Even as Americans debate whether to scrap President Obamas healthcare law and its promise of guaranteed health coverage, many far less affluent nations are moving in the opposite direction — to provide medical insurance to all citizens. China, after years of underfunding healthcare, is on track to complete a three-year, $124-billion initiative projected to cover…
Tag: health care
Health Care Increasingly Out Of Reach For Millions Of Americans
Having trouble finding a doctor? You’re not alone.Tens of millions of adults under 65 — both those with insurance and those without — saw their access to health care dramatically worsen over the past decade, according to a study released Monday. The findings suggest more privately insured Americans are delaying treatment due to rising out-of-pocket…
High uninsured rates can kill you — even if you have coverage
Across the state, however, there was huge variation in how health outcomes were improving: San Francisco and Los Angeles had decreases between 26 percent and 30 percent, while in Sacramento, the drop was just 13 percent. Daysal wanted to know what was different about the patients in the three cities. He controlled for basic demographic…
U.S. health care spending ‘dwarfs’ that of other countries
The United States spends more on health care than 12 other industrialized countries, a new Commonwealth Fund study finds – but that doesn’t mean this country’s care is any better. The U.S. spent nearly $8,000 per person for health care services in 2009, the study found, confirming that “health care spending in the U.S. dwarfs…
New Report: Health Care Law Makes Community Health Centers Stronger
The President’s health care law gives hard working, middle-class families the security they deserve. The Affordable Care Act forces insurance companies to play by a new set of common sense rules, prohibiting them from dropping your coverage if you get sick, billing you into bankruptcy through annual or lifetime limits, and, soon, discriminating against anyone with…
Amer. Cancer Society Chief: ‘The System Really Is Not Failing … Failure Is The System’
When I hear the politicians talk about death panels and rationing, we need to be talking about rational use of medicine. Not rationing but rational. And unfortunately that is not happening in the United States. There is this drug called Prilosec. Suppresses acid in the stomach. Great drug. AstraZeneca only had one problem. Eighteen-year patent….
The Health Care Law is Helping Small Businesses
Small businesses are the engine of the American economy. Over the past 17 years, they have generated 65 percent of all net jobs and today the 27.5 million small businesses in the U.S. employ about half of all private sector workers. The Affordable Care Act is helping fix a health care market that has been…
Report: Mass. Health Law Not A ‘Budget Buster’
Outside Massachusetts, talk show hosts and politicians frequently blast the state’s health coverage law as a “budget buster.” “It has been an abject failure,” candidate Rick Santorum told the audience during a presidential primary debate in January, directing his comments toward former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. “He’s stood by the fact that it’s $8 billion…
Massachusetts Health Reform, From The Front Lines
For six years, my fellow physicians in Massachusetts have been working under a health reform law that, for better or worse, bears a strong resemblance to the national law that is two years old. While some commentators may be surprised that our health care system is still standing, I can assure you that things here…
CBO: Medicare Spending To Reach $1 Trillion By 2022
Outlays for Medicare, Medicaid and “other mandatory federal programs related to health care accounted for just under 40 percent of mandatory spending in 2011,” the Congressional Budget Office reported today and will continue to grow into the future. For instance, a boost in the number of beneficiaries will increase Medicare spending to more than $1…
More Americans Uninsured in 2011
The U.S. health insurance system is undergoing great upheaval, which combined with the troubled economy of the past several years is clearly affecting health insurance coverage in the country. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index data reveal that more Americans lack healthcare today than did four years ago. Groups that were already among the least likely to…
New Data: Obamacare Extended Health Coverage To At Least 2.5 Million Young Adults
At least 2.5 million younger Americans now have health insurance as a result of a provision in the Affordable Care Act that allows adults to stay on their parents’ health care plans until 26 years of age, the Associated Press reports. The Obama administration is expected to release additional data later this afternoon: Using unpublished…
Study: Health reform will not overwhelm Colorado’s medical system
Though Colorado will add 510,000 to insurance rolls under health care reform, the state will need far fewer new doctors than previously thought, in part because those patients will be shifting from emergency rooms and other existing care, a report says. Even with that many newly insured, Colorado will need only about 141 new doctors,…
Berwick: Don’t Blame Medicare, Medicaid. It’s The Delivery System
Berwick said the 2010 federal health law is changing how doctors and hospitals are paid and deliver care though such new arrangements as accountable care organizations, which are designed to improve coordination and lower costs. But he said it is unclear whether such efforts would produce results quickly enough to hold off critics, including most…
Meet the Obese, Uninsured, Unemployed, Cigarette Smoking Plaintiff Suing to Strike Down Health Care Reform
Ms. Brown, 56 years old, had health-care insurance for herself and her husband several years ago but dropped it because the $1,100-a-month cost was prohibitive, she said in an interview. Referring to the health overhaul, she said: “No one has the right to try to control how you spend your money.” When the…
Scalia and Thomas dine with healthcare law challengers as court takes case
The lawyer who will stand before the court and argue that the law should be thrown out is likely to be Paul Clement, who served as U.S. solicitor general during the George W. Bush administration. Clement’s law firm, Bancroft PLLC, was one of almost two dozen firms that helped sponsor the annual dinner…
Our health-care productivity problem, in one chart
For months now, the health sector has led the economy in job creation, producing more than 300,000 more jobs since this time last year. Even as overall job creation sputtered last month, the health sector added 44,000 new positions. But health-care job growth isn’t necessarily a good thing, at least when it comes to controlling…
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer Will Seek Health Care Law Waiver To Establish Single Payer In His State
Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) made history earlier this year when he signed into law legislation that would make his state the first state to lay the groundwork for a single payer health care system. In order to enact this system, the state needs a waiver from the federal health care law, which…
Why libertarianism fails in health care
And though it sounds nice to say that charities will pick up the slack, any hospital system in America will tell you that even with Medicare and Medicaid assuming much of the burden for the most intractable and expensive cases, charities are not capable of or interested in fully compensating the medical system…