Health Reform in the House | Fact of the Day Between 1999 and 2008, employer family health insurance premiums rose by 119 percent, while the median family income rose by less than 30 percent.
(Commonwealth Fund) | Health Resources |
Under the Microscope REPORT: How Health Insurance Premiums Are Eating Up Middle-Class Incomes—State Health Insurance Premium Trends & the Potential of National Reform
The rapid rise in health insurance premiums has severely strained U.S. families and employers in recent years. This analysis of federal data finds that if premiums for employer-sponsored insurance grow in each state at the projected national rate of increase, then the average premium for family coverage would rise from $12,298 (the 2008 average) to $23,842 by 2020—a 94 percent increase. The report underscores the urgent need for reform and presents state-by-state data on premium costs.
[Commonwealth Fund, 8/20/2009] Read a related blog post regarding the public option by Karen Davis, Commonwealth Fund CEO.
Health Care Headlines OMB Report: Health Care Cost At The Core of Budget Deficit
The Obama administration updated its economic forecast in its mid-session budget review this morning.
[Wall Street Journal, 8/25/2009]
Read Budget Director Orszag’s blogpost. Baucus Says Deficit Projection Demands Action on Health Care
Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Tuesday that a bipartisan health care reform bill being negotiated in his committee is even more essential given the $7 trillion to $9 trillion federal budget deficit projected over the next decade. [Roll Call, 8/25/09] Democrats Plan Hundreds of Reform Rallies
Faced with a souring public mood on health care reform, Democrats and their supporters are launching a national grassroots push Wednesday to show lawmakers that the majority of Americans still support overhauling the system. [Politico, 8/26/09] Read a related article. Waxman Takes On Drug Makers Over Medicare
As the health care debate focuses on whether cost cuts are looming in Medicare coverage, Representative Henry A. Waxman is on a crusade to save Medicare billions of dollars — in a way that he says would end up helping the elderly. [New York Times, 8/25/2009] Dodd Keeps Mum on HELP Panel Chairmanship
Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd deflected a question on whether he would give up his chairmanship of the Senate Banking Committee to take over the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee formerly chaired by Sen. Edward Kennedy. [Wall Street Journal, 8/26/2009] Read a related article. Nitty-Gritty On Healthcare Reform: Issues & Key Players
Here's a rundown of topics and people to watch for as lawmakers wrestle over the controversial effort to overhaul the nation's healthcare system. [L.A. Times, 8/26/2009] Many Diabetic Foot Amputations are Preventable
Limb-salvage experts say many of the 80,000-plus amputations of toes, feet and lower legs that diabetics undergo each year are preventable if only patients got the right care for their feet.
[The Boston Globe, 8/25/2009] Distortion on Health Bill, Homegrown
Before Sarah Palin, there was Betsy McCaughey of the Upper East Side — a former lieutenant governor of New York and now the quartermaster of much of the high-powered intellectual ammunition against the proposals. Ms. McCaughey has been the hammer to Ms. Palin’s nail. [New York Times, 8/25/2009] Bioethicist Becoming a Lightning Rod for Criticism
Few people hold a more uncomfortable place at the health care debate’s intersection between nuanced policy and cable-ready political rhetoric than President Obama’s special health care adviser, Dr. Ezekial J. Emanuel [New York Times, 10/25/2009] EDITORIAL: World’s Best Health Care
The American health care system puts patients at greater risk of harm from medical or surgical errors than patients elsewhere and ranks behind the top countries in extending the lives of the elderly.
[New York Times, 8/25/2009] Read a related article. OPINION: The GOP’s Top Chef Starves a Beast and Poisons a Debate
By Steve Pearlstein
Steele promised that under the Republican health plan, runaway Medicare spending would continue unabated. Any effort to contain future spending growth, Republicans now believe, is nothing more than a "raid" on Medicare, the government-run health plan that Republicans were against before they were for it. [Washington Post, 8/26/2009] LETTERS: Count Them Among the Uninsured
I was disappointed that your itemization of who the uninsured are did not mention the large number of Americans whom the private, for-profit insurance industry deems “uninsurable.” [New York Times, 8/24/2009] |