Most recent first.
Newsletter-Item number
A study in the April issue of the Journal of the Society of
General Internal Medicine found people without health insurance are
more likely to forego routine physical exams and had a higher risk
of being unaware of a personal diagnosis of high blood pressure,
diabetes or high cholesterol levels – all risk factors for
cardiovascular disease.
Since Hillary Rodham Clinton’s effort to overhaul the nation’s
medical system was rejected in 1994, most big employers have
stayed out of the debate on health care reform.
But with their
medical costs ballooning, top executives of large companies are
starting to speak up again — and many are calling for a national
approach to fixing health care. Few advocate a wholesale shift
to government-directed medicine, but most are seeking broad
changes in the employer-subsidized health system, which they
regard as unsustainable in its current form.
See complete article
HERE
Why should businesses embrace single-payer?
By Jack E. Lohman
The global marketplace requires a totally fresh look at how
we provide health care in the U.S., but are business leaders
really ready for it?
You would think so, at least the non-healthcare sector of
business. But they must demand a comprehensive fix that is
less complicated than what we have. Simplicity is beautiful
and simplicity doesn't break. That's why single-payer health
care makes absolute financial sense, as a look at the
benefits and some common misconceptions will demonstrate:
·
It reduces labor costs by 10-12% (a 3% additional tax on
wages versus today's 15% of wages for medical
insurance).
·
It reduces liability and auto insurance costs, and
reduces workers compensation costs.
·
It eliminates health benefits management costs and
yearly insurance company and labor contract negotiations
for health care.
·
It creates healthier personnel, reduces absenteeism, and
eliminates employer health system complaints.
·
It reduces the need for part-timers, and provides easier
recruiting (no pre-existing disease issues).
·
It eliminates employee health-related debt and personal
bankruptcies.
·
It will expand the U.S. economy and business climate by
freeing up family income to purchase needed products and
services.
·
It is not socialized medicine, as are the VA, Bethesda
Naval Hospital and other armed forces health care
systems; it is a single payer system like Medicare.
·
All hospitals and physicians remain private and are paid
under today’s guaranteed, fee-for-service and DRG
programs (thus eliminating bad debt and cost shifting).
·
Medicare has no wait times or rationing of care -- and
won't with proper funding.
·
100% of the population will be covered for the same
costs we are spending today (no more Medicaid or
BadgerCare costs, no more needless ER visits).
·
Any of the current non-profit insurance companies can
competitively bid on the management of the system (WPS
now administers Wisconsin's Medicare).
·
The current private insurance systems consume up to 31%
of health care dollars to cover non-healthcare
administration costs (marketing, broker commissions,
high executive salaries, gatekeepers that deny care,
actuarial costs, and high shareholder profits).
·
The equivalent single-payer administrative costs will be
about 9-10% and will save money by eliminating the
gigantic waste and duplications of the current system.
The savings will offset the coverage of the currently
uninsured.
·
Canadians have wait times on elective procedures because
their system is underfunded. That's because they spend
10% of GDP compared to our 16%. Nonetheless, over 80% of
Canadians prefer their system to ours. In a survey of
18,000 Canadians, only 20 came to the US for care.
What's not to like about that? The United States is the only
country in the industrialized world that does not have
universal health care, and we pay a hefty price for it. The
World Health Organization has ranked us at 37th in
efficiency and quality: we have 2 years lower life
expectancy and 35% higher infant mortality because (in large
part) we cover only 85% of our population.
We can do better, and it is time for business leaders to
sideline their associations (who are conflicted with members
who are health care providers), and do what's right for
their company, the public, and the economy as a whole.
We cannot go another year with our antiquated health care
delivery system. We must sideline the special interests and
get this done today. There are two bills that should be
supported: the Health Security Act proposed by state Sen.
Mark Miller and Rep. Chuck Benedict (SB51/AB94), and the
Improved Medicare For All bill by US Rep John Conyers
(HR676).
Jack Lohman is a retired business owner from Colgate and
volunteers for
www.WisconsinHealth.org. He can be reached at
jelohman@gmail.com
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February 22, 2007 - Introduced by Representatives Benedict,
Boyle, Black, Hebl,
Parisi, Pocan, Pope-Roberts, A. Williams, Zepnick, Hilgenberg,
Berceau,
Sinicki, Fields, Grigsby and Kessler, cosponsored by Senators
Miller, Risser
and Carpenter. Referred to Committee on Health and Healthcare
Reform.
Pg1Ln1 An
Act
to amend 15.01 (3), 15.01 (4) and 59.17 (2) (c); and to
create 15.07 (1)
Pg1Ln2 (a) 7., 15.07 (2) (n),
15.07 (5) (m), 15.07 (5m) (c), 15.20, 15.207, 20.430, 59.53
(25),
Pg1Ln3 62.09 (8) (cm) and
chapter 152 of the statutes; relating to: establishing a
Pg1Ln4 publicly financed
health care system for residents of this state, creating the
Pg1Ln5 Department of Health
Planning and Finance, Health Policy Board, and
Pg1Ln6 regional consumer
health councils, granting rule-making authority, and
Pg1Ln7 making appropriations.
No 'health savings' scams; time for single-payer is now
By JACK E. LOHMAN
So what's the skinny on health savings accounts?
Anything having to do with "savings accounts" would seem like a hit, until
you remember the garbage President Bush tried to feed us with his privatized
Social Security plan. HSAs are just more of the same - privatized health care
with a big up-front cost - and some legislators are behind a bill to make them
more attractive through state tax breaks.
It's not that HSAs don't have at least some appeal. If you are wealthy, they
make great tax shelters. If you are not, they will most certainly benefit the
banks, credit card companies and bankruptcy attorneys when your health starts
failing and they start collecting.
HSAs focus on money and are bad for health care. When patients must cover the
first $2,000 to $5,000 of medical bills, they tend to deny themselves and their
families care when it is most needed; early in the disease process. HSAs are
designed to keep you away from the doctor, which they do very well, even when
they shouldn't. Patients too often wait until treatments become more costly or
diseases become untreatable. Or they die - which, after the attorneys finish,
may be a welcome reprieve.
A RAND Corp. study demonstrated that when hypertensive patients had to pay
part of the bill, they had a 10% higher death rate. Certainly if people die
earlier we will reduce our health care costs, but that sounds too much like a
Philip Morris study I once read. We can do better.
Even partial payment by the patient can be counterproductive, like co-pays,
which usually cost more than they save. It was shown in a Kaiser Family
Foundation study that mothers in low-income families will too often forego their
blood pressure medicine to put food on the table, and then they have a stroke or
heart attack or, worse, die. This sounds neither compassionate nor conservative.
So let's call HSAs what they are: an opportunity for employers to offload
their health care costs to their employees. It is certainly cheaper to coax or
force them into an HSA than it is to provide full medical coverage.
Why would politicians support HSAs over a system that would really work?
Because the world is full of opportunities and theirs is to tap the insurance
industry, which state legislators have done to the tune of $817,239, according
to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign database. Democrat Gov. Jim Doyle didn't do
too badly at $352,000, nor did my own Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) at
the top of the legislators' list with $29,028. And when you add the cash from
the banking, credit card industry and bankruptcy attorneys, well, you get the
point. It's not a pretty sight. Plus there's the $1.4 million the health care
industry makes in annual campaign contributions just to keep the system broken.
Good things just never end, do they?
Better is a single-payer system that provides health care to 100% of the
population for the same dollars we are spending today, as in the proposal by
state Sen. Mark Miller (D-Monona) and state Rep. Chuck Benedict (D-Beloit). The
Health Security Act does just that, and all state politicians should support it.
This is a real solution they owe to the public, today.
They also owe the public something else: the Clean Money Elections bill as
proposed by Madison Democrats Sen. Fred Risser and Rep. Mark Pocan. If
politicians are to be beholden to their funders, those funders should be the
taxpayers, and at $5 per taxpayer per year, it's a terrific bargain. Had this
system been in place over the past decade, we'd have fixed the health care
system long ago. Since the Republicans now claim that reform is high on their
list, there is no reason for them not to aggressively support this bill.
Jack E. Lohman of Colgate is a retired business owner and author. He operates
the Web site
www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org
Universal health plan could yield savings
Study: Spending could be cut by $60.7b per
year
By Bloomberg News | March
20, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Expanding
government health insurance coverage to all Americans
could reduce healthcare spending by as much as $60.7
billion a year, according to a study by a nonpartisan
research center.
The estimated savings would include a $33.9 billion cut
in the cost of prescription drugs, the New York-based
Commonwealth Fund said in a report yesterday . The
organization evaluated proposals introduced in Congress
in recent years, including some that would allow
everyone to enroll in Medicare, the government health
insurance program that now serves older Americans and
the disabled.
Congress and President
Bush are debating what to do to help America's
uninsured, about 47 million people. Polls show Americans
are concerned about rising healthcare costs, which make
up about 16 percent of total US spending.
"We wanted to highlight
that there were feasible bills introduced to Congress
over the past two years that would incrementally or more
fundamentally expand coverage," Sara Collins, the fund's
assistant vice president, said in a telephone interview.
The study examined 10
proposed plans and assumed each was fully in place in
2007. The research was carried out the Lewin Group, a
health consulting firm based in Falls Church, Va.
The $60.7 billion in
savings was based on legislation proposed last year by
Representative Pete Stark, a Democrat from California,
that would allow everyone to get insurance through
Medicare or government-approved private plans under
Medicare. Employers with 100 or more workers could keep
paying for private coverage or contribute to a fund to
have employees covered through the government.
Bush's healthcare
proposal, calling for a tax deduction for health
insurance, would cover 9 million people that are now
uninsured and save about $11.7 billion a year, the study
said.
© Copyright 2007 Globe
Newspaper Company.
Don't miss this excellent piece in The American Prospect Online
The Wisconsin Way
by Roger Bybee
For strategic
lessons in pushing for progressive universal health care, look
north.
Volcanic
pressure is building up nationwide over soaring health care premiums
and fast-shrinking coverage, but George W. Bush will surely plug up
any eruption of reform at the national level during the remainder of
his term.
What he can't prevent is the pressure
already breaking through at the state level, which will likely
intensify as the Democratic presidential candidates continually
reinforce the reform message. As we've seen, even Republican
governors in Massachusetts and California are implementing reform
plans, though both of them carry profound flaws. Thus far, the
efforts of Mitt Romney and Arnold Schwarzenegger have garnered the
most attention -- but progressives have reason to look closely at
some very exciting developments in Wisconsin, where a major push for
statewide universal health coverage is underway.
See the complete article at
http://tinyurl.com/2byyf6
37-1
"The fee-for-service reimbursement system
creates an incentive for physicians to see more patients. This
is magnified by physician co-ownership of these facilities,
which offers a strong incentive to self-refer cases - physicians
who own imaging equipment refer between two and eight times more
tests than their peers without equity interest. Furthermore,
manufacturers of imaging and diagnostic equipment advertise to
physicians the financial advantages of pursuing additional
testing. Ultimately, the excess installed capacity (the US has
three to six times more scanners than Germany, UK, France and
Canada) with low utilization further increases the pressure to
generate more demand in order to justify the investments made.
The vicious circle is not easily interrupted by a reduction of
reimbursement fees, since revenue levels can be maintained
through incremental demand fueled by clinical discretion."
Ref:
http://www.themonroetimes.com/v0305hue.htm
Huebsch is wrong on Health Care solution
By Jack E. Lohman
Rep. Mike Huebsch is absolutely correct when he says the
health care system is broken. But his logic is reversed and he
doesn't seem to accept that state politicians trashed the system
when they lifted the certificate of need and allowed the so-called
"free-market" to take control.
Moving to the for-profit, free-market system over the last decade is
exactly the reason costs have increased at five times the rate of
inflation, and we don't need more of the same. We also don't need
employers offloading their health care costs to employees via Health
Savings Accounts, or as Huebsch and George Bush calls them,
"personal savings accounts."
The banks, credit card companies, and bankruptcy attorneys will have
a field day with HSAs as they dangerously refocus the issue from
providing needed health care to cutting care and costs. HSAs make
sense only if you are young, healthy and wealthy. Read the code
words and don't be fooled by right-wing rhetoric.
When patients must decide on the dollars they spend, they too often
delay care until it is more costly to treat or it becomes
untreatable. A RAND study demonstrated that when hypertension
patients had to pay part of the bill, they had a 10% higher death
rate. Most certainly if people die earlier we will reduce our health
care costs, but that sounds too much like a Philip Morris study I
once read. We can do better.
Understand this: there is no such thing as competition in the health
care system. Period! Never has been and never will be, at least not
in this decade. Most patients trust their physicians to do the right
thing, and few will seek the lowest bidder. The vast majority of
consumers are not equipped to second guess their physicians, though
they should indeed research their diseases and potential treatments,
and they should live healthier lifestyles.
Rep. Huebsch lambastes a government solution, but in fact every
other system in the world that exceeds US quality and efficiency
(which is the top 36 systems) are either total government or a
combination public-private systems like Canada's. According to the
World Health Organization, the US ranks 37th, Canada
ranks 5th and France is in
first place with its Medicare-type of system. Longer life expectancy
and reduced infant mortality are hallmarks of the systems better
than ours, and we have 18,000 people per year dying because they
lack health coverage.
Though not perfect '' because Canadian politicians have underfunded
it and wait times exist for non-urgent procedures '' over 80% of
Canadians still prefer their system to ours. Its costs are 10% of
gross domestic product compared to our 15%, and ours is projected to
rise to 20% in the next decade thanks to our free-for-all approach
and turning it over to for-profit corporations.
If Huebsch really wants to fix health care he'll support the
Medicare-for-all system proposed by Sen. Mark Miller and Rep. Chuck
Benedict. Fund it properly and we'll have 100% coverage with no wait
times, yet the same costs as today's. This is the most
business-friendly and public-friendly approach possible, and it
makes sense to everyone except those profiting from the current
mess.
Contrary to the anti-government rhetoric, Medicare is the only part
of our health care system that does work well. It treats the most
costly of patients and the end-of-lifers '' it does so efficiently
and without rationing '' and seniors are not complaining. I know
because I'm one of them.
But at the very
least Assembly Speaker Huebsch should let the Miller-Benedict bill
receive a fair public hearing and not block its progress to a floor
vote. And he and the other Republicans should start by refusing the
$1.4 million the health care industry makes in annual campaign
contributions, and start thinking about a real public solution
instead.
Barring that public commitment, perhaps we could reconsider
Huebsch's position if he and his cohorts first passed a law
mandating health savings accounts for all state legislators. Let
them experiment with their own families before passing it to the
public.
President Rejects Health Care Proposal:
WASHINGTON '' The Bush administration on Wednesday rejected key
recommendations from a citizens' group asked by Congress to find out
people's health care wishes.
Suggestions included
guaranteeing health coverage for specific checkups and treatments
and protecting consumers from high medical expenses. The group
released its report Sept. 29 after hearing from about 6,500 people
at 84 meetings.
See complete story
HERE.
Income inequality and
child mortality in wealthy nations:
Relationships between
income inequality and various health indicators
have been the subject of much study and some
controversy. We investigated associations
between child mortality and income inequality
amongst the wealthier OECD countries as well as changes
in their relative child mortality rankings over
time.
Conclusions: The
results strengthen the existing evidence linking child
mortality with income inequality in wealthy
nations, and add to the evidence that
sociopolitical factors are important in this regard.
See the complete report
HERE.
Thanks to
www.toomuchonline.org for this link.
36-1
ACTION ITEM: Here's a
cigarette tax that even smokers can like. Doyle wants to
increase cigarette taxes by $1.25 per pack to (1) help insure
185,000 of 250,000 uninsured residents, and (2) send some of it back
to smokers in the form of smoking cessation assistance.
This is not just a fund-raising tactic. It is to slow the rate of
new children smokers and to increase the rate that current smokers
quit, and the smoking cessation
assistance will help current smokers.
It is also a public health issue, and it will help reduce health
care costs and deaths in the future.
Register your support (or objection) by contacting your state
senator and assembly person today. See:
Wisconsin State Assembly pages:
http://www.legis.state.wi.us/leginfo/contact/legislatorslist.aspx?house=assembly
Wisconsin State Senator pages:
http://www.legis.state.wi.us/leginfo/contact/legislatorslist.aspx?house=senate
Medicare scammers use billing to snare unsuspecting victims
And here's
even more on
Medicare Fraud
35-1
34-1
33-1
32-1
Report: The
Cost of Privatization: Extra Payments to Medicare
Advantage Plans —
Updated and Revised by the Commonwealth Fund
Medicare Advantage is a system of private HMOs that provide
health care to Medicare patients under contract to the
government, but now it has been found that its costs are
12.5% higher than Medicare would have spent itself. Who said
the privatized free market would save money?
CT census:
number of CT studies growing -
HERE
is the business to be in!
Health fraud suit is tossed
- Couple wasn't duped
by insurer, judge says. Go
HERE for story.
They thought they had
adequate insurance but didn't. That's how the free market
works.
Let’s stop
this Health Care nonsense
By Jack E. Lohman
It’s just a matter of time
before health care is taken over by the business sector; and not just by
providing expensive insurance to pay outlandish medical costs that have been
increasing at 15% per year. That’s what we have today, and businesses are mad as
hell and are not going to take it any more.
Wisconsin’s
business leaders are well positioned to pool their resources and create their
own managed care facilities for employees, even buy their own hospitals if they
want. They’ll control the costs because they control the money.
This would be, of course, all
aimed at sidelining the for-profit health care interests that are currently
bleeding the system, and the insurance companies that represent the 30% of
administrative costs. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There is enough
bad management and profit-taking to spread around to all providers of health
care, including poorly run hospitals, physicians who order too many high-profit
tests, and bankers and insurers pushing health savings accounts to get their
piece of the national health care pie at the expense of the patient.
That pie now represents 15% of
our gross domestic product and promises to reach 30% within the next decade. It
is absolutely unsustainable, and it does not have to be that way.
Business leaders should not
look to reduce health care costs, they should instead look at getting out of the
health care business altogether. Whatever their costs, high or low, they are
simply added to their product price and consumers reimburse them at the cash
register. So let’s eliminate the middlemen and have the taxpayers pay directly.
Let’s allow businesses to better compete with foreign products that do not have
health costs built into them. Let’s keep the profits and jobs in the US, and
keep and attract more businesses to Wisconsin in the process.
Notably, for the same 15% of
GDP we are spending today to cover 85% of our population, we could serve 100% of
the people through a universal health care system. Think “Canadian-style without
the wait times!”
Canada provides 100% of its
population with a Medicare-for-all system, and Canadians enjoy a 35% lower
infant mortality rate, two years longer life expectancy, longer hospital stays,
and more per-capita doctor visits, all at 50% lower costs (10% of GDP compared
to our 15%). While their wait times for urgent care are the same as ours, zero,
if they’d increase their spending by just 10%, to 11% of GDP, they could also
match our wait times for elective procedures. Still, well over 80% of Canadians
prefer their system over ours. What’s not to like about that?
Importantly, any universal
health care system we create must be kept simple. Simple is less costly, simple
works, and simple doesn’t break. It makes zero sense to make complex and costly
compromises to satisfy the special interests, which is what we have done to
date. It should instead be designed to maximize results, and the best approach
is the Miller-Benedict universal health care bill.
But fixing the system requires
political will, and that’s difficult to muster when the health care interests
are giving $1.4 million annually to state politicians to keep the system as it
is; expensive, inefficient, complex and dysfunctional.
Hopefully our new state
legislature has politicians with enough wisdom to recognize that the fuse has
been lit and they had best fix the system under their watch. If they don’t, 2008
is just around the corner, and we may have to throw a few more of the rascals
out.
Jack Lohman is a retired
business owner who lives in Colgate, and is the founder of
ThrowTheRascalsOut.org and the author of the book
“Politicians – Owned and Operated by Corporate America.”
31-1
An excellent video on Single-payer
health care: Click
HERE to play.
Another video describing health
care costs, click
HERE
and HERE.
By Jack E. Lohman
The health care system is broken, and it
will get worse before it gets better. We can
fix the system overnight or we can make it a
10-year project, which the for-profit health
care interests would like to drag it out to.
There are many areas that must and can be
fixed, but simplicity is the key. Simple is
less expensive and simple doesn't break. And
the simplest system already exists; it's
called Medicare-for-all. We don't need
complicated insurance pools or anything
else; we need to provide health care, and
here's the best way:
• Single-payer delivery system:
The simplicity of a Medicare-for-all system
can provide health care to 100 percent of
our population for the same money we are
paying for 85 percent coverage today.
Means-tested co-pays will help keep costs to
a minimum. Transfer all Medicaid and
BadgerCare patients into this single system.
Alternatively, find a mechanism to expand
the medical systems for the military and
veterans to replace our private sector
health care needs.
• Who should pay for the health
care system? The taxpayers rather
than employers, though some phase-in will be
necessary. We are paying now when employers
add their costs to the price of their
products and we reimburse them at the cash
register. By eliminating the costly
middlemen, we can cut the costs by a minimum
of 30 percent.
We could help fund the system with a
surcharge added to criminal fines and by
diverting punitive damages from malpractice
awards. A tax-free charitable endowment can
also be established.
• Medical education: We
could increase the availability of doctors
and nurses by providing free college
education to high school students who both
rank in the top 10 percent of SAT scores and
maintain college grades of A or B. Give
those in the C range some debt assistance.
The better students should be allowed
into the specialties and the poorer students
required to serve longer internships and
perhaps even be limited to lower level
positions that cannot endanger patients.
• Universal IT: We must
maintain all patient, doctor and hospital
information in a highly secure universal
health database. Start with the patient
answering a lengthy on-screen health
questionnaire, add the physician's diagnosis
and treatment. The system can provide the
physician a list of treatments provided by
other physicians around the country and
under the same circumstances, and alert the
physician when medications are incorrect or
will interact with other meds the patient is
on. This will reduce practice variations,
medical and prescription errors, and give
the patient cost and quality of treatment
transparency of the physician.
• Certificate of Need:
We should require all major hospital
expansions and purchases of high-tech
equipment to be approved by a
(re-established) CON board of review.
• Physician self-referrals:
We should prohibit payment for tests using
their own high-tech equipment ordered by
physicians and clinics (because the tests
become profit-making cash cows that result
in over-ordering and wasteful spending under
the current fee-for-service structure).
Referring patient testing to well-equipped
hospitals or independent labs has always
worked well.
• Medical malpractice:
We should replace the 12-person jury system
on malpractice cases with a three-person
panel staffed by retired (or at least
non-conflicted) physicians and nurses. If
guilt is determined, all awards should be
set by this panel. Economic damages shall
consist of the patient's out-of-pocket
expenses, reasonable pain and suffering, and
reasonable legal costs.
If punitive damages are to apply, they
should not go to the patient, who has
already received economic damages, but
instead paid into the universal health care
fund.
So now we will learn whether Democrats
and Republicans can work together in the
best interest of their constituents, or
whether the $1.4 million in yearly campaign
money from health care interests carries
greater weight.
Jack Lohman is a retired business
owner from Colgate and founder of
www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org. E-mail:
jelohman@gmail.com
Published: November 16, 2006,
The Capital Times
Drug Industry Is on Defensive as Power
Shifts
WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 — Alarmed at the
prospect of Democratic control of Congress,
top executives from two dozen drug companies
met here last week to assess what appears to
them to be a harsh new political climate,
and to draft a battle plan. See complete
article
HERE.
|
|
30-1
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As Drug Prices Climb, Democrats Find Fault With
Medicare Plan
-
NYT
-
For big drug companies, the new Medicare prescription benefit is
proving to be a financial windfall larger than even the most
optimistic Wall Street analysts had predicted. But those gains may
come back to haunt drug makers if
Democrats take control of Congress this week. Democrats, who
have long charged that the drug industry is profiteering at
taxpayers’ expense, say they want to introduce legislation to revoke
the law that bars Medicare from negotiating prices directly with
drug makers like
Pfizer for the medicines it buys. See complete article
HERE.
Running on Empty: Healthcare
As the Engine of the Economy
- by
Brian Klep |