THE DAILY DOSE: THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 2009

Under the Microscope

REPORT: The Economic Impact of Healthcare Reform on Small Business
Small businesses in the United States are being undermined by our current healthcare system. This report compares three different health care reform scenarios with a continuation of the existing system. The analysis looks at the outcomes for small business in terms of costs, jobs, wages, and profits, under each scenario, and finds that America’s small businesses cannot afford to wait for health care reform.
[Small Business Majority, 6/11/2009]

Read an article on this report in The New York Times.

POLL: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Investment in Prevention
Health care reform begins to make its way through Congress at a time when 72 percent of the country thinks we’re becoming less healthy and 60 percent believes that the American health care system needs a complete overhaul or major reform. A new report commissioned by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provides compelling evidence that Americans are ready to move from a “sick care “ system that treats people after they get sick to a true “health care” system that works to keep people healthy in the first place. [Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 6/8/2009]
View the Press Release here.

Health Care Headlines

• Obama Administration Finds Health-Care Model in Green Bay
  When President Obama touches down today in Green Bay, Wis., he will be landing in one of the highest-value health communities in the nation, a city that by numerous measures has managed to control medical spending while steadily improving health outcomes.
  [Washington Post, 6/11/2009]
  Read about Obama's Town Hall in the Washington Post and watch it online here.
• Democrats Seek Ways to Preserve Employer-Sponsored Health Care
  As efforts to write health care overhaul legislation take shape, Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee say they want to work toward a bill that would preserve employer-based health insurance.
  [CQ Today 6/10/2009]
• What Would a Health Overhaul Cost? All Eyes on the CBO
  Douglas W. Elmendorf has toiled for much of his career in the anonymous bowels of the nation's economic superstructure, shuttling among various Washington agencies and the Federal Reserve. So it came as a bit of a shock, friends say, when a powerful senior senator recently felt obliged to inform him that he "is not God." [Washington Post, 6/11/2009]
• Lawmakers Target Health Insurance Tax Break
  The biggest tax break in America — tax-free health benefits from employers — could be scaled back to pay for President Obama's overhaul of the nation's health care system. [USA Today, 6/11/2009]
• Doctors’ Group Opposes Public Insurance Plan
  As the health care debate heats up, the American Medical Association is letting Congress know that it will oppose creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan, which President Obama and many other Democrats see as an essential element of legislation to remake the health care system.
  [New York Times, 6/10/2009]
  READ the AMA’s STATEMENT FOLLOWING THIS STORY.
• Health Account Advocates Wary of Overhaul Plan
  As Congress debates an overhaul of the health care system, how lawmakers decide to treat two consumer-oriented programs could affect millions of Americans who use them to manage their health care costs at a considerable tax advantage. [CQ Today, 6/10/2009]
• Baucus Aides Warn K Street
  Top aides to Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) called a last-minute, pre-emptive strike on Wednesday with a group of prominent Democratic lobbyists, warning them to advise their clients not to attend a meeting with Senate Republicans set for Thursday. [Roll Call, 6/11/2009]
• Left Turns Up the Heat on Baucus
  Liberal lawmakers and labor groups are turning up the heat on Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), fearing he will not embrace a robust government-run insurance option in his healthcare reform bill. [The Hill, 6/10/2009]
• EDITORIAL: Finding a Middle Ground on Health Reform
  Congressional Democrats have seen the future of American health care. It looks a lot like Massachusetts, and a little like John McCain, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. [St. Louis Today, 6/11/2009]
• EDITORIAL: What We Think: Pay for Health Reform
  In Florida, the law forces government leaders to keep public spending in line with revenues. When tax collections fall, this can give leaders fits — see Orlando, for example — or encourage them to make irresponsible shortcuts — see Tallahassee. But it does provide taxpayers with some protection.
  [Orlando Sentinel, 6/11/2009]
• OPINION: Comprehensive Health Care Reform Is Long Overdue in U.S.
  By Tom Daschle, former Senate Majority Leader
  When the president said, “Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. The time has arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and that protection,” he was exactly right. [Roll Call, 6/8/2009]
• OPINION: Recovery, Meet Sobriety
  By George F. Will
  Noting that people "criticize me for harping on the obvious," Calvin Coolidge justified that practice by saying, "If all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves." [Washington Post, 6/11/2009]
• OPINION: The 'Rock' In Health Reform
  By David Broder
  The goal of the Obama White House is to come up with a health-care plan that can attract bipartisan support. The president has told visitors that he would rather have 70 votes in the Senate for a bill that gives him 85 percent of what he wants rather than a 100 percent satisfactory bill that passes 52 to 48. [Washington Post, 6/11/2009]