Category: Private Health Insurance

Politics | What Sicko doesn’t tell you …

Politics What Sicko doesn’t tell you …

Local people from Portsmouth to Scarborough have been protesting against ISTCs draining scarce NHS funds, which has led to service closures and staff redundancies to balance the books. There is not an area of the country where services are not being cut and closed. Protests against the closures of accident and emergency departments and hospital services are happening in Surrey, East and West Sussex, Kent, Worcester, Manchester, Leeds, Durham and Huddersfield; and against the 150 community hospitals in places such as Norfolk, Cambridge, Leicester, Devon, Marlborough and Bromley. The NHS, the government says, has had unprecedented levels of funding – so where has all the money gone if it isn’t into services? Is it really all down to bad managers and greedy doctors and nurses?

All markets need systems for pricing, billing and invoicing. Labour has introduced those: the electronic patient record, part of the £1bn IT disaster. The NHS too is being transformed from within. Foundation trusts such as University College London Hospitals Trust have been given new powers to enter joint ventures with commercial companies such as the Hospital Corporation of America and to spend millions of pounds on advertising campaigns, PR agents, mega-departments of finance and accounting, press officers, management consultants and profits. As in the US, billions of pounds, probably approaching 20% of annual NHS funds – estimated to be £20bn in England in a year – are being squandered on what are called the transaction costs of the market.

Earlier this year the US chief executive officer of UnitedHealth, Bill McGuire, was sacked along with other board members for repricing share options. His annual $126m package was not enough for him. Meanwhile more than 50 million Americans, including 10 million children, go without care – in the richest country in the world. Is this what we want?

· Allyson Pollock is author of NHS plc: The Privatisation of Our Healthcare and professor and head of the centre for international public health policy at the University of Edinburgh.

Interesting piece about how greed and capitalism are not turning out to be the cure for the NHS. And, on the other hand, how the NHS needs some serious work, making the case for Medicare for all all the stronger.

REP. TODD TIAHRT: SCHIP IS POLITICAL TUG-OF-WAR

Kansas.com 09/26/2007

“Ensuring the welfare of America’s children should be top priority among congressional members. That’s why I supported SCHIP when it was created by the Republican Congress in 1997. I would continue to offer my support this year; however, Democrats have politicized this program and used it as a platform to take one giant step toward a national socialized health care system.”

It’s always disappointing when a member of Congress argues against the straw man of “socialized medicine” when nobody is advocating for a socialized system in which the government owns all parts of the health system. It can work: look at the VA, and imagine the VA if it weren’t underfunded and forced to outsource parts of its responsibilities to those wonderful “privateers” (remember the Walter Reed debacle – outsourcing).

But virtually nobody wants socialized medicine. Virtually everyone whom I’ve ever heard advocate for universal coverage advocates for a single payer system where we, the taxpayers, pay for our health insurance via taxes, and it is administered through a system like Medicare is right now. Medicare contracts with private companies that operate under Medicare rules (our rules, by the way, Congress sets the rules) and pay hospitals, doctors, etc. No socialized medicine, thank you; Medicare for all, please.

Kolodner says U.S. docs weak on IT adoption, stresses interstate collaboration

Kolodner says U.S. docs weak on IT adoption, stresses interstate collaboration:

“Most patients in the United States receive care in physician practices with one or two providers, yet only four percent of these practices have electronic health records, said Robert Kolodner, MD, here Monday. “

“We’re not getting value for our healthcare dollar in this country,” Kolodner said. “We’re paying more, but we’re ranked much lower than most other developed nations in health outcomes. Health IT is the right thing for our families and communities, but it’s also the right business case.”

In other nations, healthcare IT adoption is subsidized or incentivized more appropriately. Also, there is more uniformity with a single payer or universal system that reduces much uncertainty about purchases and implementation. A practice or hospital does not have to deal with a fragmented sytem on the outside with a myriad of insurers, hospital systems, etc, each with its own unique IT structure (or lack thereof).

Robert E. Litan – Forbes.com

How to fix healthcare…Mr. Litan describes how private health insurance is stifling American business and the lays out his remedy: adjusting the tax treatment of private health insurance.

I am sure this would help literally thousands of already well-insured people, so, “Hear, hear!”. Snark.

It reminded me of an old Monty Python sketch called “How To Do It!”, in which the presenters breathlessly make their pitch:

Alan: Well, last week we showed you how to become a gynaecologist. And this week on ‘How to do it’ we’re going to show you how to play the flute, how to split an atom, how to construct a box girder bridge, how to irrigate the Sahara Desert and make vast new areas of land cultivatable, but first, here’s Jackie to tell you all how to rid the world of all known diseases.
Jackie: Hello, Alan.
Alan: Hello, Jackie.
Jackie: Well, first of all become a doctor and discover a marvellous cure
for something, and then, when the medical profession really starts to take
notice of you, you can jolly well tell them what to do and make sure they get
everything right so there’ll never be any diseases ever again.
Alan: Thanks,
Jackie. Great idea. How to play the flute. (picking up a flute) Well here we
are. You blow there and you move your fingers up and down here.


It is so tiresome to keep hearing these inane ideas about tinkering at the edges of such a profoundly dysfunctional system.

Cheers,

read more digg story

Insurance provider lowers physician reimbursements while earnings grow 08/19/07 – LubbockOnline.com

LubbockOnline.com – Insurance provider lowers physician reimbursements while earnings grow 08/19/07:

“Although it is a not-for-profit company, Health Care Service’s bottom line continues to rise at a rapid rate. According to Laura B. Benko of Modern Healthcare, in 2005 Health Care Service Corp recorded its fourth consecutive year of earnings growth, ‘posting net income of $1.15 billion on $11.7 billion in revenue. Its total surplus was $4.3 billion, up 47 percent from 2004 and 227 percent from 2000.’ Ms. Benko points out the company’s president and chief executive officer, Raymond McCaskey, received $6 million in salary, bonuses and other compensation in 2005. I believe some of the millions of dollars the residents of this area pay in premiums to Blue Cross would be put to better use by the healthcare professionals in our community.”

Non-profit for whom?

The Reality-Based Community: Rationing health care

The Reality-Based Community: Rationing health care:
Rationing health care
Posted by Mark Kleiman

“All this, let’s recall, with the Chancellor breathing down the neck of the boss of the medical area on behalf of a full professor at the university that owns the hospital. So my experience with the system was probably about as good as it gets except for corporate executives using places like the Mayo Clinic or family members of people on the boards of directors of hospitals. (Apparently it’s generally understood that if you stump up enough in the way of contributions to get on the board of the hospital, you’re entitled to priority care; that’s how not-for-profit hospitals raise capital.) It was only later that I discovered why the insurance company was stalling; I had an option, which I didn’t know I had, to avoid all the approvals by going to ‘Tier II,’ which would have meant higher co-payments. The process is designed to get very sick or prosperous patients to pay to jump the queue. I don’t know how many people my insurance company waited to death that year, but I’m certain the number wasn’t zero. “

Doing Battle With the Insurance Company in a Fight to Stay Alive – New York Times

Doing Battle With the Insurance Company in a Fight to Stay Alive – New York Times: “Obstacles to Care
Doing Battle With the Insurance Company in a Fight to Stay Alive “

Thank goodness we don’t ration care here in the good ol’ US of A!

2006 Kaiser/HRET Employer Health Benefits Survey – Kaiser Family Foundation

2006 Kaiser/HRET Employer Health Benefits Survey – Kaiser Family Foundation:
“This annual survey of employers provides a detailed look at trends in employer-sponsored health coverage, including changes in premiums, employee contributions, cost-sharing policies, and other relevant information. This year the survey also documented the prevalence of high-deductible health plans associated with a savings option, including the percentage of employers offering these plan types and the percentage of workers covered by them. “

“The average cost of premiums for single coverage in 2006 is $354 per month or $4,242 per year. This figure includes both the worker and employer contribution. The average cost of premiums for family coverage is $957 per month or $11,480 per year (Exhibit 1.10).”
——————-
So, if you have a family and make $57K, your premium, on average is 20% of your Wages! If you’re single and earning $42K, you’re on easy street, as only 10% of your compensation is healthcare…The new “lucky duckies”?

And check out this table (1.13): watch the numbers left to right and top to bottom. Wow.


——————–

  • “As with premium increases, there is also a great deal of variation in premiums across workers and firms: 10% of covered workers work in firms that have single premiums of $250 or less per month, while 22% have single premiums greater than $400 per month (Exhibit 1.13).”
    ——————–

    • Cheers,

    CNN.com – Situation Room on Mental Health careTranscripts

    CNN.com – Situation Room on Mental Healthcare:
    THE SITUATION ROOM
    “Did Mental Health System Fail Virginia Tech Gunman?”

    BLITZER: My next guest is an author of a powerful book. It’s entitled, “Crazy: A Father’s Search through America’s Mental Health Madness.” Pete Earley is joining us here in THE SITUATION ROOM

    [snip]

    EARLEY: It’s very hard to get a person mental health services until they hurt someone or someone else and that’s just wrong. I live in Fairfax County, Virginia, one of the most richest counties in Virginia. There’s a two-month wait to get someone into a treatment program, a six-month wait to get a case manager, 18-year wait to get someone into housing. That’s how bad our mental health services are. They’re just not funded.