This week, the Murphy Institute at the University of St. Thomas will present two Catholic scholars in a dialogue on national health policy, especially the new Affordable Care Law. And how Catholic principles might explain the role of government in improving the quality, access and affordability of health care, and how Catholic voters might approach the role that Democrats and Republicans are likely to play in supporting implementation or repeal.
Presenters are John Carr, the Executive Director … Continue reading »
The Background
For more than the 33 years, since I was elected to the U.S. Senate, members of Congress have been working to bend the national health care cost curve. Mainly by changing how the Medicare program pays health care providers. In 1993, President Clinton focused not just on Medicare, but sought to change other policies to reduce the impact of other cost drivers in health care. Part of his effort to expand insurance coverage to … Continue reading »
The Healthcare Leadership Council is one of those “umbrella” organizations used by the power structure in the medical industrial complex to occasionally find common cause on health policy. Its CEO is an experienced DC hand and former lobbyist, Mary Grealy. But it’s run by the CEOs of the biggest industries like health insurance, drugs and devices, hospitals, big systems like Mayo/Cleveland, and the newer for-profit chains. These are organizations that President Obama enlisted to help pass his health reform … Continue reading »
Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan takes his position as House Budget chair seriously enough to have put his neck on the political block over the privatizing Medicare combined with a publicly-financed voucher related to the underlying cost of care. From Senators Henry Bellmon (R-OK) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) to Lawton Chiles (D-FL) and Kent Conrad (D-ND), this nation has been blessed with budget chairs willing to bite the budget bullets their colleagues shied away from. Medicare has always been … Continue reading »
What to Make of the “Week From Hell”
We were enjoying life at the foothills of the Teton Mountains of Wyoming while the stock market reacted to S&P’s reaction to our national political leader’s reaction to the Tea Party demands we lower federal spending in exchange for increasing our borrowing. Or maybe it reacted to the decision to delegate the future of federal spending/taxing policy to 12 members of the Congress.
In any event, no one in … Continue reading »
When the national debt dominates everything in politics, and elected Democrats are joining Republicans in advocating trillion dollar cuts in entitlement spending, and Medicare pays for one-third of all healthcare services in the country, why is it that the American medical industry insists on a break? Even though we Americans pay it 50% more for the same value results as everyone else in the world pays its medical industry. The answer: Because this industry is … Continue reading »
Minnesotans have had decades of experience with “managed health care.” Like health maintenance organizations called Group Health on the Iron Range and in MSP (now Health Partners.) In 1985 we launched Medicare demonstrations, using vouchered premium support payments pegged to 95% of traditional Part A and B. We in Congress started a movement toward managing care.
Medical markets responded by (1) merging community-based HMOs into one big managed care organization (MCO) like United Health Group, or (2) converting traditional … Continue reading »
Tim Pawlenty used his appearance on Fox News Sunday to show a tougher demeanor and to prove he will not make health care cost containment and access a priority. As Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney worked with the Democratic legislature and the health care industry to expand access to all residents of the state and to commit to cost containing behavior change. The coverage reforms came right out of conservative health policy playbooks at Wharton (in the 1980s) … Continue reading »
When the Congress passed the historic health policy reform law in March 2010, a centerpiece was new rules for the private insurance industry. The best argument against moving to a single payer system in this country has been the ability of some health insurance plans, working with health care providers, to improve care quality, efficiency, utilization, costs and satisfaction. Most traditional Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans have demonstrated how to use data to drive … Continue reading »
The Institute of Medicine yesterday announced the first phase of its analysis of disparities in Medicare payments to health care providers across the country. It found that the adjustments to payment rates needed a foundation that reflected reality not national assumptions. Minnesotans have long known that the cost of delivering health care services varies with the medical practice culture and what doctors do varies substantially. There may be as many as 70 or 80 varying regions of the … Continue reading »
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