The legislation outlining House Speaker Dillon’s state health insurance plan was tabled on Friday, a 13-page bill that finally outlines the details of the controversial concept.
In short, what Dillon, D-Redford Twp, proposes is a statewide insurance system that would pool all Michigan state and school employees into a broad set of health plans in an effort to save money on Michigan’s employee insurance expenses — $1 billion a year, according to Dillon.
Voices around the state and prominent education officials are calling for Michigan to lengthen its school year and increase the amount of time students spend in class. Unfortunately, this type of reform is misguided since there is no correlation between the amount of time students spend in school and their level of achievement. Michigan instead should focus on implementing reforms that have track records of improving student achievement.
It’s probably a good idea for you to talk with your loved ones about your views on what sort of health care you, or they want, as death draws near. And it may even be a good idea for a public program that pays for medical care to pay, as one service among many, physicians who provide a counseling session on such matters to patients who request it.
One accomplishment of American health care is the development of vaccines for a number of diseases. The Washington Policy Center sends along this announcement about vaccinations and public policy:
In 1965, the United States government assured that all children would receive access to vaccines for common childhood diseases through the passage of the Vaccination Assistance Act. The law created a program that provides federal grants to local authorities for preventive health services, including immunizations.
From the “Friday Facts” of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation:
(Cross-posted from State House Call.)
The State of Minnesota will spend $47 million to “focus on individual behavior change” and “creating sustainable, systemic changes that make it easier for individuals to make healthy choices in their daily lives.”
The 14-page list of grant recipients (PDF) mentions “tobacco free” 14 times. No smoking in a public park or in your condo! (Don’t worry: The “smoke-free policies in multi-unit housing” will be “voluntary,” except that they’re a nudge from the hand of government.) I think that smoking is stupid, but this has gone beyond claims of damage from second-hand smoke; it’s meant to protect you from yourself.
Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board points out that the U.S. has the highest spending on health care per person and has lower life expectancies than some other countries, but that the former might have little to do with the latter.
Life expectancy in the U.S. is affected by other factors, like the homocide rate and automobile accidents, than simply the health care system.
The Daily Mail online reports that over 4,000 babies were born outside of maternity wards last year in the UK due to a shortage of hospital beds.
When hospitals are paid on a yearly basis rather than by procedure, there is an incentive to provide less care than is optimal — such as not having enough beds.
Two groups are filing a suit against the Executive Office of the President, among other parties, over its “Flag” e-mail campaign that asked people to forward “fishy” e-mails.
The suit alleges that the campaign was part of an effort to chill free speech. It has been filed by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education.
Who says that health care is strictly a national issue? Chris Rants, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the office of governor in the state of Iowa, is on the stump with four ideas for addressing health care costs: electronic records for all within four years; paying hospitals for quality and not simply number of services; creating a state Web site that lists prices at various hospitals; and medical malpractice reform.
At one Minnesota hospital, a colonscopy costs insurance companies $402, while at another it’s $1,354. This is just one factoid you can find at MNHealthScores.org, which is a project of the non-profit group Minnesota Community Measurement. Data on 80 to 85 percent of the state’s primary care doctors is available, though that of specialists is not.
It’s a familiar story. A patient faces a serious medical condition. There’s a new prescription drug that may give the patient a shot at life. The heartless insurance company refuses to pay for the drug, giving the patient a choice between near-certain death and huge medical bills.
One of the symptoms of heavy involvement by government in health care is shortages caused by price controls.
Although doctors in places like Canada and France are still well-paid, they are paid less than they would be in a free market in order to keep health care costs down. This even happens in the U.S. under Medicaid, which pays doctors at a lower rate.
Jarrett Skroup asks an intriguing question in the Midland County Public Policy Examiner: Why don’t advocates of a government-run health insurance plan put their money where their mouth is?
If it’s easy to lower costs in health care spending by adding one insurance company, and it would be profitable to do so (as a government-run plan would have to be to be self-sustaining as the president claims it would be), why haven’t any of them simply done it?
How many people are in favor of health freedom? Not too many, writes Anthony Gregory:
Gregory also has a challenge for opponents of ObamaCare:
Since football season is around the corner, I’ll put it in football terms: Defense is important, but offense is essential.
Up to 100,000 people die due in part to infections they picked up while staying in a hospital. David Goldhill’s father was one of them. That sad fact led him on a quest to understand American health care, which he writes about in The Atlantic.
From there Goldhill looks for structural problems: “There needs to be a business reason why an industry, year in and year out, would be able to get away with poor customer service, unaffordable prices, and uneven results—a reason my father and so many others are unnecessarily killed.”
Is health care a right, or a service that we pay for like any other? The answer to that question makes a big difference. Two officials with the Sutherland Institute addressed that question in a hearing before a committee of the Utah Legislature.
It may seem paradoxical, but acting as if health care is a right actually reduces access to care, while viewing it as a service can expand access. They also commend “authentic charity care” as a way of complementing the market.
If you’re concerned about your phone company selling your personal information for commercial gain, you might want to consider the privacy implications of the House health care bill.
The CBS News blog highlights the problem of upholding privacy protections while also combating fraud.
In the heat of political debates, it’s easy to focus on the wrong problem:
Look past the question of “Who should we get our insurance from?” to ask “What should we expect insurance to do?”
(Cross-posted from State House Call.)
Does government-dictated “evidence-based medicine” violate the ethical obligations of physicians? Maria Martins says yes:
It requires freedom and an independent mind to evaluate the evidence. The evaluation process is the art of medicine. You cannot legislate integrity and competence into doctors whose minds and judgment have been regimented to follow “best practice” guidelines.
The state of Delaware decided to cut its pharmacy reimbursement rate in its Medicaid program, causing Walgreens to threaten to drop out. (The company said it would lose money on filling Medicaid prescriptions as a result of the cuts.)
In turn, one legislator threatened to drop Walgreens from the state employees health insurance plan. The trade associations for pharmacies in turn talked of a lawsuit against the state, alleging a violation of state and federal laws.
We all know about horror stories from Canada and Great Britain when it comes to health care. What about France? After all, the New York Times recently published a positive article about it. That, in turn, caused Guy Sorman, writing in City Journal, to remind us of the economic consequences of a large role for government in health care.
I suppose it’s encouraging that advocates of a government health insurance company (“public option”) invoke the word “competition.”
The Wall Street Journal makes a point that is so obvious I wish I had mentioned it here before: OK, if you’re for competition, how about enhancing competition among insurance companies by letting them sell across state lines?
John Stossel has a column today in Jewish World Review on health care reform. If what President Obama wants is more choice and competition, Stossel says, he’s going about it the wrong way.
In place of the variety of products that competition would generate, we would be forced “choose” among virtually identical insurance plans. Government would define these plans down to the last detail. Every one would have at least the same “basic” coverage, including physical exams, maternity benefits, well-baby care, alcoholism treatment and mental-health services. Consumers could not buy a cheap, high-deductible catastrophic policy. Every insurance company would have to use an identical government-designed pricing structure. Prices would be the same for sick and healthy.
Can we get a representative from within the bureaucracy of a major political party to enunciate some patient-friendly health-care reform?
From Colorado blogger Ben DeGrow:
I’m talking about today’s Washington Post op-ed by RNC chairman Michael Steele that actually pits the GOP as the pandering “Party of the Entitlement Status Quo” (H/T Jon Henke).
