Court: Massachusetts must cover legal Immigrants
Boston, MA, United States (KaiserHealth) – Massachusetts’ highest court ruled Thursday that the state must offer the same level of subsidized insurance to legal immigrants as to citizens. The decision affects roughly 40,000 residents and could cost the state at least $150 million per year.
In 2009, state legislators in Massachusetts were facing a large budget gap and rising health care costs. After reviewing a number of choices, they opted to trim state subsidized health coverage for legal immigrants who have not been naturalized as citizens. Since the federal government doesn’t share the cost of care for this group, lawmakers reasoned, the state was justified in scaling back its commitment. Health Law Advocates sued, arguing that legal immigrants are entitled to the same health care benefits as citizens are. On Thursday, in a unanimous decision, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed.
“It is a wonderful day in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Justice has prevailed,” says Amy Whitcomb Slemmer, the executive director at Health Care for All.
Legal immigrants are also celebrating. The insurance plan the state created just for them limited where they could get care, had higher co-pays and fewer benefits. Hector Brito and his wife Cesario Reynoso ended up almost $3,000 in debt for lab tests and appointments that weren’t covered.
“This is a relief for me and everybody now,” says Brito. “They know” continues Brito, referring to other legal immigrants, “that in the future they don’t have that kind of problems. They will be covered.”
Well, maybe. Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration estimates the minimum cost of adding 40,000 people to the state’s subsidized insurance plan at $150 million a year. State tax revenues aren’t meeting expectations because of the economic downturn, so finding the money will be difficult.
The state has a several choices: It can look at new taxes or fees to fund coverage for legal immigrants. It can cut other programs. Or it can make subsidized insurance less generous for everyone. Jay Gonzalez, the state’s secretary for administration and finance, says he hopes that won’t happen, but it’s an option he can’t rule out.
“The place we’re at right now,” says Gonzalez, pausing, “is needing to weigh all those options, assess them and come to some decisions.”
Gonzalez is putting the final touches on the fiscal year 2013 budget that Patrick will file in a few weeks. It will have to include coverage for legal immigrants.
One large lingering question is: Will this decision that legal immigrants are entitled to the same health benefits as full citizens affect other government assistance programs that treat legal immigrants and citizens differently?
Gonzalez says “our lawyers are looking at this decision and what the potential impacts might be if it were applied to other places, but the direct impact is on providing health insurance. That’s the immediate challenge we have now, the one we have to face.”
It will be several months at least before these immigrants are enrolled in Commonwealth Care. The decision does not apply to illegal immigrants who are not eligible for state subsidized insurance. If the Affordable Care Act is still in place in 2014, there will be some federal assistance for coverage for legal immigrants.
– Provided by Kaiser Health News.
A health insurance plan President Gingrich might support
Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has been pounded by his opponents for once backing a mandate that people buy health insurance. But he has received little attention for another health care idea that he has explored and that also could prove controversial.
The lesser known proposal would encourage people to purchase insurance by giving them tax credits or deductions. Those who don’t buy insurance and need care would get it through hospitals and clinics serving the poor, which would receive subsidies not claimed by individuals.
Gingrich has “explored [the idea] and is generally supportive of it,” David Merritt, a campaign adviser, said in an interview. In March, Gingrich asked the author of the concept, conservative think tank president John Goodman, to explain it at an event sponsored by the Center for Health Transformation, a collaboration of public and private sector leaders that Gingrich founded in 2003.
But Gingrich hasn’t promoted the idea in his campaign. While his website offers support for tax credits or deductions to purchase private insurance, an approach popular among some conservatives, it doesn’t mention subsidies for so-called safety-net hospitals to care for the uninsured.
The latter proposal raises several important questions, says Alan Weil, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy, a nonpartisan organization that works with states on health policy issues. To begin with, which hospitals and clinics would receive the federal subsidies to treat the uninsured?
While some hospitals are publicly owned and serve a high proportion of indigents, many first-rate urban teaching hospitals also treat a lot of poor patients. “They are doing the highest-end clinical trials and using the newest techniques, but they are treating every medical problem that walks in the door,” said Weil.
Other issues would have to be addressed, Weil says, including how to deal with the health needs of illegal immigrants who almost certainly wouldn’t receive tax credits. Another would be determining the amount of the tax credit since older people pay more for insurance because medical spending generally increases with age.
Goodman, who heads the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas, offers some details. While he isn’t an official Gingrich adviser, he has been talking to Gingrich about health care for more than two decades, and worked with him in the early’90s to get Congress to promote medical savings accounts, which preceded health savings accounts.
“Newt has been a fan of Goodman for a long time, going back to his advocacy of health savings accounts,” Merritt said. “They agree on pretty much all of the issues and they’ve swapped some ideas.”
Goodman would restructure tax incentives for health insurance. Currently, both employers and employees get tax breaks for employer-sponsored group health insurance, but individuals who buy policies on their own do not. He would scrap that system and instead make available to every individual a refundable tax credit to purchase insurance. The subsidy would be the same for everyone, regardless of age, income or health status.
Goodman envisions a credit of about $7,000 per family to buy basic, catastrophic coverage. An individual, or an employer, could kick in more money to obtain richer benefits. If a health plan costs less than the subsidy, the person could keep the after-tax savings, after taxes.
For individuals who declined to use the tax credit to buy insurance, the federal government would redirect the subsidy to help fund safety net institutions, which would then care for the uninsured.
“If you turn us down and decide to be uninsured, we take the credit that would have gone to you and put it in a safety net,” Goodman said at the March event. “We’re not going to let you go without care, and the safety net is not as attractive as private sector medicine. But the government makes a commitment to the people. If you want insurance, we put the money there. If you want to be in a safety net, we put the money there.”
Sitting on the panel with Goodman, Gingrich stressed the importance of providing access to care to as many people as possible. “It’s much easier to guarantee access to care than it is to guarantee insurance,” Gingrich said. “You can design a system that pays for emergency rooms and community health centers. You can guarantee every American gets care. What gets expensive is guaranteeing that every American is going to go to the most expensive place in America, for the most expensive treatment, at their convenience, when they feel like it.”
Giving individuals greater power to make purchasing decisions will only work, however, if the government makes it easier for people to buy coverage in the individual insurance market, said Merritt. For those who have been unable to get affordable insurance because of poor health, Gingrich wants to improve the state network of high-risk pools used by people who have been turned down for individual policies.
“If you put everyone in the same market, it raises premiums for everyone,” Merritt said. “High-risk pools are a way of providing coverage without raising premiums for everyone else.” Under the health law, high-risk pools are phased out after 2014, when individuals will be able to purchase health insurance through state exchanges.
Merritt says to expect more detailed health proposals if Gingrich becomes the Republican presidential nominee. “It’s hard to be focused on health care when the focus has been on jobs and the economy,” he said.
– Provided by Kaiser Health News.
Analyzing Romney’s leadership on health care
Boston, MA, United States (KaiserHealth) – The issue that defines Mitt Romney’s years as governor of Massachusetts is health care. It is sometimes a political albatross for the governor as he campaigns for president. But it is also proof, Romney says, that he could bridge party divisions in Washington.
Health care was rising on Romney’s agenda as he moved into the State House corner office in 2003. His friend Tom Stemberg, who founded Staples, had suggested that one of the best things he could do for the people of Massachusetts was to find a way to cover the uninsured. And Romney, in his second month on the job, talked about that interminable state budget buster, health care.
“We’re now seeing health care costs for the poor rising at double-digit rates,” Romney said with characteristic intensity. “That’s something that has to be brought in line in part with people picking up a small share of the cost of providing that service.”
Many of the people Romney thought could pick up a share of the costs were getting free care at hospitals and clinics. The state was paying the charge of more than $1 billion a year through a free care pool.
“Romney decided the pool was broken,” recalls Amy Lischko, who helped draft Romney’s bill. “This all started with trying to fix the free care pool. Many people forget that.”
Romney filed legislation that would use money from the free care pool to create subsidized insurance. Here was Romney, a Republican governor, floating a major health care overhaul before a Legislature that was overwhelmingly Democratic.
“I doubt that my plan will be accepted without any changes,” Romney said at the time. “But I do believe that everyone recognizes that having a half million people who are uninsured isn’t good for them and isn’t good for the rest of our citizens who are paying taxes and paying for health care. We gotta fix this system to get everybody better health care coverage.”
Romney knew the Legislature was interested. Several months earlier, Senate President Robert Travaglini had outlined a proposal to cover half the state’s uninsured. House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi was planning his strategy on the issue. Romney met weekly with DiMasi and Travaglini, but legislators felt like the rest of the members were not worth the governor’s time.
“Gov. Romney did not let legislators into his office, you just did not come in,” says Patricia Walrath, a Democrat who was the House point person on health care while Romney was governor. She recalls two, maybe three meetings with him. Walrath says the contrast with prior Republican governors was startling.
“He had a whole different understanding as to how government should work,” Walrath says. “He was the CEO and when he said do it, everyone marched in step. It was not finding consensus, that was not the model that he used at all.”
Romney’s style was to delegate work with legislators to a few top aides. Those aides, not Romney, also handled relations with a broad coalition of health care, union and religious groups that held frequent rallies at the State House. The coalition agreed with Romney’s goal of covering the uninsured, but they opposed the coverage he proposed, calling his plan “Yugo” health care. Romney’s strategy was to inform, but not negotiate with these powerful consumer groups, says Tim Murphy, Romney’s Health and Human Services secretary.
“We were going to do what we were going to do but we were going to share information,” Murphy says. “We were going to let people know what our vantage points were, we were going to be transparent about that, and we felt that that was a way to build trust in the community.”
Critics argue that Romney only reached out to opponents when it was politically expedient. The governor and the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy ran against each other in 1994 in a bitter U.S. Senate campaign. Now on the issue of covering the uninsured they formed a critical partnership. Romney needed Kennedy’s help in persuading federal officials to let Massachusetts use hundreds of millions of Medicaid dollars for a health coverage law. He thanked Kennedy publicly, many times.
But in the fall of 2005 the federal government was still threatening to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars. While Romney was in intense negotiations to secure the money, DiMasi filed a health coverage bill that Romney aides say made the governor’s job much more difficult. DiMasi wanted to tax employers who did not cover their employees. Consumer groups and some economists loved his plan, but Travaglini did not support the tax and Romney, in private, spoke vigorously against it.
In public, Romney was upbeat in response to DiMasi’s bill. “Let’s not let perfection be the enemy of the good. Let’s get something out there that moves us forward. We’re all speaking from the same book.” Aides say that while Romney was quick to criticize the Legislature on any number of issues, he did not do so with health care. “He intentionally took a different, more positive tone during the health care debate,” recalls the aide who would not identify herself for comment. “He did not want anyone throwing (verbal) bombs.”
DiMasi’s demand that employers pay for health insurance or pay a fine turned into a possible deal breaker that threatened defeat for everyone.
“There was a logjam for weeks and weeks,” says Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. “There were various options being considered but none of them satisfied both the House and Senate.”
Widmer drafted some of those options and shuttled them across the marble lobby between the offices of the speaker and Senate president. Romney was not part of the negotiations, but Widmer kept Romney’s Secretary Murphy in the loop.
“They were opposed to having any tax on employers,” Widmer says. “I remember talking to Tim and he said, ‘Do we really have to do this because the administration’s opposed to it?’ I said, ‘Do you want a bill or not?’, essentially, because that’s what it came down to and something was going to have to give.”
In addition to opposing the employer tax, Romney’s aides say he didn’t think the state needed any new revenue to fund a coverage law. But in January, during his State of the State, Romney said he realized “some of you have your doubts about that. I know that the uncertainty could stall our progress or even end it and for that reason I put aside $200 million in a reserve account to fund our health care initiative.”
The money did not persuade DiMasi to give up the employer tax and strained relations between all three leaders continued. Romney grew increasingly frustrated. In late January, he made a rare personal appeal. Murphy was out walking on a Saturday when his Blackberry went off.
“It was an email from Mitt,” says Murphy. It said, “I’m going to write this letter and this is what I want it to say and I want to go and deliver it and I just want you to check a few things.”
Romney delivered letters the next day, a Sunday, to Travaglini and DiMasi at home. The wrinkle-free governor found Travaglini in sweat pants. DiMasi was not in to greet Romney. The letter, recalls Murphy, said: let’s get going, we can’t have an employer tax, but think about all the things that we could achieve.
“It was just one of those moments in time where he felt the need to personally intercede,” Murphy says. “That was not Mitt’s style. He did not walk down the hallways stopping in at offices, so when he does something like that, it has a little bit more weight to it.”
Romney’s letters did not end the stand-off between Travaglini and DiMasi. Jack Connors, the powerful chairman of Partners HealthCare, visited DiMasi’s office with a copy of “Animal House” and played the “nothing is over til we decide it’s over” scene. Travaglini and DiMasi finally started talking about an employer compromise after a dinner arranged by their wives. The final deal, drafted by a small group of business leaders, was a modest fine on employers (with 11 or more employees) who don’t offer health insurance. The bill sailed through the House and Senate.
At a well-orchestrated bill signing ceremony, ushers handed out programs and buttons while Romney took the stage at Faneuil Hall.
“Massachusetts, once again, is taking a giant leap forward,” Romney told the audience of health care and business leaders. “And it’s our faith in you that gives us the confidence to do just that.”
Legislators were all smiles during the ceremony, but minutes after, their mood soured. Romney aides told the press the governor would veto eight sections of the bill, including the Legislature’s carefully crafted compromise on that modest employer fine. Legislators had become increasingly wary of Romney’s motivations around the health care bill. Sen. Richard Moore suspected Romney vetoed the employer penalty because he knew it wouldn’t play well if he ran for president.
“This bill should have been based on what was best for the commonwealth,” Moore said, “not what would play well on a national stage. Those vetoes are just political vetoes.”
But Romney aide Murphy argues that the governor was genuinely interested in covering the uninsured and that legislators knew Romney would not support the employer penalty. Murphy says Romney can claim, based on the health care law, that he knows how to work with bipartisan groups to fix complicated policy problems.
“I look at Massachusetts health care reform and say this is your textbook example of how do it effectively and it really reveals to me the type of leader that Mitt is,” Murphy says.
Former Health Care for All Director John McDonough, who pushed for many changes to Romney’s bill, gives him credit for compromising on a version that was more generous than the one Romney proposed.
“It indicates a keen sense of political reality and that he is willing to adjust on policy details to achieve his overarching policy goal,” McDonough says. “We can see this in his willingness to compromise on the health care reform law and on his willingness to separate himself from key parts of that law in his quest now for the Republican nomination.”
How much credit Romney deserves for the law that some now call RomneyCare is still up for debate. DiMasi is often seen as the key player in sealing the deal. He’s in prison now for an unrelated conspiracy and fraud conviction. Travaglini had the first public proposal. Romney was the first to propose key parts of what became law, the Connector, the individual mandate and subsidized insurance. A folder representing the health care law rests on a table next to Romney in his official State House portrait. It remains his signature accomplishment and the best way to evaluate how Romney works as a lawmaker.
– Provided by Kaiser Health News.
Senate Subcommittee Grills CPSC on Drywall
ProPublica Staff
Washington, DC, United States (ProPublica) – by Joaquin Sapien
At a hearing in Washington yesterday, lawmakers pressed product safety and health regulators about their three-year investigation into contaminated drywall, expressing frustration with their progress on all fronts.
Defective drywall, most of it imported from China, releases sulfur gas that can corrode electric wiring and trigger respiratory irritation. An investigation published last year by ProPublica and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune showed there are nearly 7,000 homes built with bad drywall nationwide, but enough material was imported to build at least 100,000 homes.
Witnesses at yesterday’s Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing addressed several questions raised by our coverage, including the still-unknown health effects of sulfur gas exposure, the conflicting government guidelines on how to fix homes built with defective material, the challenges of holding Chinese companies accountable, and whether American-made drywall could also be problematic.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., whose state has at least 400 homes affected by bad board, called the drywall problem one of the most frustrating he’s dealt with in more than 20 years in politics.
Brenda Brincku, a Florida homeowner who has sought relief for problems caused by drywall since 2004, said in written testimony that “the federal agencies working on this problem for over four years have failed us.”
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is leading the federal investigation into drywall. Neal Cohen, the commission’s small business ombudsman, defended the agency’s efforts, but acknowledged that progress has been stunted by a lack of cooperation from Chinese government-owned companies.
The subcommitee’s primary concern was the potential health effects of defective drywall. The Centers for Disease Control and the CPSC maintain that levels of sulfur compounds inside affected homes aren’t high enough to cause long-term health problems, but panel members said they found that hard to believe. Exposure to the sulfur gasses for even short periods can cause coughing, severe headaches and bloody noses. Warner said he had visited a home built with defective board staying just 45 minutes, and felt sick for the rest of the day.
The hearing’s most contentious moment came when Warner asked the Centers for Disease Control representative, Dr. Christopher Portier, “Would you allow your family to live in one of these homes?”
Portier paused before answering, “Probably not.”
Portier said the CDC is working to create a model of indoor air levels of sulfur gas emitted by defective drywall that would allow it to calculate health risks. Results from the study are expected in spring 2012.
Homeowners saddled with bad drywall have long complained that regulators keep changing the instructions for how to fix it. The CPSC first advised homeowners that all electrical wiring should be removed because of fire safety concerns then reversed its position, saying the wiring didn’t necessarily need to be taken out.
Cohen said that all of the CPSC’s decisions were supported by “a high caliber of science.” Still, the commission’s guidelines conflict with those issued last year by U.S. District Court Judge Eldon E. Fallon, who is presiding over drywall litigation in federal court in New Orleans, as well as those issued by Virginia’s housing department.
The Virginia guidelines say that wiring should be left in place, but corroded and exposed surfaces should be cleaned. Virginia housing department director William Shelton, who testified at the hearing, said that it would cost $35 to $50 per square foot to fix a home using this method.
The majority of homeowners interviewed by ProPublica and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune said they couldn’t afford to fix their homes. They’ve sought assistance from state and federal programs, but those options are limited because of the current fiscal environment. As a result, some homeowners with defective drywall have defaulted on their mortgages, gone into debt and endured blows to their credit.
Subcommittee members discussed pressing insurers to pay for drywall damage and asking credit-rating agencies not to penalize people affected by such problems. Freddie Mac is offering loan forbearance to affected homeowners.
Unlike most homeowners who have complained about corrosion and health problems from drywall, Brincku lives in a home built with board made in America, not China.
But as ProPublica and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported last year, Brincku has experienced the same problems as homeowners who had defective Chinese material.
National Gypsum, which produced the drywall in the Brincku home, contends that nothing is wrong with their material.
The CPSC studied 11 homes that homeowners said were built with American drywall, determining that five exhibited problems and levels of sulfur compounds similar to those built with Chinese drywall. But since the agency did not check for origin labels on the drywall samples, its findings were inconclusive. The CPSC has said that such labels often don’t exist anyway.
Pressed by Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., Cohen said the CPSC had received more than 70 complaints about domestic drywall, but said it would be impossible to confirm the origins of the board “without ripping out every piece of drywall from a home.”
The subcommittee was eager to learn about the CPSC’s latest correspondence with the Chinese government, which owns many of the companies that produced the defective drywall.
Two years ago, a delegation of CPSC inspectors visited drywall factories and gypsum mines in China. The visit became so tense that an American inspector got into a physical tug-of-war with a Chinese official over a drywall sample.
Relations don’t seem to have improved much since then.
“To date there has been no response from the Chinese manufacturers,” Cohen said at yesterday’s hearing. “They are basically telling us, ‘return to sender’ and that they don’t believe there is a problem with their drywall.”
The CPSC is urging homeowners to seek relief in the courts. Plaintiff’s attorneys are currently trying to get the Chinese to cooperate in legal proceedings taking place in New Orleans federal court.
Several committee members cited the need to pass the Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act, which would require overseas manufacturers to register an agent in the U.S., to make it easier for U.S. attorneys to file civil and regulatory claims against foreign companies..
“This is a textbook case for why it’s critical that we should be able to reach these Chinese companies,” said Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., who chaired the subcommittee hearing. “One of the basic starting points on this is that Chinese manufacturers should have to register, just like domestic corporations, and European corporations, for service and process.”
– Provided by ProPublica.org
Seniors May See Changes in Medigap Policies
Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – As debt limit talks drag on, lawmakers are eying possible changes in Medicare supplemental plans – moves that could increase seniors’ out-of-pocket costs.
Photo by toastbrot81 via FlickrTraditional Medicare, the federal health program for the elderly and disabled, requires beneficiaries to pay hospital deductibles and a portion of the cost of tests and doctor visits. To protect themselves from those out-of-pocket costs, about 17 percent of beneficiaries buy Medigap plans. Another 34 percent get such coverage through a former employer.
But some health policy experts say such “first-dollar protection” drives up demand for Medicare services, costing the government money for what may be unnecessary care. One proposal would bar supplemental insurance from completely eliminating out-of-pocket costs – or charge enrollees a $530 a year extra if they want to keep such protection. That change could save up to $53 billion over 10 years, according to a chart used during the bipartisan talks led by Vice President Joe Biden.
What is Medigap and why do people buy it?
Unlike most job-based health insurance, traditional Medicare does not include “catastrophic” coverage, an annual maximum upper limit on the amount beneficiaries could pay. So enrollees can be liable for thousands of dollars each year, including: $1,132 per-episode deductible for hospital admissions; hundreds of dollars in daily charges for hospital stays of longer than 60 days; a $162-a-year deductible for doctor care, plus 20 percent of charges for office visits or equipment like wheelchairs.
Ten standardized types of supplemental plans offered by private insurers – including AARP’s UnitedHealthcare policies – cover all or most of such deductibles and copayments. Some employers also pay all or part of such costs for their retirees.
What changes are under consideration?
It is not clear exactly what’s on the table in the negotiations between congressional leaders and the White House. But the charts released show that one such proposal under consideration would bar insurers from offering supplemental policies unless the policies came with an annual deductible. People who didn’t want a deductible could pay $530 a year in additional premium to ensure that they won’t be hit with costs before their coverage kicks in.
Is this a new idea?
No. It is a subset of a larger discussion about spending on Medicare and other entitlements. In recent years, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (The Bowles-Simpson Commission), the Debt Reduction Task Force, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and lawmakers, including Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, and Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, have all suggested changing traditional Medicare.
Most of the ideas would create a single annual deductible – generally around $550 – after which beneficiaries would pay about 20 percent of medical costs up to a maximum annual cap, ranging from around $5,000 to more than $7,500.
Would changing supplemental coverage save money?
Some economists and policy experts say that supplemental coverage insulates beneficiaries from medical costs, driving up demand for unnecessary care. A study done for MedPAC in 2009 found that beneficiaries with supplemental insurance used more care and cost the program more money. The increased spending wasn’t for emergency hospitalizations, but for other services such as elective hospital admissions, preventive care, doctor office visits and some types of tests.
Supporters of the insurance say it shields seniors from unpredictable costs and reduces big-ticket expenses by encouraging them to seek help for medical problems before they become severe.
What else do people say about the idea?
Advocacy groups like the Medicare Rights Center oppose restricting Medigap plans, saying it would simply shift more costs from the government to elderly and low-income people who can least afford it. “Some in government feel people in Medicare don’t have enough ‘skin in the game,’” says Ilene Stein, federal policy director for the center. In fact, she says, people on Medicare already pay 15 percent of their incomes for health care, well above the level paid by non-Medicare households. While the proposals would cap maximum annual spending per enrollee to $5,500 or $7,500, “that’s a lot of money for someone making $22,000,” the median household income for those on Medicare, she says.
Still, Joe Antos of the conservative American Enterprise Institute says many of those people already pay large premiums for Medigap coverage – and would likely see those premiums decline if “first-dollar” protections are barred. Antos and Jonathan Gruber, an economist at MIT and consultant to Democrats, both think that if Congress were to change supplemental coverage – or the traditional program itself – that lawmakers would create exemptions for lower-income beneficiaries.
How would the proposal affect a Medigap policy I already own?
Congress would have to decide whether to impose restrictions only on new policies or include existing coverage.
What about people who don’t have a Medigap plan?
Only about 10 percent of seniors don’t have some sort of supplemental coverage. Some people have military/VA benefits, others are in Medicaid, and some have coverage through Medicare Advantage plans, which are insurance policies offered by private insurers as an alternative to traditional Medicare.
What are the chances that these ideas will be adopted by lawmakers?
Because making any change that could be seen as a cut in Medicare benefits carries huge political risk, previous calls for changing the traditional Medicare program or limiting first-dollar coverage through supplemental insurance have not picked up support. But now, when failure to lift the debt ceiling could result in widespread economic problems, a middle-of-the night compromise between warring factions in Congress could put it back on the table.
“Normally, this would be dead on arrival. But this is such a dicey environment that these guys are going to cut some kind of deal at midnight either before or after Aug. 2 in such a hurry that they won’t be worried about the kinds of things people normally worry about when they cut senior benefits,” says Robert Laszewski, an Alexandria-Virginia-based consultant to the health care industry.
Antos is less sure. He says the potential savings of $53 billion over 10 years would be just a tiny slice of any deficit-reduction deal and might not be worth the political hit Congress would take from seniors.
“You can’t sugar coat it,” says Antos. “It would be much easier to do what lawmakers have always done in Medicare, which is lower payment rates (to doctors and hospitals) or restrict services in ways that are subtle and complicated. But to do something that looks like changing benefits, I don’t see it this time.”
– Provided by Kaiser Health News.
View full post on All Stories
Azerbaijan Confirms N1H1 Outbreak
Samukh, Azerbaijan (AHN) – Azerbaijan’s state veterinary service has officially confirmed that N1H1 virus was found in one of the blood samples sent from the west Azerbaijani region of Samukh where many of the country’s poultry farms are located.
A one month moratorium, or ban on bird-hunting has been imposed by the country’s environment ministry .
Last August, 2010, the World Health Organization gave the official declaration that the global pandemic of H1N1 had finally ended.
This was followed by the announcement last December 3 in South Sulawesi, Jakarta of a bird flu attack.
Health officials in Azerbaijan have advised people to take precautions against the possible spread of the virus, which migrating birds can spread from other countries. The following health tips are thus reiterated to help prevent the spread of the virus:
- Wash your hands often using soap and water. You can also use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
- When you cough or sneeze, use a tissue to cover your mouth and nose. Discard used tissues in a wastebasket.
- Don’t have a tissue? Cough or sneeze into your upper sleeve.
- Clean your hands after coughing or sneezing. Use soap and water or an alcohol hand sanitizer.
- Stay at home if you are sick.
View full post on Economy, Business And Finance Stories
NASA Financials Get Clean Bill of Health
WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The National Aeronautics and Space Administration received a much-improved financial statement audit opinion for the 2010 fiscal year. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007
View full post on All Stories
Study Finds No Difference Between Organically Grown and Normal Food
Soborg, Denmark (AHN) – With the increasing demand for organically produced food, scientists are reporting new evidence that organically grown onions, carrots, and potatoes generally don’t have any higher levels of healthful antioxidants than traditionally grown vegetables.
The most important reasons for the popularity of organic food products and the premium consumers pay include improved animal welfare, environmental protection, better taste, and possible health benefits.
However, the health benefits of organic food consumption are still controversial and not considered scientifically well documented. Specifically no differences in polyphenol content for organic vs. traditional methods of growth that employ traditional fertilizers and pesticides.
“On the basis of the present study carried out under well controlled conditions, it cannot be concluded that organically grown onions, carrots, and potatoes generally have higher contents of health-promoting secondary metabolites in comparison with the conventionally cultivated ones,” the report states.
The results of the study led by the National Food Institute and Technical University of Denmark appear in the latest issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
View full post on Economy, Business And Finance Stories
Obama Administration Allows Higher Premiums On Child-Only Health Plans
Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The Obama administration has agreed to allow health insurers to charge higher premiums on child-only policies to insure children with serious medical problems if the laws of the state where the child lives allow it.
Insurers had argued that not being allowed to charge higher premiums on child-only policies for children with pre-existing conditions would mean that parents would wait to buy coverage until their child needed medical treatment and was headed to a hospital.
Obama’s health reform legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, originally aimed to keep premiums down. However, provisions in the bill also required insurers to offer coverage regardless of whether an individual has a pre-existing medical condition.
Individuals with pre-existing conditions are more expensive to insure and in the past insurers often denied coverage to them in stand-alone policies.
Some insurers had threatened to stop selling child-only health policies if they were not allowed to charge higher premiums for sick children.
View full post on Economy, Business And Finance Stories
Shortage of doctors in the U.S. will increase
Warning: parse_url(http:///health/05-10-2010/115210-shortage_of_doctors_in_us_will_increase-0/) [function.parse-url]: Unable to parse URL in /home/aigars73/public_html/telimtex.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-nofollow-post/wp-nofollow-post.php on line 232
The U.S. healthcare system will be experiencing a shortage of more than 33,100 doctors in 2015, despite the health reform passed by the government of President Barack Obama.
View full post on All Stories
