NewsTrust - Insurance - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Individual mandate is Ryan tax credit by other name

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ezra Klein - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - Tax credits : Under various health-care proposals — including the plan of Republican Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) — the tax code is changed to give families a tax credit for buying private health insurance. Families that choose to go without insurance

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Santorum living in stone-age

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

CNN - By Stephanie Coontz - Feb. 14 (Opinion) - Presidential candidate Rick Santorum is unhappy with last week's compromise over whether Catholic institutions should be required to cover contraception for their employees, arguing that birth control "shouldn't be covered by insurance at all."

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Trying to Catch His Breath With a Hole-Ridden Safety Net

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Scientific American - Feb. 11 (Opinion) - I’m sitting here on a bed that constantly readjusts itself. It’s terribly annoying and when I lay down on it the low rumbling of the motor pushing air to my legs and sucking it from butt. The noise makes that grey matter between the ears in my head shake. Probably a malfunctioning bed, but it’s nothing to complain about given what is sitting next to me, 2 meters over, in the next adjustable bed. I’m at Carteret General Hospital on North Carolina’s scenic Crystal Coast, where I live. My beautiful, precious 6 year old son was admitted this past Tuesday for Pneumonia. It started 6 days before on a Wednesday. He asked his kindergarten teacher if he could lay down. Odd behavior for such an outgoing kid, one of the class favorites who even at 6 already seems quite the ladies man with 2 Lilies, a Tanzania, and an Ellie running up to him each day when I drop him off for school. Along with 2 Charleses, these friends are just the ones we hear about! When I picked up him from ...

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It's the Health Care Costs, Stupid

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Jun. 12 (Opinion) - I’ve already written about Joe Lieberman’s very bad, no good idea of raising the Medicare eligibility age. Austin Frakt and Aaron Carroll show that it’s even worse than I thought: Americans near 65 who don’t have good health insurance delay needed treatment, causing a bulge in Medicare costs when they hit the magic age, and the same phenomenon would get even worse, so this might not even save money. The larger point is that we don’t have a Medicare problem, we have a health care cost problem. And Medicare actually does a better job of controlling costs than private insurers — not remotely good enough, but better.

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Libel law makes web hosts the Achilles heel of online journalism

Tue, 03 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Martin Robbins - May. 03 (Opinion) - Much attention has been focused on the chilling effects of Britain's libel laws on writers, but standing up to threats counts for little when websites can be shut down on a whim In January 2008, web hosting firm Netcetera received an e-mail from the legal representative of Joseph Obi , a fantasist who describes himself as an "alternative medicine visionary" and "The World's Most Controversial Doctor!" Obi was struck off by the GMC and claimed to head a college which doesn't really exist , and was therefore a ripe target for a spot of debunking on Andy Lewis' popular (and excellent) Quackometer blog, then hosted by Netcetera. This attracted the ire of Obi, who instructed his representative to send the following bizarre threat: "In case the defamation continues beyond 12 noon on Monday the 21st of January 2008, we are instructed to hold you fully liable to the tune of £1 Million (One Million Pounds) per day, together with additional punitive damages relating to the many months during ...

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Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Donna Dubinsky - Feb. 20 (Opinion) - This isn’t the story of a poor family with a mother who has a dreadful disease that bankrupts them, or with a child who has to go without vital medicines. Unlike many others, my family can afford medical care, with or without insurance. Instead, this is a story about how broken the market for health insurance is, even for those who are healthy and who are willing and able to pay for it. Most employees assume that if they lose their job and the health coverage that comes along with it, they’ll be able to purchase insurance somewhere. The members of Congress who want to repeal the provision of last year’s health insurance law that makes it easier for individuals to buy coverage must assume that uninsured people do not want to buy it, or are just too cheap or too poor to do so.

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The reality of our health-care debate

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Ezra Klein - Feb. 02 (Opinion) - I don't mind having a conversation about replacing or reforming the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I think we could do better than PPACA. Wyden-Bennett, for instance. Or dusting off Richard Nixon's plan and using that instead. What baffles me is how my conservative friends can delight in the prospect of repealing or voiding PPACA before they have committed to some alternative that could help Hillary St. Pierre: With a court decision on Monday declaring the health care law unconstitutional and Republicans intent on repealing at least parts of it, thousands of Americans with major illnesses are facing the renewed prospect of losing their health insurance coverage...Hillary St. Pierre, a 28-year-old former registered nurse who has Hodgkin’s lymphoma, had expected to reach her insurance plan’s $2 million limit this year. Under the new law, the cap was eliminated when the policy she gets through her husband’s employer was renewed this year. Ms. St. Pierre, who has already come close ...

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For Many Families, Health Care Relief Begins Today

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 22:56:26 -0700

New York Times - Sep. 22 -

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Health Reform Misinformation Persists; Medicare Solvency Now Stronger

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

NewsHour - By Judy Woodruff, Kathleen Sebelius - Aug. 02 (Interview) - With more measures from the health care reform law set to take effect, more states are filing legal challenges as well. Judy Woodruff talks to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for more on the latest health care reform developments and what consumers may see next. JUDY WOODRUFF: We take a closer look now at these developments and the battle over the law with the secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius. Madam Secretary, thank you for being with us. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary KATHLEEN SEBELIUS,: Good to be with you, Judy. JUDY WOODRUFF: So, four months in after the law passed, and still such vehement opposition out there. Half the states are trying to repeal this in one form or another. How do you explain this? KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Well, I think, first of all, this has been a long and very partisan debate, full of lots of misinformation. So, there are a lot of people who still don't know what's in the law, don't know what exactly it means to them and their families. And what we're trying to do is actually get information, get some tools, as the president said, whether it's the new Web site, healthcare.gov, which is really pretty dazzling -- it gives people information that they have never had before in one place -- or, you know, mailing information to seniors. Once people know what the law means to them and their families, that their adult child stays on their plan, or that no longer will a child with a preexisting condition be able to be kicked out of an insurance plan by insurers, they become much more enthusiastic about what actually the Affordable Care Act does. JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, I want to ask you about that, because the president did say that in the run-up to the passage of this legislation. He said, once people knows what's in here, they are going to like it. But the polls still show, yes, there is some more support, but over 50 percent of seniors still say they are disappointed in this law. KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Well, when you think about what happened to seniors during the course of this debate, it borders on outrageous. Senior, I would say, were really targeted with a whole series of misinformed statements that were designed to scare them about the law, to get them to actually call on their members of Congress and Senate to stop it, starting with everything from death panels, which still most seniors think are part of the Affordable Care Act. JUDY WOODRUFF: Is that right? Most seniors still think that? KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Absolutely. The recent polling says that seniors think this actually was passed into law. Seniors think that there is a change in their guaranteed benefits under Medicare. Nothing could be further from the truth. The guaranteed benefits are not only stronger than ever. We're going after fraud and abuse in a way that has never been focused on. And the Medicare solvency is much stronger than it was before the law was passed. JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, I want to ask you about that in a minute. But today's ruling by a Virginia judge, saying that this -- this challenge to the constitutionality of the law can go forward, what about the argument that is being made that it's not constitutional to tell people they must buy health insurance? KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Well, I think, when you think about it, Judy, first of all, it's not a surprise that the ruling came today. I mean, what it basically does is, now there can be a debate on the merits of the case. So, it's really a threshold argument: Did the attorney general have standing to go ahead? JUDY WOODRUFF: What do you mean it's not a surprise it came today? KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Well, I think that, being portrayed as somehow a major ruling, all the judge said is, come to court and then talk about the merits of the case. We're convinced that there are -- strong constitutional basis for this. And the interstate commerce, which is the purview of the federal government, governing business that travels back and forth across states, when you think about health care, there is a lot of interstate commerce. A lot of the health markets are regional. And people pay -- taxpayers pay for every dollar of uncompensated care. For everyone who comes through an emergency room door, that goes on to the backs of taxpayers and lots of people who pay insurance policies and pay more for those who are uncompensated. JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, meanwhile, you have Republicans who are saying, whatever happens in the courts, they're going to continue to try to chip away at this legislatively. They're going to try to deny funding for big chunks of this. Do you ever worry that you are out there trying to defend something that's going to be hollowed out? KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Well, I hope we are able to engage in a straightforward manner this fall in that debate. I think it's fine for Republicans to go to their constituents and tell parents who have a child under the age of 26, your son or daughter, we want to take back their right to enroll in your insurance policies. We want to make sure that insurance companies, Mr. Republican Congressman or Congresswoman, are going to be able to kick your sick child out of a plan. We want to make sure that seniors will not see their prescription drug doughnut hole closed over time. That's a debate I welcome and I hope that we are able to talk about. Repealing this bill means taking benefits away from lots of Americans who are really relying on this change, once and for all, to get some tools into their own hands. JUDY WOODRUFF: On the savings that you have been talking about today that will be realized for Medicare, Republicans like Charles Grassley -- you have got -- and the insurance industry now saying the cuts that will come to private Medicare plans will result in huge increases in premiums for seniors, which will then force them to give up their Medicare. KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Well, I don't think that's accurate, first of all. The data shows that about a fourth of Medicare beneficiaries choose Medicare Advantage plans. We have more companies offering Medicare Advantage right now than we have ever had before. We anticipate... JUDY WOODRUFF: These are the private... KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: These are the private choices. So, you can either choose traditional Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan. But we have overpaid by about 14 percent. And everybody else in Medicare pays for that overpay -- pays more for their Medicare policies, no additional health benefits to the people who choose. And all we're saying is, gradually, over time, that overpayment should stop. We think there's going to be plenty of choices. JUDY WOODRUFF: And what is going to happen to those seniors who are in these plans? KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: They will absolutely have the choice of those plans. Those plans will stay in effect. They will stay in the market. In fact, the Centers for Medicare Services has issued a notice to companies, saying there will not be a cut next year. There will be a flat line for Medicare Advantage plans, so come in with your package of proposals. Come in with your bid. But we think there are going to be plenty of options for seniors who want to continue in a Medicare Advantage plan. JUDY WOODRUFF: Let me ask you about another headache out there, and that is Medicaid funding for individuals, the poor. A number of states, governors are coming to you, to the Obama administration, saying, wait a minute, this law means that we don't have the flexibility to deal with these rising Medicaid costs. Our budgets are being stretched and strapped. What are you saying to the states that are struggling with this right now? KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Well, first of all, as you know, I was one of them, until very recently, governor of a state, watching the Medicaid budget. And this is a federal-state partnership, no question about it. I mean, the first thing we need to do is get Congress to act on the extension of the assistance for Medicaid programs across the country. That's been pending now for months and months and months, and tonight again came a near vote in the Senate. It's now been pushed off to Wednesday. But that's a huge step forward for states, to pass the FMAP, the federal matching plan. Secondly, in 2014, when the Affordable Care Act has an expanded Medicaid opportunity for lots of adults who don't qualify, it's paid for 100 percent by federal funds for the first four years and then gradually recedes to a 90 percent federal funding. So, this is a huge number of people who currently are coming through the doors of emergency rooms in states. States are picking up costs for all kinds of health-related costs. And the federal government is saying, we think we should cover everyone, and we think we are going to pay for it, states, and help you in this partnership. JUDY WOODRUFF: So many, many questions out there. And we thank you for dealing with some of them with us. Secretary Sebelius, thanks so much. KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Sure.

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Op-Ed: Securing Medicare's future

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Yahoo! News - By Kathleen Sebelius - Jul. 29 (Opinion) - Forty-five years ago today, the creation of Medicare transformed our health-care system and our nation. It helped to make us a stronger and more prosperous country by freeing older Americans from the fear that sickness or injury would cost them their lifetime savings and security.

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1965 All Over Again?

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Newsweek - By Jonathan Alter - Mar. 28 (Opinion) - Jonathan Alter for Newsweek wants to know how Obama is doing from the progressive perspective. Perhaps, fair?

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The Drama of Health Care Reform: Viewed from Within and Abroad

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Abraham Verghese - Mar. 21 (Opinion) - In general, the Europeans I met, ranging from drivers, to publicists and editors could see the pros and cons of what President Obama is proposing. They live in countries where it is unimaginable that breaking an ankle can render you bankrupt and homeless, which can happen in the U.S. They freely admit that the health care in their countries is nothing to brag about: there can be delays, and things get done quicker in the private sector. But even so, the best care is in the public sector. Health care is not a deciding factor in moving jobs or taking a plunge to create their own start up. Overall, I found a sophisticated understanding of the debate: no "death panel" kind of hyperbole, just facts. They are watching closely in Europe, very curious about how this comes out with a vote on Sunday. Since coming back to the States a few days ago, I have jumped right back into being the attending physician on the wards of my teaching hospital, a busy tertiary care setting. It has been busy, but it has also been grounding and humbling. Strangely, amidst suffering and illness, and while watching families struggling to care for their loved ones outside the hospital, the drama of the health care debate recedes. It has simply not come up with my team, with nurses or with patients; indeed, I hardly think about it until I am away from the hospital. It's because, for the longest time, all of us in American health care have had no consciousness about costs -- we practice as my colleague Alan Garber says -- as though we are ordering off a menu with no prices.

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What do we need health insurers for anyway?

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By Michael Hiltzik - Feb. 28 (Opinion) - The only way insurers can remain profitable at all is by selling healthy people on policies that don't offer much coverage at all, while squeezing older, less healthy people remorselessly so they either pay for most of their care out of pocket or get priced out of the insurance market completely (thus becoming a burden for taxpayers).

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Memo to Democrats on health-care reform: Just do it

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Times - By Paul Krugman - Feb. 26 (Opinion) - At this point Republicans obviously believe that they can make utterly misleading assertions about President Obama's health-care proposal and pay no price. But Democrats can have the last laugh. All they have to do is finish the job, and enact health reform.

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Analysis: Politics and posing trump health policy

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

San Francisco Chronicle - By Ron Fournier, - Feb. 25 (Opinion) - What happens when you throw 38 lawmakers, four television cameras and the president of the United States together and tell them to fix health care? Sniping. Posing. Serious election-year politics. And little hope of bridging the gap between Barack Obama and Republicans.

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Insurance Nightmare: Why We Need a Better System

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Politics Daily - By Janet W. Battaile - Feb. 25 (Opinion) - Late last year, I learned two things at about the same time: My cancer was coming back, and I had gotten a new insurance plan. Since then, I've learned something else: It's far easier to deal with my disease than with my new insurers. I have multiple

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An American cry for help

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

MSNBC - By Keith Olbermann - Feb. 25 (Opinion) - Last Friday night, my father asked me to kill him. We were just shy of six months stay at the hospital, and we were at the end of a long day, at the end of a longer week. Not to get too clinical or grotesque on you, he had his colon removed at the end of September ...

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Cogan, Hubbard, and Kessler: A Better Way to Reform Health Care

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By John F. Cogan, Glenn Hubbard, Daniel Kessler - Feb. 25 (Opinion) - The critical problem is rising costs. The solution is more competition and greater individual control over health spending. Here's how.

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Obama's muddled solutions | Joseph Stiglitz | Comment is free

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Joseph Stiglitz - Feb. 06 (Opinion) - The president is trying to please everyone, but he needs to take tough action to prevent the US economy's second freefallDefeat in the Massachusetts senatorial election has deprived US Democrats of the 60 votes needed to pass healthcare reform and other legislation, and it has changed American politics – at least for the moment. But what does that vote say about American voters and the economy?It does not herald a shift to the right, as some pundits suggest. Rather, the message it sends is the same as that sent by voters to former president Bill Clinton 17 years ago: "It's the economy, stupid!" and "Jobs, jobs, jobs". Indeed, on the other side of the United States from Massachusetts, voters in Oregon passed a referendum supporting a tax increase.The US economy is in a mess, even if growth has resumed, and bankers are once again receiving huge bonuses. More than one out of six Americans who would like a full-time job cannot get one; and 40% of the unemployed have been out of a job for more than six months.As Europe learned long ago, hardship increases with the length of unemployment, as job skills and prospects deteriorate and savings gets wiped out. The 2.5-3.5m foreclosures expected this year will exceed those of 2009, and the year began with what is expected to be the first of many large commercial real-estate bankruptcies. Even the Congressional budget office is predicting that it will be the middle of the decade before unemployment returns to more normal levels, as America experiences its own version of "Japanese malaise".As I wrote in my new book Freefall, Barack Obama took a big gamble at the start of his administration. Instead of the marked change that his campaign had promised, he kept many of the same officials and maintained the same "trickle down" strategy to confront the financial crisis.

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Geithner Says Insurance Policies, Not AIG Derivatives Contracts, Were Systemic Risk

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - Nov. 20 (Opinion) - Geithner says credit-default swaps weren't the problem, after all.

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The ABC Dilemma of Health Reform

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Vernon L. Smith - Oct. 18 (Opinion) - I don't know whether this problem has a solution. If it does, I think it requires us to find mechanisms whereby third-party payment is made to the patient, B, who in turn pays A, supplemented with any co-payment from B for services. Hence, from the moment B seeks services from A both know who is going to be paying A for what is delivered. A and B each has need for what the other brings to the table, and this structure carries the potential for nurturing the relationship between A and B. B is empowered to become better informed about the services recommended by various A's that he might choose among, and the A's might find it particularly important to build good reputations with B's.

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A Hatchet Job So Bad It’s Good

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Oct. 16 (Opinion) - The report released by lobbying organization America’s Health Insurance Plans, or AHIP, was dismissed by experts as a hatchet-job, but it may have led to a better bill.

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Healthcare has rationing in abundance

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Doyle McManus - Oct. 11 (Opinion) - Late last month, as the Senate Finance Committee labored to produce its version of a healthcare bill, the Republican whip, Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, renewed an old warning. If the federal government intervenes to hold healthcare costs down, Kyl said, the result would be something nobody wants: rationing. "The federal bureaucrats would, in effect, reduce the payment to providers, forcing them to reduce the care," Kyl warned. "It's not the government directly that is actually rationing care; now, we wouldn't want to do that. We cut the providers to the point that they have to do it instead -- and that result is still rationing. As far as the patients are concerned, it's still the same result."

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Insurance companies propelled by greed

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MSNBC - By Keith Olbermann - Oct. 07 (Interview) - Insurance companies continue want higher penalties for people who are mandated to buy insurance, threatening to raise all premiums again if that doesn't occur. Former CIGNA Vice President Wendell Potter discusses.

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Government-Run Health Care?

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Fox News - By Neil Cavuto, Elijah Cummings - Oct. 06 (Interview) - Video interview by Fox anchor Neil Cavuto with Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), who expresses confidence that health care reform will pass with a public option.

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