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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.
September 18, 2009

It's Not Over Yet

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus spent much of the summer dancing with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to figure out how to squeeze his health reform bill into its scoring framework and get a positive outcome. Surprise, surprise, he succeeded! The CBO said on Wednesday that the Baucus bill will lead to a "net reduction in the federal budget deficit of $49 billion" over the next 10 years and that 94% of Americans will have health insurance.
Tags:
Senate Finance Committee, Senator Max Baucus, Congressional Budget Office, The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof, Galen highlights, Utah, Utah Health Insurance Exchange, Forbes, Kaiser Family Foundation, Health Research & Educational Trust, employer benefits, insurance premiums, Joseph Antos, American Enterprise Institute, public plan, hospitals, private health insurance, Health Affairs, Dobson DaVanzo and Associates LLC, Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune, Massachusetts, The Boston Globe, Massachusetts Medical Society, physicians, Craig Richardson, individual mandate, employer mandate, Commonwealth Care, uninsured, Tom Miller, Joint Economic Committee, pharmaceuticals, David Griller, Daniel Denis, SECOR, Canada, malpractice, Philip Howard, The Atlantic, retail health clinics, The Washington Post
Categories:
Health Reform


August 28, 2009

An Era Ends

Sen. Kennedy was both respected and liked by colleagues on both sides of the aisle during his remarkable 47 years in the Senate. While he always was firm in his liberal views and we seldom agreed with him, Sen. Kennedy did listen to his Republican colleagues and worked to forge compromises. That bipartisan spirit has been markedly missing during his absence from the Senate this year. The health reform legislation making its way through Congress is rigid and aggressively liberal, without any evidence of bipartisanship, and it is rightly facing a firestorm of opposition.
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Commonwealth Fund, premiums, Massachusetts, The Boston Globe, Kay Lazar, health sharing ministries, CURE, Star Parker, health co-ops, Steven Mufson, polls, Forbes.com, Karlyn Bowman, tax treatment of health insurance, mandates, RealClearMarkets, Manhattan Institute, Steven Malanga, New York Post, Pacific Research Institute, Sally Pipes, CNNMoney, Shawn Tully, Baylor University, Earl Grinols, individual mandate, The Washington Post, Lee Casey, David Rivkin, health insurance, American Enterprise Institute, Jeet Guram, Joe Antos, Green Bay Press-Gazette, National Review Online, The Heritage Foundation, public option, John Hoff, Steamboat Institute, health insurance exchange, Utah, town hall meetings, Rep. Jim Moran, Democratic National Committee, Sen. John McCain, Sen. Russ Feingold, Sen. Edward Kennedy
Categories:
Health Reform


August 7, 2009

Fear Factor

I've never seen anything like the anxiety about health reform that is erupting in town hall meetings around the country. To say this is manufactured or organized by anybody totally misses the point of the genuine fear that people are trying to get across to their legislative representatives. On this point alone, I agree with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman who writes today that he "can't find any [previous] examples of congressmen shouted down, congressmen hanged in effigy, congressmen surrounded and followed by taunting crowds."
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The Times, hospitals, NHS, Jessica Ho, Samuel Preston, survival rates, cancer rates, Hudson Institute, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, medical malpractice, William Schiffbauer, mandate, medical costs, PricewaterhouseCoopers, health insurance, Len Burman, Art Laffer, Medical Travel Today, Radio America, Twitter, AARP, tort reform, Charles Krauthammer, The Wall Street Journal, Kim Strassel, The Washington Post, Steve Pearlstein, Paul Krugman, New York Times, town hall meetings
Categories:
Health Reform


July 24, 2009

Stalling Out

House leaders and the White House are working furiously to try to get a floor vote on health reform legislation before the August recess, but a rebellion inside the Democratic party and alarm bells from constituents are virtually certain to delay action until the fall. The American people are increasingly focused on the details of the reform plans making their way through Congress, and they don't like what they see.
Tags:
President Obama, news conference, The New York Times, Rep. Paul Ryan, Ceci Connolly, The Washington Post, individual mandate, John Fund, The Wall Street Journal, tax credits, uninsured, public plan, Senate Commerce Committee, National Review Online, New York Post, American Affordable Health Choices Act, Lewin Group, John Sheils, Randy Haught, The Heritage Foundation, The American Spectator, nonprofit hospitals, Bradford Gray, Urban Institute, Mark Schlesinger, Yale University, Health Affairs, consumer-driven health, Merrill Matthews, Institute for Policy Innovation, health ownership, John R. Graham, Pacific Research Institute, Medicare fee-for-service, California, America's Health Insurance Plans, Robert Coulam, Simmons College, Roger Feldman, University of Minnesota, Bryan Dowd, Medicare, Medicare Advantage
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.
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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


April 24, 2009

Putting Patients First

Senators Baucus and Kennedy sent a letter to President Obama this week saying their committees plan to vote on comprehensive health reform legislation in early June, which means legislation could be sent to the full Senate for a vote soon afterward. This is an extraordinarily ambitious schedule. The House also expects to send legislation to the floor for a vote this summer, with hopes for final action on a conference agreement in the fall.
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Baucus, Kennedy, Obama, NPR, Kaiser, Harvard, poll, delivery system, health reform, health care costs, comparative effectiveness, PALS, Patient Advocacy Leaders Summit, Amye Leong, Healthy Motivation, Politico, Consensus Group, Governor Michael Leavitt, Jeffrey Anderson, AmericaSpeakOn.org, public plan option, Ceci Connolly, The Washington Post, American Enterprise Institute, health care and pharmaceutical reform, Joe Antos, Tom Miller, Bob Helms, Jack Calfee, Scott Gottlieb, Roger Bate, Gualberto Ruano, Genomas, Paul Howard, Manhattan Institute, genetic prescription system, health care spending, Andrew Rettenmaier, National Center for Policy Analysis
Categories:
Health Reform


March 27, 2009

The 80% Rule

So much is happening on the health reform front in Washington this week that our heads are spinning, with legislators jockeying for control over procedures, timing, and the content of reform legislation. A number of key provisions in the legislation are clear. The White House and leaders in Congress want to create a new government health insurance plan. They want to impose a mandate that employers pay for health insurance for their workers.They want to create a new National Health Insurance Exchange as a vehicle for strict federal regulation of private health insurance and for distribution of new subsidies for individuals and businesses. They want to expand access to existing price-controlled government health programs. And they may impose a mandate that all individuals have health insurance.

 

Tags:
health reform, mandate, Natasha Richardson, Canada, medevac, comparative effectiveness, Raynard Kington, Milton Friedman, Phil Donahue, greed, Belleville News-Democrat, stimulus, Center of the American Experiment, Amy Menefee, portability, tax treatment of health insurance, John McCain, The Wall Street Journal, employer-based tax deduction, Massachusetts, Congressional Budget Office, The Washington Post, budget, Medicare, J.D. Foster, The Heritage Foundation, cancer, U.K., Europe, The Daily Mail, Eurocare-4, Karol Sikora
Categories:
Health Reform


February 20, 2009

The March Continues

With a major expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program in place and more than $150 billion in health spending authorized in the stimulus bill, the Obama administration already is well on its way to significantly increasing the role of government in our health sector.
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SCHIP, stimulus, HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, HSAs, Ben Zycher, Manhattan Institute, concierge medicine, Melinda Beck, The Wall Street Journal, Society for Innovative Practice Design, Massachusetts, focused factories, Regina Herzlinger, Manhattan Institute, Harvard Business School, Wal-Mart, Ceci Connolly, The Washington Post, Peter Pitts, Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, comparative effectiveness, leadership, Donald Palmisano, American Medical Association
Categories:
Health Reform