Since the goal is to have virtually everyone covered with no deficit spending, this was a double whammy, especially since there is even more spending in the bill that the CBO hasn't yet scored.
Tags:
health costs, consumer-driven health plans, Donald Palmisano, Medicaid, Steve Burd, Safeway, comparative effectiveness, Medicare, public plan, Bipartisan Policy Center, American Medical Association, Senate Finance Committee, Congressional Budget Office
Categories:
Health Reform


June 12, 2009

Trouble Brewing

The first Democratic bill in the hopper this week came from Sen. Kennedy's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, taking 615-pages to turn most of whatever is left of our private health sector over to government. The normally-genteel Sen. Orrin Hatch was quoted in The New York Times this morning as calling the bill "the most liberal bunch of gobbledygook I've seen in my life -- a complete liberal mishmash of ideas." Keith Hennessey, director of the National Economic Council under President Bush, was the first to present a detailed analysis, which you can find here.
Tags:
HELP bill, public plan, mandate, AMA, Senate Finance Committee, Medicare, Patients' Choice Act, Paul Ryan, Tom Coburn, comparative effectiveness research, Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, Massachusetts, Michael Tanner, Cato Institute, tax treatment of health insurance, Robert Helms, American Enterprise Institute, Tom Miller, Karl Rove, The Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey Anderson, Pacific Research Institute, Scott Gottlieb, Coleen Klasmeier, Canada, David Gratzer, Manhattan Institute
Categories:
Health Reform


May 22, 2009

Shaking Things Up

Four Republican members of Congress shook up the health reform debate this week when they were the first to reach the floor of the House and Senate with comprehensive health reform legislation. The Patients' Choice Act puts the $300-billion tax break for employment-based health insurance front and center in the debate. Reps. Paul Ryan and Devin Nunes and Sens. Tom Coburn and Richard Burr use it to create generous refundable tax credits for Americans to buy health insurance ($2,300 for individuals and $5,700 for families).
Tags:
colonoscopy, rationing, Obamacare, Michael Tanner, Medicaid, Nina Owcharenko, The Heritage Foundation, Dennis Smith, The Hill, Jeffrey Young, Senate Finance Committee, Health Affairs, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Donald Berwick, patient-centered care, Manhattan Institute, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, universal care, McKinsey, Harvard Business School, Manhattan Institute, Regina Herzlinger, Sen. Orrin Hatch, The New York Times, Robert Pear, Cato Institute, Michael Cannon, Charlotte Ivancic, Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist, The Wall Street Journal, American Enterprise Institute, Joe Antos, tax treatment of health insurance, tax credits, Sen. Richard Burr, Sen. Tom Coburn, Rep. Devin Nunes, Rep. Paul Ryan, Patients' Choice Act
Categories:
Health Reform


May 15, 2009

Health Care Brouhaha

The White House and its allies cheered on Monday when President Obama announced that six health groups had pledged to reduce the growth of health spending by 1.5 percent a year for the next 10 years. The president called it a "watershed event," saying that this could save as much as $2 trillion over a decade. But when the actual members of the organizations heard the news, all hell broke loose.
Tags:
Society for Innovative Medical Practice Design, MDVIP, Kevin Sack, concierge medicine, personalized health, AHIP, HDHP, HSA, high-deductible health plan, health savings account, comparative effectiveness, NICE, Britain, Imperial College School of Medicine, Karol Sikora, Eli Lilly and Company, John Lechleiter, innovation, private health insurance, Medicare, administrative cost, BNA, William Schiffbauer, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Yuval Levin, Jim Capretta, Economix, tax credits, National Review, physicians, American Enterprise Institute, Scott Gottlieb, Cato Institute, Michael Cannon, stimulus bill, The Wall Street Journal, tax treatment of health insurance, Uwe Reinhardt, Pfizer, Senate Finance Committee, public plan, National Health Insurance Exchange, mandates, Medicare Trustees Report, Nancy-Ann DeParle, America's Health Insurance Plans, American Hospital Association, health spending
Categories:
Health Reform


May 8, 2009

Setting the Eagle Free

Jack Kemp was a visionary leader with an enduring passion for liberty and an unfailing love for the American dream, and the airwaves have been filled this week with testimonials about him and his transformative ideas. I first met Jack Kemp in the 1970s, when he still was a relatively unknown member of Congress and I was a Washington correspondent for the San Diego Union. Jack had played football for the San Diego Chargers before being traded to the Buffalo Bills in 1962. San Diegans were interested in this man they knew as a star quarterback and who now was a congressman from Buffalo talking about cutting taxes to spur economic growth.
Tags:
Jack Kemp, Kemp Commission, National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform, Unleashing America's Potential, comparative effectiveness, Senate Finance Committee, public plan, Walt Francis, FEHBP, The Heritage Foundation, Stuart Butler, Merrill Matthews, Council for Affordable Health Insurance, Steve Forbes, Forbes, Canada, Brian Lee Crowley, Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, GE, healthymagination, swine flu, Henry Miller, Hoover Institution, Scott Gottlieb, AEI, vaccines, Paul Howard, Manhattan Institute, Medicare, Medicaid, fraud, Jim Frogue, Center for Health Transformation
Categories:
Jack Kemp


June 13, 2008

Drumbeats

The Commonwealth Fund continues its advocacy for universal coverage and a larger role for government in our health sector with a new paper in Health Affairs: It cites the rising number of people with health coverage that does not adequately protect them from high medical expenses — the under-insured.
Tags:
Commonwealth, universal coverage, underinsured, Italy, Istituto Bruno Leoni, doctors, physicians, Turner, Obama, Capretta, Pipes, biologics, America's Health Insurance Plans, Williams, uninsured, Aetna, Senate Finance Committee, Ramthun, HSA, health savings account, high deductible
Categories:
Universal Coverage