This Week in Healthcare: Week of January 08-14, 2007
Hello and welcome to This Week in Health Care. Today we’ll be looking at health care policy, the politicians who are shaping it, its impact on American business, and help you understand it all.
As Democrats took control of Congress this week, the health care debate returned front and center to American politics, a position not seen since the mid-nineties.
Senator Edward Kennedy, new chair of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, made healthcare reform the first order of business. Hearings on how to make health care more affordable were held on Wednesday. According to the senator, “Insurance coverage is down, costs are up. And America is heading to the bottom of the league of major nations in important measures of the quality of care.”
Kennedy drafted a measure last year entitled Medicare for All which he would like to see the federal government enact. Kennedy will play a key role in shaping the debate on broad US healthcare reform as the chairman of the powerful Health Committee. Healthcare reform will likely become a leading issue into the 2008 presidential elections.
The American Medical Association this week, in what they describe as an historic move, joined together with other leading professional medical associations, to announce their set of principles to guide
healthcare reform in the U.S. According to statement released by the group, The Eleven Principles for the Reform of the U.S. Health Care System are “ intended to help provide the impetus for bipartisan Congressional action…”. According to Dr. Kellerman, a leading figure in the effort, physicians are seeing a convergence of thought processes within the states to tackle healthcare reform. Other members of the group included the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons.
On Monday, Governor Arnold Schawarzenegger announced a 12 billion dollar plan to provide health insurance to all California residents. The Governor’s plan would require employers with 10 or more employees to provide health insurance or contribute 4 percent of their payroll expenses into a state insurance pool. The governor also proposed raising medical reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals. That move would help bring in more matching federal dollars to the state. According to the governor, “The problem with our broken healthcare system is in the delivery and the pay. One-fifth of Californian’s are without insurance. Who’s paying for it? , asked the governor, “The fortunate ones with insurance.”
The governor’s plan would also require health insurers to provide insurance regardless of pre-existing conditions, and require health plans to spend at least 85 percent of their premium dollars on healthcare services. The plan does not distinguish between legal and illegal residents.
A new company focusing on preventing illness and extending the period of a person’s healthy life launched this week in Dallas, TX. U.S. Preventive Medicine is hoping to create programs and services that will detect health risks early and then prevent them from becoming life-threatening . According to Christopher Fey, Chairman and CEO or U.S. Preventive Medicine, only four percent of America’s $2.2 trillion dollars in annual healthcare spending is devoted to prevention, though leading healthcare organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, and the American Cancer Society, believe major illness such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, could be greatly reduced with preventative measures.
Connecticut’s Health Insurance Policy Council released their framework for health care reform last week. The council was formed last year to study the states health care and create recommendation on how to improve it. The council’s report details a 10-point policy and outlines reform goals for the state. Hightlights of the plan include cutting rates of uninsured citizens by half in three years, and making Connecticut the healthiest state in 2020 by lowering rates of obesity and smoking.
And finally, Ernst & Young a leading Wall Street investment banking firm, announced their outlook for US healthcare in 2007. According to the firm, the convergence of market pressures, public policy developments and cost recovery concerns will drive the need for greater adoption by the medical community for the use of electronic records, improved efficiency, and greater transparency in the provision of services.
That’s it for This Week in Health Care News. Tune in next week for more health care highlights, and the people shaping the debate. If you have health care news you’d like to contribute, please send us an email and we’ll be sure to include it.
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