Will We Finally Have Health Care Reform This Time?
Will we have a big health care reform bill passed by the Congress and signed by the President in the next year?
Readers of this blog know my opinion--show me where the trillion dollars comes from and I will be optimistic.
CQ's Drew Armstrong and Alex Wayne have a thorough and detailed feature article on that question in the April 5th CQ weekly, "A Second Onion."
Here's a bit of the article and a free link to the rest:
It seemed conceivable on the afternoon of March 5 that Congress might have a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health system on President Obama’s desk within months, if not weeks. A strange-bedfellows audience had greeted Obama as he opened his White House “forum on health reform” — lawmakers from both parties, advocates for consumers and lobbyists for the health care industry, and a few average citizens who had held discussions on health care policy in their communities over the winter.Too often I see reports that just fall into the easy conclusion that this year is different and health care reform is at hand. These guys dug a lot deeper.For the afternoon, politics were set aside. Obama cast an overhaul of health policy as a national imperative, not a Democratic Party agenda item. People in the audience who had helped defeat similar efforts in the past — health insurers and business lobbyists — promised the president that they wanted to help pass one this time around.
But the bipartisan afterglow from that event has faded in the ensuing month. Politics have returned and lawmakers have resumed fighting over fundamentals of overhauling the health care system.
Read the rest here.
6 comments:
I am curious where the trillion comes from? Is there a nice summary of what changes and where compared to the current system?
Great article. Thanks for sharing. So it appears that the only viable option on the table right now for coming up with the $1T+ is raising taxes. But even capping tax-free premiums as proposed wouldn't even raise half of what is needed. Here's to hoping they get serious about drilling into payment reform. Otherwise we're looking at skyrocketing taxes and/or federal deficit. Oh wait...we're already seeing that.
You can get half of your trillion simply by going to single payer with no enrollment. No enrollment totally eliminates not only enrollment expenses but also advertising fees, sales commissions, and PER CLAIM certifications.
Now that I just gave you the first half, all you have to do is find the other half. Try the Frist family. They can spare a few bucks by now.
>You can get half of your trillion simply by going to single payer with no enrollment. No enrollment totally eliminates not only enrollment expenses but also advertising fees, sales commissions, and PER CLAIM certifications.
Gosh, just think how much we could save on cars by going Single Producer and just mandate that everyone drive a Chevy.
We would totally eliminate advertising, dealer expenses, sales commissions, etc.
Change is as change does. It is time to rethink our approach to this issue. Billing based upon dx codes and ICD9's limits our creativity to health care provision. It limits the ability for physicians and patients to build relationships supporting health. We need to define goals more specifically. Now is not the time to settle for insipid pseudo solutions. We can do better.
I am currently enrolled in a Health Care Policy graduate nursing class and find the issue of health care reform very interesting. I have been a nurse for 28 years and have witnessed many changes in health care over the years, but nothing as we are currently witnessing. I am interested in how the money in the stimulus bill will be allocated as far as healthcare is concerned. I hope that Senators and Representatives will seek out the American Nurses Association (ANA) for a nursing voice when guidelines are developed for the allocation of funding.
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