PNHP

The Economist on the birthday of the Affordable Care Act

The Economist on the birthday of the Affordable Care Act

A not very happy birthday

The Economist
March 17, 2011

As for costs, Mr Obama’s reforms deserve praise for expanding coverage, but they do this by adding millions of people to an unsupportably expensive system. Analysts estimate that America’s health spending will continue to soar under the reforms. That is a point hotly contested by Mr Obama’s team, who usually point to theoretical future efficiency gains and innovations that will save pots of money.

So it came as a shock when Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts and one of Mr Obama’s closest friends, took a different tack. Asked recently about the pioneering health reforms in his state, which served as a model for the national reforms, he first gave a backhanded compliment to Mitt Romney. Mr Patrick then revealed the dirty little secret of Obamacare: “What these folks did in Massachusetts is frankly the same thing that the Congress did, which is to take on access first, and come to cost-control next.” In other words, America will soon have no choice but to come to grips with costs. Whatever one thinks of Mr Obama’s reforms, there is no denying that they have brought that day of reckoning closer.

http://www.economist.com/node/18389179?story_id=18389179

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

The Economist joins the chorus of those who say that “America’s health spending will continue to soar under the reforms.” Many have contended that it was a mistake to have expanded coverage without first controlling costs. The real mistake was not in reversing the order of coverage expansion and cost containment, rather it was in the failure to do both simultaneously through the adoption of a national single payer program.

The Economist on the birthday of the Affordable Care Act

A not very happy birthday

The Economist
March 17, 2011

As for costs, Mr Obama’s reforms deserve praise for expanding coverage, but they do this by adding millions of people to an unsupportably expensive system. Analysts estimate that America’s health spending will continue to soar under the reforms. That is a point hotly contested by Mr Obama’s team, who usually point to theoretical future efficiency gains and innovations that will save pots of money.

So it came as a shock when Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts and one of Mr Obama’s closest friends, took a different tack. Asked recently about the pioneering health reforms in his state, which served as a model for the national reforms, he first gave a backhanded compliment to Mitt Romney. Mr Patrick then revealed the dirty little secret of Obamacare: “What these folks did in Massachusetts is frankly the same thing that the Congress did, which is to take on access first, and come to cost-control next.” In other words, America will soon have no choice but to come to grips with costs. Whatever one thinks of Mr Obama’s reforms, there is no denying that they have brought that day of reckoning closer.

http://www.economist.com/node/18389179?story_id=18389179

The Economist joins the chorus of those who say that “America’s health spending will continue to soar under the reforms.” Many have contended that it was a mistake to have expanded coverage without first controlling costs. The real mistake was not in reversing the order of coverage expansion and cost containment, rather it was in the failure to do both simultaneously through the adoption of a national single payer program.

One Year Anniversary: The Incredible Shrinking Obama Health Care Law

By Kevin Zeese
FireDogLake, Monday March 21, 2011

At its one year anniversary the Obama health care law is shrinking while the health care crisis grows.  Americans who lack any health coverage still exceeds 50 million, over 45,000 deaths occur annually due to lack of health insurance, and 40 million Americans, including over 10 million children, are underinsured.

Premiums are rising and coverage is shrinking a new norm is taking hold in America: ‘Unaffordable underinsurance.’  This month, the number of waivers granted to the Obama health law broke 1,000 protecting inadequate insurance plans. The expansion of health insurance to the uninsured is becoming a mirage. The Obama administration has told states they could reduce the number of people covered by Medicaid as well as reduce the services provided.  And, the centerpiece of the law is under court challenge – the mandate is the first time ever the federal government has forced Americans to buy a corporate product, private health insurance – is heading to a close Supreme Court decision.

The New Norm: ‘Unaffordable underinsurance’

To make insurance premiums affordable, the quality of insurance will need to be reduced so there is less coverage and more out-of-pocket costs, as Don McCanne, MD, Senior Health Policy Fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program writes:  “’Unaffordable underinsurance’ is rapidly becoming the new standard in the United States.”  The trend in health insurance is rising premiums and shrinking coverage for many Americans who get their coverage at work as well as on the individual insurance market.

Premiums have been increasing with reports ranging from 20% to 60% increases for many Americans and businesses. Further, the law may decrease employment-based insurance by 3 million people by 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation. This combined with high unemployment and underemployment will push people into the individual insurance market. The individual market is particularly at risk for increased premiums which is of growing importance because of high unemployment.  Blue Shield of California decided this month to withdraw a major hike in the face of public outcry.  This proposed 30%-35% increase would have been the third rate hike since October, the three increases would have raised rates by 59% to 87% for 200,000 policy holders.  While some hope the Obama health law will slow premium hikes, Claudia Fegan, MD of Physicians for a National Health Program writes under the Obama heath law “sudden premium hikes are still possible and, in my opinion, quite likely under the new law.”

Underinsurance, requiring Americans to pay more of the cost of health care, may become the norm because of the 2010 law. The new law will hasten the current trend toward underinsurance as plans where patients pay an average of 40% of their health care bills qualify to fulfill the employers’ obligations to provide coverage rather than pay an assessment. Massachusetts, the model on which the Obama reforms are based, recently found that medical bankruptcies have not decreased with the new law.  The lesson – it is not just health insurance, but the quality of the insurance that matters. After deriding merely adequate insurance as Cadillac Plans,” the Obama administration is showing support for high deductibility plans with large out of pocket costs that do not provide financial or health security.

One promise of the Obama health plan was that millions of underinsured would get decent insurance coverage because the “reform” required minimum levels of insurance.  But, waivers to the requirements of the 2010 law are being widely granted resulting in millions of Americans continuing to have inadequate health coverage.  Waivers allowing poor quality insurance affect 2.6 million people and are being granted rapidly to businesses, unions, insurance companies as well as states who cannot meet the Obama law requirements.  The administration says the purpose of the waivers is to avoid disruption in the insurance market, in clearer language it is to prevent employers from dropping coverage and insurance companies from leaving markets.  The requirement for a waiver is relatively simple; the applicant must show HHS “a significant increase in premiums or a decrease in access to benefits.” Ninety-four percent of requests for waivers have been granted, the largest area where waivers have been denied has been for unions.  Republicans have asked HHS for in-depth details about every waiver decision and request.

The major area of waivers are so-called mini-med plans, these are limited medical plans which provide workers with as little as $2,000 in health care coverage. The Obama health care law requires $750,000 minimum coverage in 2011. The mini-med plans do not provide security in the event of serious illness or accident. The vast majority of these waivers are for employment-based health coverage. Some of the initial waivers went to fast food chains like McDonalds and Jack-in-the-Box.  Unions, insurance companies and state governments have also received waivers. Four states have received waivers, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee.  Waivers are set to disappear in 2014, when people will be required to purchase insurance with tax payer subsidies – assuming that Obama health law survives and that low-paid workers can afford insurance even with a subsidy.

Expanded Numbers of Americans with Insurance Becoming a Mirage

The two largest areas of expansion, Medicaid and the insurance mandate are in jeopardy.  States are cutting the number of people covered by Medicaid and reducing health coverage.  The insurance mandate is under constitutional attack. And, there is little evidence that people are taking advantage of programs that provide coverage for those with pre-existing illnes
s.

The area with the biggest immediate impact on reduced coverage is the roll backs of Medicaid. Medicaid was projected to be the largest area of expansion of medical care under the Obama health care plan, covering 16 million more people, making up half the projected increase in additional Americans covered with some type of insurance under the Obama law. That is now becoming a mirage.

HHS Secretary Sebelius wrote the 50 states letting them know benefits could be cut, poor people could be required to pay a higher share of costs and that federal law allows states to reduce people covered by Medicaid.  Medicaid is health care for the poor and is jointly funded by federal and state governments. Medicaid currently covers 53 million poor children, poor pregnant women and disabled and extremely poor adults. Individuals must make less than $14,500 to be included in Medicaid.

More than half the states want permission to remove hundreds of thousands of people from Medicaid. Arizona alone is planning to reduce Medicaid coverage by 250,000 people and the Obama administration has indicated it will not oppose this reduction in coverage.  In Wisconsin, where Governor Walker has proposed deep cuts to Badgercare (which includes Medicaid and other programs) up to 350,000 could lose health care coverage.  Rather than an increase in the number of people covered, the nation is on a path to reduce total people covered.

Other states, like New York, Hawaii and California which are led by Democratic governors, are cutting benefits of Medicaid programs that already provide insufficient coverage.  Medicaid is often one of the largest expenses of a state but because the cost is shared with the federal government it is also a large source of revenue. As a result it takes more than $2 of Medicaid cuts to save a state $1.  When Medicaid is cut the economy is weakened and revenues reduced as for every dollar cut, health care jobs are lost. Cutting health care for the poor and disabled continues the downward economic spiral – the race to the bottom.

When it comes to people taking advantage of expected benefits of the health care law, thus far only 12,000 people have enrolled in the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan despite an aggressive marketing effort.  The Medicare actuary, Rick Foster, told The Hill the low enrollment is a “surprise,” given that “millions” are eligible for the coverage. The Medicare actuary had conservatively predicted the new pools would enroll 375,000 people by the end of 2010, but that projection has not been met because the insurance is too expensive for most people who need it.

Better results might be being seen for young adults.  Approximately 13.2 million 18-29 year olds are without insurance, 30% of that population.  Under the health care law these youth can stay covered under the parents’ health insurance.  There are no hard numbers for how many have taken advantage of this but the Obama administration estimates it could be as many as 1.2 million. As we see with the pre-existing illness option, predictions are one thing and reality is very likely another.  Covering each dependent will cost about $3,380 in 2011, so it is difficult to predict how many families can afford that cost in these difficult economic times when unemployment and underemployment are up and incomes are down.

The Obama health care law may decrease employment-based insurance by 3 million people by 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation. One estimate made by the CBO is that 8–9 million people currently covered under an employer plan would lose employer coverage because firms would choose to no longer offer coverage. They assume this would be balanced in part by those getting coverage on the exchange.

The other area where increased coverage was promised is the mandate forcing Americans to buy insurance.  The mandate is hotly contested in the courts with 27 states challenging the law and over 20 lawsuits filed it. The courts have split 3-2 in favor of the mandate thus far.  In the two decisions finding the mandate unconstitutional, a Virginia judge threw out only the mandate, while a Florida judge found the mandate so intertwined with the rest of the law that he would stop the whole law. The decisions have been issued along partisan lines, with three district judges appointed by Bill Clinton upholding the law; and two district judges — one appointed by Ronald Reagan and the other by George W. Bush — finding it unconstitutional.  The U.S. Supreme court has five Republican appointed justices and four appointed by Democrats.  It is generally viewed as four on the center-left, four on the right and Justice Kennedy as the swing vote.  The vote on the Supreme Court will be a close one.

The health care law faces a congressional challenge, especially from the Republican controlled House of Representatives which has already voted to repeal the law, but more importantly, promises to use the power of the purse to not fund its implementation.

Single Payer Rising: Why Not Just Improve and Expand Medicare to All?

The imploding health care law is creating an opening which may require a re-consideration of health care reform within the next five years.  Americans consistently favor simply expanding and improving Medicare to cover all Americans.  Terry Dougherty, director of MassHealth, from a state which the model for the Obama law is in place is reaching the obvious conclusion:  “I like the market, but the more and more I stay in it, the more and more I think that maybe a single payer would be better.”  He notes that unlike the insurance industry government costs less, with much lower administrative costs and “We don’t build big buildings. We don’t have high salaries. We don’t have a lot of marketing.”

The low cost of publicly funded health care is consistent with the experience of America’s single payer system – Medicare. The administrative cost of running the Medicare program has remained under 2%. But, the bureaucracy
of trying to control the insurance industry is already growing rapidly. The growth of the federal insurance bureaucracy, the federal office that regulates private insurance along with other important duties under the Obama health law, already has 252 employees and a budget of $93 million for 2012 budget requested by the White House.

While the single payer movement is growing stronger through groups like Health Care Now and Physicians for a National Health Program, the insurance industry is also getting stronger.  Not only will they receive hundreds of millions in new annual tax payer subsidies but they are taking over other parts of health care.  Kaiser Health News reports “Insurers have moved into technology, health-care delivery, physician management, workplace wellness, financial services and overseas ventures.” The Obama law is spurring the cancer of health insurance to spread throughout health care.

At the state level Vermont is striving toward single payer.  Governor Shumlin, his technical advisers and Vermonters support a single payer program, and are considering a bill that reduces the number of funding sources and if federal waivers are granted, which Obama reportedly supports, it will evolve into a single payer program.  The current version of the bill falls short of the goals of advocates who want health care treated as a human right as well as of physicians who seek a single payer program.

The “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act,” H.R. 676, a bill that sets up a single payer system has been introduced. It would provide health care to all and give consumers the most choice, provide strong health coverage as well as save money for government, business and individuals. Unlike the Obama law, improved Medicare for all would also be easier to implement.  Medicare transitioned Americans over 65 from private insurance to Medicare within a year and did so without computers.

The failing Obama reforms shows that the obvious must be faced: confront the health insurance industry which makes coverage of all Americans unaffordable. President Obama knew before running for president that single payer was the solution, but after receiving $20 million in donations from the insurance industry refused to let the only real solution, improved Medicare for all, be considered.  It is time to put in place a single payer health care program that ensures that all U.S. residents have quality health care at less cost than they currently pay.

Kevin Zeese is director of Prosperity Agenda.

http://my.firedoglake.com/kevinzeese/2011/03/21/one-year-anniversary-the-incredible-shrinking-obama-health-care-law/

Vermont's single payer proposal – listen to William Hsiao

State-Based, Single-Payer Health Care — A Solution for the United States?

By William C. Hsiao, Ph.D.
The New England Journal Of Medicine
March 16, 2011

The United States faces two major problems in the health care arena: the swelling ranks of the uninsured and soaring costs. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) makes great strides in addressing the former problem but offers only modest pilot efforts to address the latter. Experience in countries such as Taiwan and Canada shows that single-payer health care systems can achieve universal coverage and control inflation of health care costs. Because of strong political opposition, however, the U.S. Congress never seriously considered a single-payer approach during the recent reform debate. Now Vermont, wishing to solve the intertwined problems of costs and access through systemic reform, is turning in that direction.

Perhaps we are at the dawn of systemic reform in U.S. health care. The Vermont single-payer plan will never be as efficient as Taiwan’s or Canada’s because it must work within the bounds of federal laws and programs and the realities of porous state borders. Nevertheless, it can produce substantial savings to fully fund universal coverage, reduce health care costs for most businesses and households over time, and reform a fragmented delivery system. Of course, someone will bear the burden — mostly the private insurance industry and high-wage businesses that don’t currently offer insurance. But if Vermont can navigate its political waters and successfully implement this plan, it will provide a model for other states and the country as a whole.

http://healthpolicyandreform.nejm.org/?p=13939&query=home

Also posted at:
https://pnhp.org/news/2011/march/state-based-single-payer-health-care-a-solution-for-the-united-states

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

Many in the single payer community are looking at this as a great opportunity to do what Saskatchewan did – establish the first state (provincial) single payer system to serve as a model for the rest of the nation. This perception is right on – almost, but…

Saskatchewan began with a tabula rasa. They were not hindered by a quagmire of federal programs, laws and regulations. Vermont and all of the other states attempting to establish a single payer system must obtain waivers allowing them to be exempt from these federal constraints. The problem with that is that waivers do not exist for most programs and regulations, except for the subsidies in the insurance exchanges, and for Medicaid, but even these “1115” Medicaid waivers have very significant limitations on the modifications that can be made.

We still require comprehensive federal legislation if we are to achieve a true single payer system on the state level. The legislation to introduce a complex set of policies into the existing meshwork likely would be more complex than legislation to replace our current financing with a national single payer system. The political barriers would certainly be as great, if not greater.

The point is that we must not let up in the least in our efforts to educate the public on the financial and moral imperative of a national single payer program. Comprehensive national legislation is absolutely essential, even for state-based single payer systems.

In the meantime, state programs that adopt many of the features of a single payer system can serve to relieve to some degree financial hardship and physical suffering, as a temporary measure, until we can enact a national program. Efforts, such as that in Vermont, certainly deserve our support, but also would benefit from our efforts to have them include as many single payer policies as are possible under the current federal restraints. Partial successes on the state level can show the nation that we can do far, far better than we have done with the Affordable Care Act.

So let’s continue to support these state efforts. But rather than relaxing our stand on behalf of a national single payer system, we need to intensify our efforts since William Hsiao has shown us that “the Vermont single-payer plan will never be as efficient as Taiwan’s or Canada’s because it must work within the bounds of federal laws and programs and the realities.”

German health warning: don't burden doctors with a costly paperchase

By Polly Toynbee
The Guardian, Wednesday 16 March 2011

What would Professor Ulrich Frei, medical director of Berlin’s mighty Charité university hospital most wish for? “No more healthcare reform! At least for three years, please. Sometimes we have one a year, with no time to plan. It follows the electoral cycle and so does health funding, and that makes rational planning impossible.”

Sound familiar?

There are plenty of lessons for the UK to learn from German healthcare, as seen from this towering red-brick turreted institution. Founded in the 18th century by Frederick William I, the Prussian monarch, Charité was bombed to dust in the war, rebuilt as a concrete East German monument, right up against the wall. On reunification, it was reconstructed again, to its former splendour. But it’s in debt.

Across Europe the politics of health is intense. Everywhere, the mammoth generation born just postwar is reaching retirement, demanding more hi-tech treatment and better social care while projected to live longer than any previous generation. Each country responds as if it were uniquely burdened, frequent fidgety reorganisations, with health one of the most certain triggers of political indignation.

Systems differ, built on each country’s distinct social history, all reflecting national stories. But all are basically state-funded through taxation, even if at first glance they look like insurance schemes. Essentially, the working healthy pay for the sick and the old, who are the heaviest users of care.

A commitment to universal, collective provision distinguishes Europeans and divides them most strikingly from the United States (but not Canada). It has been this “socialised medicine” commitment that the Tea Party faction has fought so ferociously in its rejection of the Obama health plan. In Germany, the state pays for 77% of healthcare, in the UK it is 83%, while in the US the government covers only half as much.

Germany spends 10.4% of GDP on health (public and private), considerably more than Britain, which on 2007 figures was just below the EU average at 8.4%. How far are these ratios based on cultural and historical assumptions? Germans say they feel sicker: they certainly visit doctors a lot more than the British, on average 12 to 14 times a year.

Soaring costs are seen as a political crisis in Germany: home care for the frail rose by 11% last year. As Britain raced to catch up during the Labour years, Germany spent only an extra 1.7% each year. One result has been to push health up the political agenda: patients are complaining that it takes longer to get treatment.

Walk the wards of Charité and you witness state-of-the-art treatment and research. This year’s excitement is a new MRI scanner that is open, no longer a confining tube. It recently filmed the first-ever MRI birth, showing that babies’ heads are much more tightly compressed during birth than anyone had realised.

Whatever the German debates, its healthcare has been better funded for far longer than the UK’s, and it shows. Germany scores better than the UK on cancer and stroke survival, although overall survival rates are much the same. The health of nations, however, is less about healthcare than the way we live. Germany has more car accidents, more smokers, and more teenage suicides. Britain and Germany eat and drink about the same amount – too much – while UK infant mortality is worse. German life expectancy is a little higher.

What Britain might learn from Germany is not to turn our relatively efficient healthcare system into a bureaucratic paperchase between the funders and the providers of care. Superficially, their system looks quite different. All citizens belong to one of 160 insurance mutuals; the choice of fund seems relatively insignificant. They bear the footprint of Bismarck, who devised a social support system in the later 19th century to counter the threat of socialism. People used to join a mutual linked with their industry or sector.

For everyone, the same 15% is deducted from wages, with employers contributing about half. The state pays for those who can’t afford it, and about one in 10, the better off, insure privately, paying for faster and more luxurious treatment. Two-tier care seems to stir up more political resentment in Germany than the similar proportion going private in the UK.

But the money the insurance funds pay out has been exceeding their income, and the federal government has been topping them up and insisting on increases in premiums; funds traditionally catering for manual workers have been running out of money first. Some funds tried adding small monthly surcharges only to see a mass exodus to other funds. But because insurance is compulsory and fees identical, what the Germans have is essentially a tax-based scheme. Reform is a hot political issue, not least because in a highly bureaucratic system, administrative costs are exorbitant and rose by 5.8% last year.

Professor Frei, pressing his fingertips together at his desk at the Charité, explains why – and the British “reformers” should attend. The process by which the insurance funds buy treatments is complex, generating wads of paperwork and many disputes that are resolved only by special medical tribunals. There is a perpetual tussle as the funds try to hold down costs and hospitals try to inflate them.

Only about a fifth of German doctors are in primary care, like GPs. In principle, all patients can look up a consultant in the yellow pages and refer themselves – although insurance will cover only one consultant for the same complaint every three months, for those who want second opinions. Ways to cap rising prescription costs, hospital bed use and doctor visits are politically controversial. Germany has a third more doctors and 8.2 hospital beds per 1,000 population compared with Britain’s more economical 3.4 beds. Insurance companies are starting to offer lower premiums to those who always agree to see a GP first.

Six years ago they moved to a US-style accounting system based on disease-related groups, which fixes a tariff for every treatment. An elderly patient entering hospital with a broken leg gets a set sum of money for the leg, but if she has complications later, no extra is paid. Hospitals play the system, trying to register patients as higher-tariff cases while insurance companies hire a fleet of their own doctors to challenge as many bills as they can.

Frei complains that a quarter of his doctors’ time is spent dealing with bureaucracy related to these payments. “If there is anything slightly technically wrong with the documentation, the insurance companies pounce on it as a reason not to pay. We lost €12m (£10.4m) that way last year.”

Worse, the system is creating perverse incentives for doctors and hospitals to over-treat. “Knee replacements went up by 18% last year. It’s why invasive treatment for heart arrhythmia in the over-70s rose by 10%. Everyone has back pain, but we operate more every year because it pays more. Is there evidence back operations are the best treatment? No. But then we don’t have a National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence [Nice] like you do, to give a rational assessment of the relative value of treatments. I wish we did.” He is alarmed to hear the Cameron government has weakened Nice and truncated its remit.

Pressure of rising costs and suspicion that patients are being denied treatments for reasons of cost has the health system caught in the political crosswires. The Social Democrats on the left want to rationalise the system into a free service for all, cutting the paper trail. The health minister comes from the free-market Free Democrats and advocates the opposite – total privatisation of all hospitals (two-thirds are state or non-profit) with a flat rate, non-means-tested insurance payment, freezing employer payments. A flat-rate would hit the poorest har
dest. Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats want a bit more privatisation.

Frei says the fifth of hospitals that are privately owned are indeed more efficient, better managed, and make a profit even though officially they can’t compete on price, with the same tariff per case. But, he complains: “They cherry-pick the easy cases, and although it’s illegal they offer backhanders to doctors to refer cases to them. In private hospitals, heads of department have it written into their contracts that they must go to outpatient clinics once a week to meet doctors in the community to drum up business and solicit referrals. That leaves us to do all the expensive tertiary cases.”

So what does he want? Some things that Britain has – or had. GPs to act as universal gatekeepers to limit use of specialists; a Nice to make sure all drugs and treatments are effective and good value; and less doctors’ time and money wasted on bureaucracy and bills.

“And please, no more politically motivated reforms for a while.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/16/german-health-warning-doctors-paperchase

More than 200 doctors contemplate moving to Vermont if it adopts single-payer health system

‘Doctors want to practice medicine, not push paper,’ says Dr. Peggy Carey

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 22, 2011

Contact:
Peggy Carey, M.D., Vermont Physicians for a National Health Program
Deborah Richter, M.D., Vermont for Single Payer
Plus physicians available for interview in 26 states via Mark Almberg, PNHP, (312) 782-6006, mark@pnhp.org

BURLINGTON, Vt. – A local affiliate of a national physicians’ group says it has collected the names of more than 200 doctors from 39 states and the District of Columbia who say they would seriously consider moving to Vermont if it were to adopt a publicly financed, single-payer health care system.

Many of the doctors are primary care physicians, who are in great demand in the state.

While most of these physicians reside in nearby states, doctors from as far away as California, Oregon and Washington state – and even Hawaii – would contemplate moving to the Green Mountain State if it adopted a single-payer, improved-Medicare-for-all system, said Dr. Peggy Carey, interim chairperson of the Vermont chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP).

Another 54 doctors-in-training, medical students, from around the country have said they’d also consider such a move, Carey said. She pointed to a regional medical student rally set for this Saturday afternoon, March 26, at the Vermont Statehouse in Montpelier as further evidence of health-professional support for a single-payer system. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Gov. Peter Shumlin are among the speakers, she said.

One of the out-of-state doctors who would consider relocating is Scott Graham, a family physician in Marion, Ky. “I would certainly consider moving to Vermont if it passed single payer,” he said. “The idea of having one set of rules, one form for billing, and knowing that all patients are covered – that would be wonderful.”

Another is Dr. Jennifer Voorhees of Philadelphia, who said, “After I complete my family medicine residency, I would welcome practicing anywhere where there were no private, for-profit insurance companies and where everyone had access to health care.”

Yet another is Dr. Corinne Kalser, a hospitalist in Lakeville, Conn., who said, “I would definitely consider relocating. I am fed up with the way things are going, and if Vermont goes with single payer we will have half a chance – or at least one-fiftieth! – to change the national picture, too.”

Dr. Deb Richter, a family physician in Montpelier, is a leader of Vermont for Single Payer. She said: “It’s particularly encouraging to hear from primary care doctors around the country who say they would consider moving here if we had single payer. It would help alleviate a growing shortage of these physicians in our state and assure a good foundation for providing quality to care to all Vermonters.”

Carey, a family physician in Burlington, said: “It’s not surprising that physicians would consider relocating to a state that offered the kind of hassle-free environment that a publicly financed, single-payer system would create. Doctors are fed up with private insurance company dictates and the heavy load of unnecessary paperwork the insurers impose on our medical practices.”

“Like everyone else, doctors are also alarmed skyrocketing costs,” she said. “Every day they see the financial barriers to health care faced not only by uninsured Vermonters, but also by Vermonters who may have coverage but whose insurance policies include huge deductibles, co-pays and uncovered services.”

“Removing the costly middleperson in our state’s health system – the private insurers – and replacing them with a streamlined, nonprofit financing mechanism is the only way to assure high-quality, comprehensive, affordable and sustainable care for all Vermonters,” she said.

As further evidence of physician support for a single-payer plan, Carey pointed to the Jan. 27 “house call” at the Statehouse that featured about 50 doctors who described the difficulties faced by Vermonters in getting the care they need and how a single-payer system would remedy this problem. She also cited a study in the April 2008 edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine, which showed that 59 percent of U.S. physicians now favor government action to establish national health insurance, a jump of 10 percentage points from only five years before.

*******

The statement signed by the physicians in which they indicate that they would seriously consider moving to Vermont if it were to adopt a single-payer system can be found here.

Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org) is an organization of 18,000 physicians who advocate for single-payer national health insurance, an improved Medicare for all. To speak with a physician/spokesperson in your area, visit www.pnhp.org/stateactions or call (312) 782-6006.

The good news about single-payer health care

By Maria Termini
The Bay State Banner, March 17, 2011

Health care in the United State  is in a crisis. Our present health care system is fragmented between multiple private insurance companies and government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. The system is controlled by the profit making insurance industry and based on each person’s ability to pay and not based on needed medical care. Fifty million people do not have insurance at all. At least 25 million people are underinsured and do not have their medical needs covered. Some plans won’t cover important services, such as prescription drugs, and most plans impose out-of-pocket expenses such as co-payments and high deductibles. The costs of insurance premiums are rising rapidly and consume a huge part of the household budget, and medical costs have led to foreclosures and bankruptcy.

Our current system discriminates against low-income people and leads to poorer health in these communities. The U.S. spends more money on health care per person than any other country in the world, but the sad reality is that we do not have high quality care. Among industrialized nations, the U.S. ranks near the bottom in infant mortality, life expectancy, and the number of people receiving protective vaccines.          

The good news is that we can get out of this spiraling crisis by working together to create a system of single-payer health care that will cover everyone under a single publicly financed insurance plan. Single-payer health care will provide affordable, comprehensive health care, including vision and dental care. Everyone would be free to choose which doctors, hospitals and community health centers to use. All other developed countries have some form of single-payer health care, which has allowed them to guarantee health care for all their citizens and spend about half of what we spend in our country.

The incentive for a single-payer health care system is to keep people healthy with access to preventive care and a focus on early intervention that would catch illness and injury before they become serious and difficult to treat. The incentive for the private insurance industry is to avoid taking care of sick people because it costs them money and results in less corporate gain. Insurance companies make their money by denying policies to people with pre-existing conditions, by dropping coverage for those running up a big bill or having a serious illness and by choosing to insure the healthiest.            

The promise of single-payer health care in Massachusetts is within our grasp. A single-payer health care bill called “Medicare for All Massachusetts” has recently been filed in the legislature. This bill would provide every resident with first class health care and reduce costs to the state, employers, and households.  It will create a comprehensive, public plan, like improved Medicare for all, saving 15.7 percent of Massachusetts’ current health care funding.  Costs would be controlled by eliminating the middle men and administrative bureaucracy of private profit-making insurance companies and by creating one large risk group that includes all the residents of the state to bargain for the best prices for medical services, goods and drugs.  There would also be less overhead costs for providers and hospitals that will no longer need huge billing departments to deal with paperwork. With the current system the administrative costs are about 30 percent of the money spent on health care.  Medicare already works for senior citizens, with a 3 percent overhead cost.  Administrative savings, plus a small payroll tax as well as federal and state money already being used for Medicare, Medicaid and other programs, can fund single-payer health care and save money!

Let’s have Medicare for everyone! Imagine having a health insurance card granting you a full range of medical benefits, with no out-of-pocket expenses and bills! Families of middle and low-income earners would take home 7.3 percent to 15 percent more income after lifting the burden of premiums and other health care costs from their pay.   Single-payer health care can happen if we become educated about it and understand how only single-payer health care can control skyrocketing costs.

Maria Termini is a volunteer with Mass-Care, a coalition of more than 100 groups in Massachusetts working to make health care a right.

http://www.baystatebanner.com/local14-2011-03-17

Vermont House to begin health reform debate Tuesday

By Nancy Remsen
Burlington Free Press, March 21, 2011

MONTPELIER — Tuesday the Vermont House of Representatives begins debate on health-care reform — one of the most important bills of the session for Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin and the Democratic majorities in the Legislature.

Originally touted as an initiative that would head the state to a single-payer system, the 96-page bill now carries a new, less controversial name: “Road map to a universal and unified health system.”

The name change hasn’t eliminated the strong feelings the bill evokes.

The bill emerged from the House Health Care Committee on a party line, 8-3 vote. Six Democrats, a Progressive and one independent, formerly a Democrat, supported the bill; the three Republicans voted against.

“There are just way too many unknowns for me,” said Rep. Jim Eckhardt, R-Chittenden.

Eckhardt said he wasn’t persuaded a single-payer system, by whatever name it’s given, was the remedy for the current, broken payment system. That’s why he worried about committing the state to that solution.

“My feeling is, once it is on its way, you can’t pull back,” Eckhardt said. “How do you say start over?”

Rep. Paul Poirier, I-Barre, voted for the bill and sees it as much more benign. “I’m the sponsor of a single-payer bill, and this isn’t a single-payer bill,” he said. “Change scares people, but this bill doesn’t really do that much.”

The measure, he said, creates a process that could lead to a reformed health-care system. “We are going to be back next year with Health Care Reform Two,” he said. “There are so many places in this process where there are safety checks.”

Steve Kimbell, commissioner of the Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration, praised the House bill and said it sets in motion two important changes:

• It creates a health benefit exchange, an insurance marketplace required by the recent federal health reform law. Kimbell said having an exchange that complies with federal specifications would make Vermont eligible in 2014 for as much as $400 million a year to provide insurance subsidies and tax credits to low and moderate-income Vermonters.The exchange could transform — with federal waivers — into Green Mountain Care, a unified, state-coordinated health-insurance program open to all Vermonters.

• The bill establishes a board with authority to regulate health-care costs. For example, the board is charged with reforming the way medical providers are paid to encourage preventive treatment and chronic disease management rather than encouraging procedures.

“We have implemented a strategy that fundamentally, and for the first time, promotes cost control,” said House Health Care Committee Chairman Mark Larson, D-Burlington. “We aren’t talking about shifting costs. We are talking about controlling skyrocketing costs.”

The board, which would be created this summer, long before it could assume its regulatory role, also would be charged with laying the groundwork for a more unified health-insurance system. It would, for example, develop the health benefit package for Green Mountain Care.

Rep. Christopher Pearson, P-Burlington, who voted for the bill in committee, said the House vote is a measure of lawmakers’ political courage to move toward the more unified system that studies in 2000, 2006 and this year all say would save money.

“This bill alone doesn’t deliver the kind of reform many people want to see and some people are afraid of,” Pearson said. “But it puts in place a process so we can get there and do it right.”

For critics and skeptics, the biggest unanswered question is the cost of reform.

Rep. Tom Koch, R-Barre, sees the cost controls that supporters are touting as “nothing but rent control. It doesn’t work,” he said. “We are going to ruin a good health-care system.”

“Our members said they want to understand the cost and impact,” said Cathy Davis of the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce. The bill gives the Shumlin administration until January 2013 to deliver a plan to pay for Green Mountain Care.

“Waiting two years is difficult,” Davis said. Businesses want more certainty about what the change would mean.

Rep. George Till, D-Jericho, said the bill sets out a backward process. He would have preferred if the financial model had been developed before the Legislature committed the state to a path of change. Still, Till voted for the bill, because the Legislature’s financial experts are to provide lawmakers with a fiscal analysis by April 21.

Till also called significant the elimination of references to a single-payer system. It recognizes the reality that the state can’t set up such as system. The state can simplify and centralize claims administration, but it can’t force businesses that self-insure their workers to abandon that coverage because of federal law.

Despite his support, Till said there are risks to the bill. One area of concern is whether the changes would result in doctors’ leaving the state.

Till has been conducting an online survey among physicians licensed in Vermont and had received 469 responses as of Friday. He said 62 percent support a single administrative pipeline, but those responding were nearly evenly split about a single-payer system. Some 28.3 percent said they would stop practicing in Vermont if the state adopted a single-payer system.

“Removing the single-payer language hopefully helps with that,” Till said.

Koch spoke for many in the House Republican caucus last week when he tried to win an extra day to review the bill. He objected to Democratic leaders’ plan to hold a “token session” today, when most lawmakers wouldn’t be in town. That session would allow debate to begin Tuesday.

“It was being rushed,” Koch said. “It is complicated. It affects everybody in the state. We need time to read it, to analyze it, to write any amendment we may have.”

Even given time to study the bill, however, Koch said he doesn’t expect to find answers to the many questions he has.

“The bill is putting the train on the tracks and pushing it down the hill without any brakes,” he said.

Shumlin countered that criticism.

“We can’t move fast enough,” Shumlin said, noting how fast health-care costs have escalated in recent years and the projected trend for growth in the future if nothing changes.

“Criticism about pace is strictly designed to kill the bill,” Commissioner Kimbell said. “I find the too-fast criticism incredibly ironic. The main criticism voters have is that government can’t get anything done.”

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20110321/NEWS03/110320013/1029/sports05/Vermont-House-begin-health-reform-debate-Tuesday

Med students to rally at Vermont Statehouse for single-payer health system on Saturday, March 26

One year after passage of federal health law, health professional students will urge Vermont lawmakers to go further by swiftly creating a state single-payer system and blazing a trail for truly universal, cost-effective care

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 17, 2011

Media Advisory

Contact:
Danielle Alexander, Albany (N.Y.) Medical College
Ali Thebert, Physicians for a National Health Program, ali@pnhp.org
Connie Yip, Columbia University School of Nursing
Barbara Power, Vermont rally media liaison

What
Medical and health professional student rally in support of single-payer health reform in Vermont. Speakers include Sen. Bernie Sanders and Gov. Peter Shumlin; students from medical schools, nursing schools, universities and colleges; and physicians and single-payer advocates in Vermont. Many students will be available for interview during and after the rally. (See end of this release for names, contact information, and link to 12 student statements.)

Who
Students from Vermont, the Northeast and other parts of the U.S. — future physicians, physician assistants, nurses and other health care professionals. This event will be hosted by health professional students from across the Northeast with support from Physicians for a National Health Program (pnhp.org) and the American Medical Student Association (amsa.org).

Speakers at the rally include the following:
Sen. Bernie Sanders
Gov. Peter Shumlin
Student representing Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP)
Student representing the American Medical Student Association (AMSA)
Student from the University of Vermont (UVM)
Other students from throughout the Northeast and the nation

When
1 p.m. – 4 p.m., Saturday, March 26
Program starts at 1:00 p.m.
PHOTO OP at 12:45 p.m. Sen. Sanders and Gov. Shumlin with students in lab coats and scrubs, plus many posters and banners all afternoon.

Where
Vermont Statehouse, Statehouse steps followed by rally in House Chamber, 115 State Street, Montpelier, Vt.

Why
Health professional students envision a future in which they can practice medicine in an environment that treats all patients equally, removes financial barriers to care, and eliminates private-insurance-company paperwork and meddling in medical decision making. They applaud Vermont for taking steps that could lead to a cost-effective single-payer system which, if implemented, would likely become a model for other states and the entire nation. Some out-of-state students say they would seriously consider moving to Vermont to practice medicine if it were to implement a single-payer system.

Link to statements of 12 medical and other health professional students: “Why the Vermont student rally is important to me.”

Considering Canada's edge

Editorial
Bennington (Vt.) Banner, March 18, 2011

Part of the blame for the demise of Bennington Iron Works, which announced this week it will close by May after 43 years, was that it faced “relentless” competition from Canadian firms in the manufacture of steel products for construction and other uses.

One comment heard estimated that those firms were selling steel products at a hefty percentage less than BIW could manage. If that is true, we can think of one major cost of doing business that those Canadian firms are not paying — employee health insurance. Of course, the reason is that unlike the United States, most industrialized nations have a health care system that is mostly or wholly funded by the government.

For all their grousing about taxes and environmental and other regulations, pro-business conservatives rarely complain about the huge cost of our health care system — the world’s most expensive — and the fact it is still dominated by private, for-profit insurance firms. And when a single-payer, Medicare-style system is proposed, they rail against that — contending it would be more costly.

But what is the cost of doing business for U.S. firms competing in ruthless global markets, in which foreign companies either have few or no obligations toward employee insurance and/or their workers are paid far less than the average American? Single-payer systems are designed and operated by governments, made up of human beings, and therefore they are not perfect. But in better controlling health care and drug costs, reducing paperwork and keeping profit margins of any private entities within the sanity range, they are far superior.

And they provide a boost to economic development here by dramatically lowering the cost of doing business.

Coincidentally, the Vermont Legislature is now considering a single-payer health care insurance system that would be the nation’s first to cover every resident of a state. It has the strong backing of Governor Peter Shumlin, and initial legislation has emerged from the House Health Care Committee with a favorable vote.

While funding for the system and other details aren’t likely to be decided in the near future, the changeover could be set in motion during this session. Business interest groups and lobbyists, which have generally opposed single-payer systems, should think again about the high and rising costs businesses must shoulder versus the option of a tax-based system that spreads those costs and is better able to reduce insurance overhead and the cost of care.

It is unclear today how a Vermont single-payer system would be put together, but if it is an option citizens or companies could choose in place of competing private insurance firms, we think it could not fail to improve upon to what we have today. We think even those now skeptical would come around in short order, especially those firms competing with Canada and beyond.

http://www.benningtonbanner.com/opinion/ci_17648538

Health insurers initiating a takeover of health care

Health Insurers Respond To Reform By Snapping Up Less-Regulated Businesses

By Christopher Weaver
Kaiser Health News
March 19, 2011

Here’s one change few were talking about when the health overhaul law passed: It’s sent insurers – worried the law could stunt profits and growth – looking for new types of business.

Where are they investing? In less-regulated companies that could yield strong profits and make the main business – insurance – more lucrative. The purchases also could increase insurers’ control over more parts of the health system.

Insurers have moved into technology, health-care delivery, physician management, workplace wellness, financial services and overseas ventures in wide-ranging efforts to mitigate the new rules imposed by the law.

The current trend is largely driven by the health law, said Ana Gupte, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

The newer ventures will not replace the core business of selling health coverage.

“They’re very synergistic with the health-insurance

,” Gupte said, giving insurers more tools to control medical costs while potentially increasing earnings.

As more people receive insurance under the law, insurers would welcome 15 million new customers, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But the companies worry that the rules requiring most Americans to obtain coverage will prove too weak and allow many to go uncovered, said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans.

That could leave insurers with slim gains, even as they face regulations that could limit profits, prohibit the practice of charging sick people higher rates, and funnel individuals and small businesses into government-created exchanges to buy policies.

“I’ve seen a big trend in getting further down the supply chain towards the point of care,” said Sarah James, an insurance industry analyst at Los Angeles-based Wedbush Securities. “Everybody’s looking to add on staff physicians and clinics” that can help control medical spending.

For instance, OptumHealth, a UnitedHealth subsidiary, has quietly taken control of Memorial Healthcare IPA, a Los Angeles company that manages more than 400 doctors, according to a document filed with the California Secretary of State’s office. OptumHealth declined to discuss details of the deal.

With its recent acquisitions, Humana is dipping its hand directly into patient care, gaining more control over doctors. That’s what makes acquisitions such as Concentra a “two-for-one deal,” Kusserow said. Concentra will continue to generate “great margins” for the company as a stand-alone business, he said, but also will give Humana a workforce of physician gatekeepers controlling access to costly services.

In a sign of Aetna’s interest in future acquisitions, the company hired Charles Saunders, a physician and recent veteran of the private equity firm Warburg Pincus, in January to oversee “strategic diversification.”

Some analysts do not see much of a future for companies that just stick with the business of selling insurance policies.

“If you’re a health plan, you either become a care delivery system or an information services company,” said David Brailer, a former George W. Bush administration health official who now leads an investment firm. “The traditional business is dead.”

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2011/March/20/health-insurers-reform-business.aspx

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

One of the claims made by those supporting the health care legislation that placed the private insurers in the drivers seat is that these private firms would be masters at innovation. Well, we are now seeing some of that innovation as they are making their early moves to take over the health care delivery system. It might not be good for our personal finances nor our health, but it is going to give a spectacular boost to Wall Street.

Vermont’s Single-Payer Salvation

The Green Mountain State is poised to abolish most forms of private health insurance

By Lauren Else
In These Times, March 18, 2011

Three weeks after the House of Representatives voted to repeal last year’s landmark healthcare reform legislation, and one week after a federal judge ruled the bill’s insurance mandate unconstitutional, Vermont’s leaders decided to take matters into their own hands.

On February 8, newly inaugurated Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin unveiled his plan for a publicly funded single-payer healthcare system, which was introduced into the state’s legislature. If enacted, which appears likely, it will be the first system of its kind in the United States and Vermont would become the first state to abolish most forms of private health insurance.

“In five years, I predict the United States will go through another major debate of how to reform the healthcare system,” Harvard School of Public Health Professor William Hsiao told the state’s legislators in January, noting his belief that the federal reform legislation passed in March 2010 will not solve the nation’s healthcare crisis. “The question for Vermont is, do you want to walk ahead of the United States? Do you want to be a model for the United States?”

Last year, lawmakers passed a bill to hire a team of consultants led by Hsiao—an economist who helped to develop universal healthcare plans in China and reform Medicare and Medicaid in the 1970s—to design a new healthcare system for the Green Mountain State. According to Hsiao’s research, about 32,000 people, or roughly five percent of the state’s population, would still be uninsured after federal reform measures take full effect in 2014. (Fifty seven thousand, or 9 percent, of Vermonters are currently uninsured.)

What Hsiao and his team ended up recommending to the state was a single-payer system that would ensure coverage for all residents. An independent public body would oversee the system and contract out administration of all claims. Private insurers could compete for this work, as they have done for years to administer the state’s Medicare program. The bill, currently in committee, would take an estimated three to six years to implement.

“I know what I’m going to present is not necessarily popular for everyone,” Hsiao said as he began his January presentation in Montpelier. “A health system is a complex system.” The annual savings that would be created by the system, however, do appear to be popular among lawmakers and public officials. Hsiao’s team estimates the single-payer system could save the state at least $580 million yearly, or $1.2 billion by 2019, and create 4,000 jobs because the burden of rising healthcare costs would be lifted from businesses.

On February 24, the Republican Mayor Christopher Louras, of Rutland, urged the state to adopt the single-payer legislation, noting that more than a third of the city’s $7 million annual payroll is consumed by healthcare costs. “The only way to fix the problem is to blow it up and start over,” Louras said.

The introduction of the healthcare bill comes in the first months of Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin’s first term in office, which follows eight years of Republican rule under Gov. Jim Douglas. Shumlin supported a single-payer healthcare system during his campaign, calling Vermont’s current system “broken.” Anya Rader Wallack, the special assistant to Shumlin on healthcare, cited waste and “craziness” as factors troubling the state’s current healthcare system during testimony before Vermont House and Senate committees on February 8. Three private insurance carriers operate in Vermont, along with Medicare and Medicaid and various suppliers of workers’ compensation insurance, a structure Wallack called “misguided.”

Dr. Deborah Richter, president of Vermont for Single Payer, which has advocated for a new health system since 2003, says that “on the whole” the group supports Hsiao’s plan. “Estimates are that [Hsiao’s system] will not only be able to cover everybody, but for less money,” Richter says. “Vermont is uniquely poised to get this done.”

The state cannot “get this done,” however, unless it receives a waiver from the federal government to bypass the federal reform legislation. Shumlin thinks that won’t be a problem; Vermont’s entire congressional delegation—Sens. Bernie Sanders (I) and Patrick Leahy (D) and Rep. Peter Welch (D)—support the single-payer effort and introduced a measure to allow states to receive waivers from federal reform requirements as soon as 2014, as long as they cover as many uninsured people as federal law would. (They currently have to wait until 2017.) On February 28, President Barack Obama told state governors he would support the earlier date.

Hsiao seems optimistic. “I can say with full confidence that your broken system can be fixed,” Hsiao counseled Vermont lawmakers. “But we require you to…adopt the right solution.”

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/7052/vermonts_single-payer_salvation