Health Care News

Poor People Benefit From Health Insurance

5:53 pm EST July 7th, 2011 | News | 30 Comments

I confess – I don’t understand why anyone would have ever disputed something that sounds so simple, but that’s how the right and the appeasement left have so perverted dialogue in America:

When poor people are given medical insurance, they not only find regular doctors and see doctors more often but they also feel better, are less depressed and are better able to maintain financial stability, according to a new, large-scale study that provides the first rigorously controlled assessment of the impact of Medicaid.

Topic: Health Care

6th Circuit: Affordable Care Act Is Constitutional

12:41 pm EST June 29th, 2011 | News | 3 Comments

The 6th Circuit has affirmed the constitutionality of the health care reform law.

We find that the minimum coverage provision is a valid exercise of legislative power by Congress under the Commerce Clause and therefore AFFIRM the decision of the district court.

Topic: Health Care

Study: Small Business Benefit From Health Care Reform

2:10 pm EST June 22nd, 2011 | Business | Comments Off

The Urban Institute looked at the health care reform law and found benefits for small business:

Ultimately, we find little evidence that the ACA will negatively affect small firms, and, instead, we find evidence of significant benefits for these employers and their workers. The law expands coverage options for small firms while limiting the new requirements imposed on this group. The smallest firms will see a significant increase in offer rates under the ACA, and firms of all sizes will see substantial savings on premium contributions. While the effects of the ACA on employer sponsored coverage for small-firm workers and their dependents are estimated to be small, these workers and their families are expected to reap significant benefits from the law as a whole. When accounting for the effects of the Medicaid expansion, individual health insurance exchanges and federal subsidies for low- and moderate-income families, small-firm workers and their families are expected to experience large increases in insurance coverage under reform.

Topic: Health Care

England’s Example Of A Medical Horror Show: America

1:54 pm EST June 14th, 2011 | Politics | 4 Comments

British prime minister David Cameron is attempting to make some changes to the National Health Service (NHS). His biggest obstacle is explaining to his citizens that they’re not implementing an American system:

So frightening is the Yankee example that any British politician who values his job has to explicitly disavow it as a possible outcome. Twice.

“We will not be selling off the NHS, we will not be moving towards an insurance scheme, we will not introduce an American-style private system,” Prime Minister David Cameron emphatically told a group of healthcare workers in a nationally televised address last week.

In case they didn’t hear it the first time, Cameron repeated the dreaded “A”-word in a list of five guarantees he offered the British people at the end of his speech.

“If you’re worried that we’re going to sell off the NHS or create some American-style private system, we will not do that,” he said. “In this country we have the most wonderful, precious institution and also precious idea that whenever you’re ill … you can walk into a hospital or a surgery and get treated for free, no questions asked, no cash asked. It is the idea at the heart of the NHS, and it will stay. I will never put that at risk.”

President Obama’s health care reform has been a major step forward, but at the end of the day America’s health care system will be behind until we have some form of a single-payer system. (via)

Topic: Health Care

How Will The Republican Plan To Kill Medicare Affect Your District?

9:39 pm EST June 3rd, 2011 | Politics | Comments Off

The Dems on the House Energy & Commerce committee have done us a service by detailing the effects of the GOP plan to kill Medicare on a district by district level.

In my district, for instance, Maryland’s 4th congressional – currently represented by Donna Edwards – this is what we would have to look forward to from the GOP budget:

• Reduce coverage for 7,500 dual eligible seniors and individuals with disabilities who rely on Medicaid to supplement their Medicare coverage or pay their Medicare cost sharing.

• Jeopardize nursing home care for 700 whose expenses are paid by Medicaid.

• Impair the health care of 71,000 children, including 4,100 newborns each year, who receive coverage under Medicaid.

• Cut payments to hospitals for 32,000 emergency room visits paid for by Medicaid each year.

• Cut payments to hospitals for 10,100 inpatient visits paid for by Medicaid each year.

• Reduce jobs and hurt economic growth by eliminating $1.4 billion in Medicaid spending.

All a part of the GOP’s brave new world!

Topic: Health Care, Medicare, US House

OMG! Canadian Doctors Are Escaping Socialist Medicine To Come To America!!! Right?

9:55 am EST June 3rd, 2011 | News | 2 Comments

No.

Except for Austria and Germany, fewer doctors were satisfied practicing medicine in the United States in 2009 than in any other surveyed country. That includes Canada. And it was before health care reform, so you can’t blame any dissatisfaction on the PPACA.

Topic: Health Care

Florida Tries Out A Version Of The Paul Ryan Plan, Hates It

11:39 pm EST May 11th, 2011 | News | Comments Off

You don’t say.

To visit the low-rise medical offices dotting the sun-bleached highways of Broward County is to meet doctors and patients who complain of being guinea pigs in a social experiment gone wrong.

They are part of a five-year pilot program designed to test whether Florida can reduce spending on Medicaid, the public insurance program for the poor and disabled, by largely turning the program over to for-profit HMOs. Success would mean getting a handle on one of the fastest-growing and most vexing expenditures confronting states.

But it’s unclear whether the pilot, which is also underway in four other counties, has achieved that. Health professionals here say any savings have come at a high cost: the quality of care. And they are outraged over the legislature’s decision last week to essentially expand the pilot statewide, which will be carefully watched by other financially strapped states across the nation.

Republicans are more than willing to turn over poor and middle class people’s medical care to giant corporations that don’t give a crap. They’re not donating enough to the party for them to be worth the hassle.

Topic: Florida, Health Care

VIDEO: Massachusetts Dems Thank Mitt Romney For Passing Romneycare

11:41 am EST April 12th, 2011 | News | 3 Comments

Hilarious.

Topic: 2012 Election, Health Care, Mitt Romney

CBO: Paul Ryan Plan Raises Health Care Costs For Seniors

5:07 pm EST April 5th, 2011 | Conservative, Republicans | 2 Comments

From the Congressional Budget Office comes this Democratic GOTV tool for seniors:

Under the proposal, most elderly people would pay more for their health care than they would pay under the current Medicare system. For a typical 65-year-old with average health spending enrolled in a plan with benefits similar to those currently provided by Medicare, CBO estimated the beneficiary’s spending on premiums and out-of-pocket expenditures as a share of a benchmark: what total health care spending would be if a private insurer covered the beneficiary. By 2030, the beneficiary’s spending would be 68 percent of that benchmark under the proposal, 25 percent under the extended-baseline scenario, and 30 percent under the alternative fiscal scenario.

Topic: Health Care, Medicare, Paul Ryan

Doing The Work Big Business Won’t

9:10 pm EST January 22nd, 2011 | Business | 32 Comments

The article doesn’t come out and say it, but one reason the government is having to get into the drug business is because big business doesn’t see enough activity on its bottom line for some of these things.

The Obama administration has become so concerned about the slowing pace of new drugs coming out of the pharmaceutical industry that officials have decided to start a billion-dollar government drug development center to help create medicines.

The new effort comes as many large drug makers, unable to find enough new drugs, are paring back research. Promising discoveries in illnesses like depression and Parkinson’s that once would have led to clinical trials are instead going unexplored because companies have neither the will nor the resources to undertake the effort.

Topic: Health Care