PNHP

Trump Responsible for Lower Premiums? … “Laughable”

Trump Responsible for Lower Premiums? … “Laughable”

ACA defenders take issues with HHS Secretary's recent claims

By Shannon Firth, Washington Correspondent
MedPage Today, September 28, 2018

Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar announced Thursday that insurance premiums on the federal exchange for benchmark plans are expected to fall by 2% nationally and and went on to credit President Trump for the decline, as well as what Azar said were numerous other improvements in the nation’s healthcare system.

Azar also ridiculed the “Medicare for All” proposals backed by many Democrats, in a speech he delivered in Nashville that was covered in detail by MedPage Today.

The secretary’s assertions did not sit well with supporters of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicare for All contacted by MedPage Today.

‘Laughable’ Claim

“When you make a change in something as big as healthcare financing, you’re not going to see the results immediately,” said Carol Paris, MD, a retired psychiatrist and president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), in a phone interview.

“It’s more likely that [President Trump’s] defunding the cost-sharing reductions created so much uncertainty in the insurance market last year that [insurers] set their premiums higher than they might have otherwise to give them some wiggle room.”

Insurers were overcautious and set their premiums too high, she added. “What we’re really seeing this year is the markets correcting themselves for chaos created by the Trump administration last year.”

Manan Trivedi, MD, president of the National Physicians Alliance, also questioned Azar’s logic: “ACA premiums are stabilizing despite the Trump administration…Americans could have seen premium costs go down in actual dollars if Trump and Azar didn’t recklessly repeal the individual mandate, allow the sale of stripped-down, short-term, junk insurance plans, and refuse to reimburse insurance companies for discounts they are required by law to offer to low-income customers,” he said in an email.

“These moves are a direct attempt at sabotaging the ACA,” he added, noting that despite the administration’s efforts the ACA’s popularity and stability continue to grow.

Eagan Kemp, a healthcare policy advocate for Public Citizen, called Azar’s comments “laughable.”

“From ending the individual mandate through the tax scam bill, to undermining ACA enrollment by refusing to support enrollment efforts, to allowing the sale of junk plans (both short-term plans and association health plans) without adequate state or federal oversight, this administration has shown nothing but disdain for the health of the American people,” he wrote in an email.

Claire McAndrew, director of Campaigns and Partnerships for Families USA, a left-leaning think tank, echoed Kemp and Trivedi highlighting that this administration had actually increased the rate of uninsurance, while at the same time opening the door to expanding “junk plans” that don’t provide patients with protections for preexisting conditions — referencing short-term health plans and association health plans.

“Any marketplace improvements are despite this administration, not because of it,” she wrote in an email to MedPage Today.

Can You Keep Your Doctor?

Left-leaning scholars were also skeptical of Azar’s remarks around Medicare for All.

Paris was not convinced by Azar’s argument that seniors find traditional Medicare lacking. In his speech, Azar argued that one-third of seniors have chosen Medicare Advantage plans because the provider more options and broader networks.

Healthier seniors are driven towards Medicare Advantage plans by lower premiums and “massive amounts of advertising,” but plan networks can be very narrow, Paris argued.

Also, when seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans get sick, as quickly as they can they switch to traditional Medicare, where the choice of doctors and hospitals is much broader, she continued.

“How Azar gets away with saying that people will have less choice of doctor and hospital with Medicare for All is ridiculous,” she added.

On Thursday, Azar suggested that because Medicare’s payments are significantly lower than private plans, doctors might opt out entirely and choose to take only cash.

“We’re not going to lose our physician work force with Medicare for all,” she said.

It didn’t happen in the U.S. in 1965, when Medicare was first enacted — despite plenty of “fear-mongering,” — and it also didn’t happen in Canada when it switched to a single-payer system, Paris noted.

(See MedPage Today‘s series “A Tale of Two Nations” for more on Canada’s health system versus the United States.)

‘Staggering’ Costs to Taxpayers?

Paris also challenged the “staggering” cost of the program that Azar decried. She cited a report from the right-leaning Mercatus Center, suggesting that the Medicare for All could potentially save the country $2 trillion. (The same paper also noted that the program would “place unprecedented strain on the federal budget.”)

But, from Paris’s perspective, “at the end of the day for 95% of Americans, they’ll have more money in their pockets, not less, because in exchange for having their taxes go up modestly, they are no longer paying premiums, copays, deductibles, [or] worrying about out-of-network expenses.

And “surprise bills” are what worry Americans most, Paris said, citing a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll — even more than prescription drugs or insurance deductibles.

“It isn’t surprising that Azar would be all about scare tactics on Medicare for All, given that his former employers in the healthcare industry are concerned about the growing support for Medicare for All,” said Public Citizen’s Kemp.

“With 70% of Americans (including 85% of Democrats and, surprisingly, 52% of Republicans) supporting Medicare for All, Secretary Azar and [CMS] Administrator Verma are getting the message that they need to take on Medicare for All. But no matter what corporate talking points they put out, they know that the American people are tired of paying more for less in healthcare,” he continued.

Trivedi said he was not shocked to see a former drug company executive pan the expansion of “low-cost, high-quality healthcare” to millions of Americans.

“The truth is moving to a universal healthcare system like Medicare for All would be the best thing for Americans’ health and Americans’ pocketbooks — it unfortunately might not be greatest for the bottom line of the drug and medical device industry, to which so many in the Trump administration are beholden to,” Trivedi said.

Finally, another policy expert noted that there isn’t one single Medicare for All plan.

“While some ‘Medicare for All’ proposals may recommend using a Medicare-type model to create a public option or more universal healthcare system, in general these conversations are divorced from the actual Medicare program. Those that do recommend changes to Medicare focus on ways to fill gaps in coverage and lower costs for beneficiaries, improvements that are long overdue,” said Lindsey Copeland, Federal Policy Director for the Medicare Rights Center.

“Medicare is successful, and we support extending that type of insurance to other Americans. We disagree that doing so would undermine the current program. Expanding health coverage to more people does not equate with taking it away from others.”

https://www.medpagetoday.com…

Save Affordable Care Act, then expand coverage for all

By Carol Paris, M.D.
The Tennessean (Nashville), September 27, 2018

On Sept. 5, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery, along with 19 other state AGs, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

If successful, this suit will render the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, which would have dramatic effects on the health of millions of Tennesseans, whether they support the ACA or not.

Many people think of the ACA, sometimes called “Obamacare,” simply as a marketplace for health insurance, often with subsidies from the federal government. But the ACA is much more than a marketplace.

Since the ACA was signed into law in 2010, 255,800 Tennesseans have secured coverage. The ACA’s patient protection rules mean that  2.7 million Tennesseans with pre-existing conditions now have insurance.

The ACA also prohibits insurers from charging women more than men, and limits how much insurers can charge older adults. Parents can keep children on their health plans until the age of 26, instead of 19, when many young people are in school or working part time.

One of the most important elements of the ACA is the option for states to expand Medicaid. If our state legislature had passed Medicaid expansion, 163,000 more Tennesseans would have coverage today.

Despite these breakthroughs, the ACA has been tremendously controversial. Opponents argue the law increased premiums for those who earn too much to qualify for federal subsidies, and that the ACA’s “individual mandate” slapped an unfair tax penalty on those who purchased skimpy, non-compliant plans or skipped coverage altogether.

This individual mandate in particular is the target of the state lawsuits. When the mandate was challenged in 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was a tax; since Congress has the right to implement taxes, the court did not strike it down. However, since Congress “zeroed out” the mandate’s tax penalty in 2017, Tennessee and other states argue that the entire ACA is now unconstitutional.

I am a physician — not a lawyer — so I can’t speak to the legal merits of the case. But as a doctor, I can tell you that as bad as our health system is now, it was much worse before 2010.

Former health insurance executive Wendell Potter said it best: “Things were great pre-ACA, unless you had the audacity to be born sick, a woman, get sick, enter adulthood, live beyond 50 or live in poverty. If you did any of those things, it got pretty rocky.”

Republican attempts to “repeal and replace” the ACA in 2017 (without, as it turns out, a replacement plan) revealed how much Americans value the law and, frankly, how desperate we are for any kind of protections in the insurance marketplace.

Even Sen. Lamar Alexander knows how popular the ACA is: He’s co-sponsoring the “Ensuring Coverage for Patients with Pre-Existing Conditions Act.” Sounds good, until you read the fine print. The bill allows insurers to write policies with coverage loopholes for pre-existing conditions.

For example, if you have Type 1 diabetes, a company like Aetna can’t refuse to sell you a policy, but they can refuse to cover your diabetes in that policy!  Which makes as much sense as selling a homeowners’ policy that doesn’t cover the roof. Or the walls.

For all ACA’s benefits — it halved the number of uninsured and curbed the insurance industry’s most ruthless practices — the law was just a bandage on a broken health system.

The ACA’s core flaw is its reliance on private insurance to reduce costs and expand coverage. The profit-driven insurance industry is the rotten apple poisoning everything else in the health care barrel, increasing administrative bloat and diverting dollars from needed medical care. Each year, insurers continue to strip down policies, increase out-of-pocket costs, maintain restrictive networks, and deny care. And at the same time, boast record profits.

As a doctor, I am trained to treat a patient’s immediate condition, but also address their long-term health prospects. Today, we must stop the bleeding and keep the ACA intact. But we quickly need to move on to the only system that is proven to both reduce costs and expand coverage — a single-payer, improved Medicare for All.

Carol Paris, M.D, is a retired physician and president of Physicians for a National Health Program.

https://www.tennessean.com…

Having ‘skin in game’ not smartest way to run health care

By George Bohmfalk, M.D.
The Aspen (Colo.) Times, September 27, 2018
(Part 4 of 6. Read parts 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6.)

Traditional Medicare and most for-profit insurance plans pay 80 percent of approved charges, with the insured person responsible for the balance. Most plans also require out-of-pocket deductibles and copayments.

The reasoning for this is that having people responsible for part of the cost of medical care should incentivize them to be cost-conscious in their health care spending, thereby holding down overall costs. This is often referred to as having “skin in the game,” a term that originated in the investment world.

Potential investors might be more inclined to put their money in a venture if the person promoting it also had some of his or her money invested, or “skin in the game.” That sounds like a good idea, but is it in health care, and has it worked?

Unfortunately, it has proved to be a bad idea and an economic failure.

Experience has shown that being responsible for part of one’s medical bills doesn’t reduce spending. Few people price-shop for their care. They either look for the “best” doctors and hospitals, or they have no options and take what’s available. Further, in most cases, prices aren’t available to the average patient. Very few hospitals can tell you what it will cost to have a hip replacement or ICU treatment for a heart attack. And if you’ve just had a heart attack or been injured in a car wreck or skiing accident, you’re not in a position to be shopping for the lowest-priced care.

Many who don’t have funds on hand for these up-front, out-of-pocket payments are harmed by this arrangement, as they are discouraged from obtaining care. Conditions that could be treated successfully and inexpensively often become untreatable or much more expensive to treat when treatment is delayed.

A Kaiser Foundation study also suggests that the administrative cost to bill for, collect and process these payments may exceed the revenues. Given all this, it’s likely that insurance with first-dollar coverage may result in better overall health outcomes at lower overall cost. Skin in the game isn’t such a good idea when the game is your health.

Will providing full health care insurance coverage to everyone actually improve our health? The National Academy of Medicine studied how we in the U.S. compare with 16 peer nations in death rates at various ages.

From birth to our mid-60s, we’re at or near the bottom. Our death rates are worse, meaning higher, than almost every other nation. But then something striking occurs: once we reach 65, our rankings improve, rapidly and dramatically. Within just a few years, we outlive our age peers in nearly every other nation.

What miracle accounts for this dramatic improvement in our health? Clearly, it’s when everyone finally has health care insurance, through Medicare. An even more striking result was seen in a Veterans Administration study: black patients fared worse than whites in the general population, but among veterans who had equal access to health care, health outcomes of black patients were 24 percent better than those of whites.

How many people were in those groups who died at a higher rate than foreigners? Harvard researchers calculated that around 45,000 Americans die each year as a direct result of not having insurance. The investigators were careful to determine that these deaths were not due to smoking, obesity, drugs or other personal habits. They were due to not having health care insurance and not being able to get medical care when needed. People who don’t have health care insurance have a 40 percent higher chance of dying. Period. They’re not bad or irresponsible people. They are your friends, your housekeepers and gardeners, your Uber drivers, ski instructors and musicians. They could be you.

This is a solvable problem. We can save enough money by moving to a single-payer system to provide full, complete health care insurance to everyone, with money left over. Ninety-five percent of households would pay less for full coverage than they currently spend for limited coverage. We can save lives, as well as money. Doing this can be less disruptive than continuing on the present course, and can be a boon for the economy.

Dr. George Bohmfalk practiced neurosurgery in Texas before retiring to spend half of each year in the Roaring Fork Valley. He is active in Physicians for a National Health Program, a physician-driven group advocating for a single-payer health care system.

https://www.aspentimes.com…

AHIP’s CEO provides us with his vision for health care’s future

AHIP CEO Matt Eyles on Value-Based Care and Evolving Healthcare IT

Change Healthcare, September 4, 2018

The rise of value-based care and the ongoing evolution of healthcare technology are just two of the many topics the new CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) says are front and center on his upcoming agenda.

AHIP’s Matt Eyles takes a deep dive on those subjects and more while speaking with Rob Capobianco, the head of the Change Healthcare value-based-care analytics team, as part of the Change Healthcare Episode Intelligence podcast series.

***

Rob Capobianco: I think it only gets better from here. But with consumer side devices and machine learning and AI who knows what the future holds. But I think it will incrementally keep building. That’s what we’ve seen in healthcare over and over and over again is we just keep taking the ideas farther.

Matt Eyles: I think that notion of incrementalism is really important as well when you think about healthcare because there are efforts out there and I’m coming back to the policy world for a little bit that would try and sort of fundamentally disrupt and change what’s happening within the healthcare system, whether it’s moving more towards a government-driven solution or sort of taking government out of it even a little bit more than it’s in there today. And that kind of massive disruption requires a lot of transition. That, it’s really hard to do that. And so thinking about incremental improvements whether it’s coverage expansion, ways that we’re improving healthcare is delivered, measurement quality, those are all really important and ways that we can make real progress over a finite period of time and see what’s working and what’s not. Because as we know, it’s been said before but I’ll say it here healthcare is complicated. So when you have that many moving parts probably an incremental approach is a lot more effective than trying to do a wholesale dramatic change. Despite all the disruption that we’re seeing now and all of the change whether it be on the technology side or what we’re seeing with Amazon and JP Morgan, Berkshire Hathaway, that they want to disrupt things as well. But it’s really hard to do it in a massive way in a short period of time.

Rob Capobianco: Absolutely. Want to be cognizant of time. I’m sure you have way more meetings going out today and into the rest of the week. So for the audience here that doesn’t get the opportunity to speak to someone like you, just sort of any final words of wisdom for the audience? Things you want to leave them with?

Matt Eyles: I think it’s important to embrace the change that’s happening in the healthcare system. When I think whether it was my own personal journey professionally or the disruption that we’ve seen in different parts of the healthcare system if you’re able to embrace the change, sort of step back for a second and say okay, we’re going to figure this out. It might be hard. It might be really challenging. But we’re going to be better when we come out the other side because we will have learned something different. I think that’s a pretty important approach when you’re tackling big problems that are of the complexity that we see in healthcare. And don’t fight it because you’ll probably lose if you do. So you’re better off trying to figure out how can you work with the hand that you’ve been dealt, embrace the change, and try and make the system better.

https://www.changehealthcare.com…

***

Retraction:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Today’s Quote of the Day, “AHIP’s CEO provides us with his vision for health care’s future,” represented a non sequitur in that a discussion of the consequences of consolidation within the health care industry does not logically follow from the comments made by AHIP CEO Matt Eyles. Also the analogies resulted in an overstatement of the solidification and impenetrability that is taking place within the health care industry. Thus I am retracting the message (archived below).

Though I am retracting this particular Quote of the Day, I do want to reemphasize that delay in enacting and implementing an Improved Medicare for All is enabling the progression of structural changes that will create greater political and policy barriers to comprehensive reform. The need for reform is urgent.

***

Original Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

As we witness the consolidation of the health insurance industry and the medical-industrial complex into an amalgam that lays down the future health care infrastructure for America, it is instructive to hear the words of Matt Eyles, the CEO and thus the spokesperson for America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), as he provides us with his clear vision of where we are headed. Read his words.

Did I say a clear vision? Well, we’d better understand what is behind those somewhat obscure words since this seems destined to be the future of our health care system.

We are witnessing an acceleration of broad-based merger activity – horizontal, vertical, upside down, and inside out. Use a little imagination on where that will lead.

Our continual delay in implementing the reform that we need is further embedding the insurance industry and other components of the medical-industrial complex into our health care delivery system such that they are becoming a fused unit that will not be amenable to changes proposed in the PNHP model of single payer. The delays in moving toward an improved Medicare for All are allowing the creation of a health care machine that will leave the entire health care system in the control of the billionaires forever. We will not be able to eliminate the private insurers because the private insurers will be an integral part of the health care delivery system. This amalgam is already rapidly fusing.

How do you remove a private, for-profit insurer from the health care delivery system when it has already become the delivery system itself? How do you reduce the administrative waste when the health care machine is oiled with profound administrative excesses? How do you negotiate prices with a gigantic mega-amalgam that simply exists, dominating all of health care, while invulnerable to the actions of bureaucrats who have mastered passivity.

Think again how private insurers, hospitals, outpatient centers, medical groups, retail clinics, pharmaceutical firms, pharmacy benefit managers, retail pharmacies, information technology, innovative alternative payment models, accountable care organizations, Medicaid managed care organizations, privatized Medicare Advantage plans, and endless other entities are merging into a conglomeration that, as several have said, has made health care complicated. Then try tackling this conglomeration with single payer. That amalgam won’t separate out, and we’ll be stuck with it.

AHIP’s Matt Eyles says, “When I think whether it was my own personal journey professionally or the disruption that we’ve seen in different parts of the healthcare system if you’re able to embrace the change, sort of step back for a second and say okay, we’re going to figure this out. It might be hard. It might be really challenging. But we’re going to be better when we come out the other side because we will have learned something different. I think that’s a pretty important approach when you’re tackling big problems that are of the complexity that we see in healthcare. And don’t fight it because you’ll probably lose if you do. So you’re better off trying to figure out how can you work with the hand that you’ve been dealt, embrace the change, and try and make the system better.”

Just work with what we’ve been dealt and embrace the change? This is the future according to the private insurance guru? The longer we sit on our duffs spouting incantations about ineffectual policies such as ACOs or a public option, the more our amalgamated health system will solidify, making it impervious to the application of sound health policy science. It may already be too late, but we really won’t know that for sure unless we act…now. Otherwise how would single payer Medicare for all stewards know where to send the check?

Stay informed! Visit www.pnhp.org/qotd to sign up for daily email updates.

U.S. Senate Panel on Challenges of Providing Rural Health Care

Testimony by Dr. Deborah Richter
C-SPAN, September 26, 2018

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) heard testimony Tuesday afternoon from Dr. Deborah Richter of Cambridge, Vt. during a Senate roundtable discussion focused on the costs and availability of health care in rural America.

Sanders invited Richter, who works in primary care and addiction medicine in rural areas of Vermont, to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security. Richter told the senators she sees “the inadequacies of our health care system every day.”

Richter said the problems with our nation’s health care system “are magnified in rural America” since patients are “older, sicker and poorer.” “This is particularly true of the impact of the opioid epidemic which started in rural America,” she said.

Recent studies show rural Americans, compared to those in urban areas are disproportionately more likely to suffer premature death from heart disease, cancer, stroke and many chronic diseases. Deaths among rural Americans from opioid overdoses, vehicle crashes and other accidents are about 50 percent higher than those among people living in urban areas, the studies state.

“When we are looking to reduce health care costs now and in the future, we must first address the primary care shortage,” Richter said. “Primary care represents most of the medical office visits in any one year. In a nutshell, primary care is most of the care to most of the people most of the time. Yet, we represent less than eight percent of total costs.”

During the discussion, Sanders emphasized that a Medicare-for-all system would provide better and more affordable health care than our current system, including in rural America.

“As a physician who has practiced in the U.S. health care system for the past 30 years, I would say that in my experience, unless we address the system as a whole we will not solve any of the pressing problems in health care. We need to regard health care as a public good and make it accessible to all. We have wonderful health professionals and hospitals in this country. We are spending enough money,” Richter said. “We need a program of expanded Medicare for all Americans.”

https://www.c-span.org…

Ban Ki-moon says US health care system is ‘morally wrong’

Ex-UN chief Ban Ki-moon says US healthcare system is 'morally wrong'

By Jessica Glenza
The Guardian, September 25, 2018

The former United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon has denounced the United States’ healthcare system as politically and morally wrong, and urged American leaders to enact publicly financed healthcare as a “human right”.

Ban made the comments in an exclusive interview with the Guardian in New York, as part of his work with The Elders, a group founded by Nelson Mandela to work on issues of global importance, including universal health coverage.

The US has the world’s most expensive health system, accounting for nearly one-fifth of American gross domestic product and costing more than $10,348 per American. The United Kingdom, by comparison, spends a little under 10% of GDP according to the latest available statistics, and healthcare is free at the point of delivery.

“It’s not easy to understand why such a country like the United States, the most resourceful and richest country in the world, does not introduce universal health coverage,” said Ban. “Nobody would understand why almost 30 million people are not covered by insurance.”

Failing to provide health coverage, he said, was “unethical” and “politically wrong, morally wrong”. He accused the “powerful” interests of pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and doctors that “inhibit the American government” of having prevented the US from moving towards universal healthcare.

https://www.theguardian.com…

***

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Ban Ki-moon was Secretary-General of the United Nations from 2007 thru 2016. He knows something about the world. He says that the failure of the United States to provide health care coverage for everyone is “unethical” and “politically wrong, morally wrong.” He’s right, of course.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We have the greatest resources, but we are not allocating them efficiently nor equitably. We can correct that with one simple albeit massive change: Switch our health care financing to a well designed, single payer, improved Medicare for All. With such a financing system we can much more easily make the refinements needed to improve the functioning of our health care delivery system so it works well for everyone.

When our president opens his mouth before the United Nations General Assembly and they laugh at him, that should be a sure sign that we need more national soul-searching. Listening to and acting upon the words of Ban Ki-moon should be a great place to start.

Stay informed! Visit www.pnhp.org/qotd to sign up for daily email updates.

Improved Medicare for All: Simple, Prudent and Proudly American

Interview with Dr. Ed Weisbart

The Jim Bohannon Show, September 26, 2018

PNHP-MO chair Dr. Ed Weisbart appeared on the nationally syndicated radio program “The Jim Bohannon Show” to discuss the benefits of improved Medicare for all. He spoke with guest host McGraw Milhaven about pharmaceutical price gouging, insurance company abuses, and the urgent need for reform.

https://omny.fm…

Reducing California’s single payer legislation to a public option

California Legislative Information

Assembly Bill No. 1810
Approved by Governor June 27, 2018. Filed with Secretary of State June 27, 2018.

PART 4. Council on Health Care Delivery Systems

1001. (a) Effective January 1, 2019, there is hereby established the Council on Health Care Delivery Systems as an independent body to develop a plan that includes options for advancing progress toward achieving a health care delivery system in California that provides coverage and access through a unified financing system for all Californians.

002. (a) On or before October 1, 2021, the council shall submit to the Legislature and Governor a plan with options that include a timeline of the benchmarks and steps necessary to implement health care delivery system changes, including steps necessary to achieve a unified financing system.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov…

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Assembly Bill No. 2472: An act to add Section 1002.5 to the Health and Safety Code, relating to health care coverage.
Approved by Governor September 22, 2018. Filed with Secretary of State September 22, 2018.

AB 2472, Wood. Health care coverage.

From the Legislative Counsel’s Digest

Existing state law establishes the Council on Health Care Delivery Systems as an independent body to develop a plan that includes options for advancing progress toward achieving a health care delivery system in California that provides coverage and access through a unified financing system for all Californians. Existing law requires the council, on or before October 1, 2021, to submit to the Legislature and the Governor a plan with options that include a timeline of the benchmarks and steps necessary to implement health care delivery system changes, including steps necessary to achieve a unified financing system. [AB 1810 (Committee on Budget), Chapter 34, Statutes of 2018]

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

SEC. 2. Section 1002.5 is added to the Health and Safety Code, to read:

1002.5. (a) The council shall prepare an analysis and evaluation, known as a feasibility analysis, to determine the feasibility of a public health insurance plan option to increase competition and choice for health care consumers.

(d) (1) The council shall submit the feasibility analysis to the Legislature and the Governor on or before October 1, 2021.

(e) This section does not authorize the council to apply for a waiver under Section 1332 of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148), as amended by the federal Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (Public Law 111-152), and any amendments to, or regulations or guidance issued under, those acts.

CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS AB 2472 (Wood)
As Amended August 17, 2018

COMMENTS: According to the author, in California there are some counties that only have one health plan choice, including Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Inyo, Mono, and in most of Kings County. Additionally, 22 other counties have two or fewer health plan choices. This limited plan choice has impacted not just the prices of health care in these areas but also the quality of health care that consumers receive. Although the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has greatly reduced the number of uninsured in California, premiums continue to rise for many consumers. Policymakers have an obligation to find ways to make healthcare more affordable and accessible to consumers. One proposed solution to the problem of limited health plan competition in the individual market is the establishment of a public option as an alternative to existing private plans. However, among other considerations, the structure, financing, and governance of a public option needs to be evaluated. This bill would require the Council to conduct an analysis and evaluation of a public health insurance plan option and determine if this public option is possible to implement in California.

A March 2018 issue brief published by the Insure the Uninsured Project (ITUP) entitled “Exploring Public Option in California,” highlights the issues and options related to public option. The issue brief defined public option as a publicly operated health plan choice that directly competes with private health plans in specified target markets. A public option does not include public programs such as Medicare, Medi-Cal, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, but may be modeled after, or offered as an adjunct to, public programs. The issue brief highlights California-specific factors that will influence a public plan choice, including: an active purchaser exchange (Covered California); existing network of local public health plans; strong California standards and consumer protections; California communities with severe provider shortages and lack of competition; and, a state safety net linked to public health plans. In the issue brief, ITUP also developed three scenarios of how a public plan choice might be organized in California and notes that the scenarios acknowledge California’s extensive network of local health plans and the heavy concentration of managed care in the existing Medi-Cal program.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov…

***

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

In June of this year, the California Legislature passed and Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 1810 – a bill that, amongst other measures, would establish the Council on Health Care Delivery Systems with instructions to develop a plan that would provide coverage and access through a unified financing system for all Californians, whatever that means. This week, Gov. Brown signed AB2472 – a bill that instructs the Council on Health Care Delivery Systems to determine the feasibility of a public health insurance plan option to increase competition and choice for health care consumers, or, simply stated, a public option, and report back October 1, 2021 (deferring further consideration until after the next two year legislative session in California and after the next presidential election). So much for California’s single payer proposal.

Lest California’s single payer supporters go off in a funk, it should be realized that there is an opportunity here. What we really want is an improved Medicare that covers everyone throughout the entire nation. Californians should join in a coalition effort with other states to bring us, in the next presidential election, a Congress and an administration that would enact and implement such a national health program. We should encourage all political parties to participate, especially now that close to half of Republicans support the concept.

When do we start? Now! Don’t even consider waiting until after the midterm elections to begin the effort. There are many proponents of Medicare for all running now. We can start by electing them, thereby establishing an environment in Congress more conducive to serious deliberation of the clear superiority of a well designed, single payer, improved Medicare for All.

Stay informed! Visit www.pnhp.org/qotd to sign up for daily email updates.

People worry most about unexpected medical bills

Surprise medical bills could be a powerful campaign issue

By Drew Altman
Axios, September 24, 2018

As the chart shows, unexpected medical bills are the number one health cost problem people worry about, ahead of all the cost issues that get more attention, including deductibles, drug costs, and premiums. They’re even a bigger concern than other family expenses, such as paying the rent, mortgage, or utilities.

* Surprise medical bills also affect a lot of people. In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll, four in ten adults (39 percent) say they had a surprise bill from a doctor, hospital or lab in the past year.

* 10 percent report that an unexpected bill was from an out-of-network provider.

* Almost 18 percent of inpatient admissions result in non-network claims for patients with large employer coverage.

Percent who are very or somewhat worried about being able to afford…

67% – Unexpected medical bills

53% – Health insurance deductible

46% – Gasoline or transport costs

45% – Prescription drugs

43% – Monthly utilities

42% – Monthly health insurance premium

41% – Rent or mortgage

37% – Food

The bottom line: Unlike consumers, experts do not generally put surprise bills at the top of their list of the problems in the health system. But people talk about their unexpected bills a lot, and with a sense of outrage.

https://www.axios.com…

Discussion draft of “Protecting Patients from Surprise Medical Bills Act”:
https://www.scribd.com…

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Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

According to this survey, unexpected medical bills such as the surprise bills from out-of-network providers are the number one health cost problem that people worry about. Even if insured, an individual may be exposed to large medical bills that were not expected.

Currently under discussion is proposed federal legislation that would limit the patients’ exposure to these unexpected bills but would shift at least some of the extra charges to the insurer. Not only would those costs be transferred to the insured through higher premiums, but we should also ask if it is fair to pay physicians who agree to becoming a network provider less than is paid to those physicians who refuse to cooperate. Although opinions on that would certainly vary, we can say that such a payment scheme is, at least, inequitable.

The fundamental problem is more than the fact that insurers deliberately limit the breadth of their provider networks; it is that private insurers include a multitude of design features to enhance their business model for the benefit of their investors.

Under a well designed, single payer, improved Medicare for all there would be no surprise medical bills, nor would there be any of the other injustices that a market model would inflict upon their enrollees. Plus everyone would be included and it would be affordable for all. We spend a lot of time talking about the injustices of our fragmented, dysfunctional system such as these surprise bills, but it is the last point – affordable care for everyone – that should be the driving force behind health care reform.

Stay informed! Visit www.pnhp.org/qotd to sign up for daily email updates.

Our current medical system is failing

By H. Dixon Turner, M.D.
Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald, September 24, 2018

To the Editor:

I have been involved in providing primary care medical care for 44-plus years. Unfortunately, I now on a daily basis encounter many ways that our current medical system is failing. The costs of medical insurance, medications and many aspects of care are outrageously expensive and many patients do not even have access to basic care.

A case in point is the cost of epinephrine. I regularly order epinephrine ampules for the emergency cart in my office. Not too long ago I could get 25 ampules for around $25. When I ordered ampules about 18 months ago the cost for 25 ampules had risen to $62.50 or $2.50 per ampule. When I ordered the same ampules 2 weeks ago the cost had risen to $23-$25 per ampule!! That represents a 10 fold increase in cost in 1 ½ years. This is outrageous and quite frankly immoral. Unfortunately under our current medical care system such arbitrary price increases are allowed and are not regulated.

President Trump’s and the Republicans’ efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act will further fragment our medical care system, lead to more people not having access to care and will greatly increase the cost of medical care for all of us. These efforts — in the name of allowing “free choice” — only lead to increased profits for insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

Currently in the USA 17 percent of our GPA is spent on medical care, which does not cover all of our citizens. Compared to other developed countries, we have the worst medical outcomes even though those countries’ expenditures are as little as half as much as ours.

We must move toward a single payer or regulated payers’ system where reasonable limits are set on the cost of medications and medical care and in which all people are included and have access to medical care.

http://www.seacoastonline.com…

For profit hospitals have higher readmission rates

Proprietary management and higher readmission rates: A correlation

By Manish Mittal, Chih-Hsiung E. Wang, Abigail H. Goben, Andrew D. Boyd
PLOS ONE, Abstract, September 18, 2018

Introduction

Reducing preventable readmissions among Medicare beneficiaries is an effective way to not only reduce the exorbitantly rising cost in healthcare but also as a measure to improve the quality of patient care. Many of the previous efforts in reducing readmission rate of patients have not been very successful because of ill-defined quality measures, improper data collection methods and lack of effective strategies based on data driven solutions.

Methods

In this study, we analyzed the readmission data of patients for six major diseases including acute myocardial infarction (AMI), heart failure (HF), coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), pneumonia (PN), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and total hip arthroplasty and/or total knee arthroplasty (THA/TKA) from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) program for the period 2012–2015 in context with the ownership structure of the hospitals.

Results

Our analysis demonstrates that the readmission rates of patients were statistically higher in proprietary (for profit) hospitals compared to the government and non-profit hospitals which was independent of their geographical distribution across all six major diseases.

Conclusion

This finding we believe has strong implications for policy makers to mitigate any potential risks in the quality of patient care arising from unintended revenue pressure in healthcare institutions.

From the Discussion

The policy makers need to carefully evaluate and design healthcare policies that mitigate potential risks associated with unintended revenue pressure in harming patients.

https://journals.plos.org…

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Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Is the primary mission of the health care organization to serve the needs of patients, or is it to make a buck? It makes a difference. This study shows that readmission rates were higher in proprietary (for profit) hospitals than in non-profit hospitals.

This fundamental difference in hospitals that must cater to passive investors is one reason why the single payer, improved Medicare for all model as supported by Physicians for a National Health Program would covert for profit entities to non-profit. Unfortunately, this important policy recommendation is being left out of many of today’s discussions on health care reform.

Stay informed! Visit www.pnhp.org/qotd to sign up for daily email updates.

There is just no denying that Medicare for all is the right solution

By Olveen Carrasquillo, M.D., M.P.H.
Miami Herald, September 21, 2018

Keep the government away from Medicare.

Seriously?

Herman Cain, former CEO of the National Restaurant Association and a former presidential candidate, ludicrously argues that single-payer healthcare would be a death sentence for seniors in his Sept. 19 op-ed in the Miami Herald.

He seems unaware seniors are already insured through single-payer health insurance — it’s called Medicare.

He cites anecdotes from other countries, yet all academic studies show such nations have better access and quality healthcare. They also have better health outcomes at much lower costs.

In our public hospital, we are confronted daily with the suffering that results from having so many with poor access to health care.

In our offices, we waste way too much time fighting private insurance companies that arbitrarily deny tests, procedures and medications to our patients.

Skyrocketing insulin prices force many with diabetes to ration or not take their lifesaving medications.

It is easy to dismiss rhetoric from someone whose political ads highlighted the virtues of smoking.

But Cain is correct that Obamacare was problematic. It provided many with expensive private insurance with limited benefits. Wisely, Obama has seen the error of his ways and now advocates for an improved Medicare for All.

Medicare is the right solution for our seniors and now needs to be extended to everyone else!

Dr. Carrasquillo is professor of medicine and public health, and chief, division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine.

https://www.miamiherald.com…