Health Reform in the House | Fact of the Day 62% of families currently at 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level are having trouble meeting medical expenses under health insurance plans purchased in the individual market. The America’s Affordable Health Choices Act provides affordability credits to these families to help pay for health insurance.
(The Census & Kaiser Family Foundation) | Health Resources |
Under the Microscope REPORT: Emergency Department Operations in Top-Performing Safety-Net Hospitals
Nationwide, hospital emergency departments (EDs) are in crisis. The demand for ED services has increased steadily while capacity has shrunk, due largely to hospital closures. Many EDs are overcrowded, causing long waits for care and high rates of ambulance diversion. ED crowding may be even more acute at safety-net hospitals because of their historic mission and legal mandate to care for vulnerable and underserved individuals. This report profiles five safety-net hospitals—Boston Medical Center, Denver Health, Memorial Regional Hospital, Memorial Hospital West, and Virginia Commonwealth University Health System—that made improvements to curb emergency department (ED) crowding, reduce long waits, and lower the number of hours spent on ambulance diversion. [Commonwealth Fund, 7/31/2009]
Read the Report Overview.
Health Care Headlines AP Sources: Dems Want to Limit Insurance Increases
House Democrats are taking steps to limit annual price increases for insurance policies sold under a sweeping bill to extend health care to nearly all the 50 million uninsured Americans, officials told The Associated Press on Friday. [New York Times, 7/31/2009] Waxman Gets Deal on Health Bill
Liberal and conservative Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce panel struck a late-night deal Friday that will allow them to move a sweeping health care bill out of the committee after a two-week deadlock that put its fate in serious doubt. [Politico, 7/31/2009] Blue Dogs Pulled in Two Directions
Color it blue, this latest House deal to keep health care reform moving: Blue Dogs, Blue Cross-Blue Shield and all the blues sung by rural, middle-income and working-class families if no relief comes on medical insurance. [Politico, 7/31/2009] In House, Freshman Democrats Make a Stand
It took Representative Dan Maffei of New York two tries, $4 million and the retirement of a Republican incumbent to win his House seat last year. After all that, he wants to avoid becoming a one-term wonder because of an unpopular vote on health care. [New York Times, 7/30/2009] Key Senate Panel Won’t Vote Till Fall
Sen. Max Baucus Thursday ended any hope the influential Senate Finance Committee would take up bipartisan health legislation this summer, kicking the issue to the fall amid lingering divisions over a bill intended to provide insurance coverage to tens of millions of Americans. [Wall Street Journal, 7/31/2009] OPINION: Health Reform Too Good to Pass Up
By House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05)
History shows that the chance to reform the American health care system is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. So reform is absolutely worth the time it takes to get it right. [CNN, 7/31/2009] OPINION: Another View: First, Cover the Uninsured
By Jon Kingsdale, executive director of Health Connector, the state agency that helps lead reform in Massachusetts
We are at an inflection point in the long struggle for health reform. We have been here before: President Truman proposed Medicare-for-all, President Nixon an employer coverage mandate, and President Clinton a sweeping overhaul that went nowhere. [USA Today, 7/31/2009] Read the opposing editorial. OPINION: Health Care Realities
By Paul Krugman
At a recent town hall meeting, a man stood up and told Representative Bob Inglis to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” The congressman, a Republican from South Carolina, tried to explain that Medicare is already a government program — but the voter, Mr. Inglis said, “wasn’t having any of it.” [New York Times, 7/30/2009]
|