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 »
Congressional Republicans used the debt ceiling vote this summer to force the president and the Democrats in Congress to cut entitlement spending. The president accepted the “out” of a bi-partisan Super Committee to force Republicans to commit now to allowing the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy to lapse at the end of 2012. Republicans’ best offer on tax reform was to do $300 billion in tax spending reduction in exchange for some permanent tax … Continue reading »
Health policy researchers have long agreed that Medicare beneficiaries need to be more involved in making both health care and health insurance decisions. The 1965 Medicare benefit and cost-sharing design has driven up costs and utilization. The availability of Medicare Supplements for a monthly premium makes it possible for beneficiaries to cover a good share of the co-pays included in Part B. When United Health Group landed the contract to be the exclusive supplemental plan endorsed … Continue reading »
I thought you might be interested in a piece by Stuart Butler on the implications of a failure of PPACA to control federal health care costs. He looks at the strategic options that would be available if spending controls fail, from tightening price controls to creating a true health budget, and ponders the policy changes needed to make the options effective and their implications.
Stuart Butler Ph.D. is the Distinguished Fellow and Director for Center for Policy … 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 »
Newt Gingrich has to be one of the most interesting figures in recent political history. His soul lives at the intersection of public policy, politics and history. Because he has been on so many sides of history and policy, political insiders greet his entry into the presidential primary campaign as “Harold Stassen-ish.” I am among them, having entered the Senate the same time Newt entered the House 30-plus years ago. I don’t know Republican House … Continue reading »
President Obama is now known as “President Whatever” in D.C. The president who was elected on the hope that he can lead to “change we can believe in” seems a victim of forces beyond his control. And the leadership for “change” has passed to Republicans, Tea Parties and voters who want someone to “shellack.”
I want to defend the president based on the size of the problems he was handed by the Republicans. The audacity of … Continue reading »
My UST colleague Tom Ressler is walking with difficulty these days. He’s had two lower back surgeries and faces the prospect of a third. I assumed he reads the Wall Street Journal here at Opus College so I didn’t send him the John Carreyrou and Tom McGinty story 3/29 on what the Medicare data base reveals of the propensity in this country, and among some surgeons, to perform multiple surgeries on the same spine. The … Continue reading »
Talk to Ray Sheppach, the executive director of the National Governors Association. He will tell you that state revenues increased at an average rate of 6 ½% a year from 1978 to 2008 and this allowed states to keep up with both rising eligibility for the state-federal health program, and with rising costs of health care. Since the recession hit, there’s been no increase and it will be 2014 before states get back to the … Continue reading »
My first health reform bill in the Senate was the Consumer Choice Health Act of 1979. It didn’t pass, but, in principle, it advocated employers provide employees a choice of at least three health plans, including an HMO, in order to qualify for the income tax subsidy for both employer and employee. People need financial incentives to stay healthy and to make wise choices of plans and providers. Private plans can provide the risk-bearing coverage … Continue reading »
Periodically, we send out email updates when new articles or collections of articles, are published. To sign up for these email updates, please provide the information below.