Parties' Split Most Apparent on Health Care

This Wall Street Journal article goes over the major differences between the 3 major candidates' views on health care. Basically it says that McCain wants more free market solutions, while Clinton and Obama both want a government system set up to insure everyone. The problem here is that no matter what these candidates say, and despite their best intentions at heart, their proposals will have to get through so many different committees in Congress before anything is passed that what one person says about it is fairly insignificant. However the people in the media and news will still hang on to every word and detail that the candidates put out as some type of indicator of how they will lead. The system that we have now is fine except for a few major problems. Our health care system is the greatest in the world, it is just too expensive. State governments are doing things to fix the problems and that is how the system is set up. The federal government can not appropriately address the problems at the local level. It is a good article and people should know the information in it. Enjoy.

Parties' Split Most Apparent on Health Care

Democrats, Republicans Differ
Over Roles of Government
And Market to Revamp System
By LAURA MECKLER
April 19, 2008

Washington

As the presidential candidates respond to increasing economic anxiety about many issues, some of the sharpest differences in this fall's debate are expected to involve health care.

While the Democratic candidates want to use government as a lever to aid the 47 million people in the U.S. without health insurance, Sen. John McCain would rely much more heavily on the free market. The likely Republican nominee has begun charging that his Democratic rivals "want government to take over the health-care system."


With Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama focused on their own contest, Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former candidate John Edwards, has stepped in and begun attacking the McCain plan.

Continue reading the article here.

Clinton camp got behind on health insurance bills

While this is both ironic and tragic, it seems like an opening for Clinton. Basically she has not been paying the health insurance premiums for people working on her campaign. Without paying premiums the workers are in danger of losing their coverage if they have a health problem. She could use this as a way to illustrate the difficulty that people have paying their health care premiums because they are so high. But actually she should have chosen a plan with fewer benefits that would have been more affordable. Enjoy the article.

Clinton camp got behind on health insurance bills

A spokesman says the bills are paid now, but in February two companies were owed about $300,000 for premiums.

From Newsday
April 1, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton promotes healthcare as a top focus of her presidential bid, but her campaign's accountants aren't staying on message.

The campaign reported nearly $300,000 worth of unpaid health insurance bills for campaign staff as part of $8.73 million in debts, Federal Election Commission records show.

The New York Democrat's campaign fund owed $229,000 to Aetna Healthcare and $63,000 to CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield for unpaid premiums as of Feb. 29, the latest information available in federal filings.

Continue reading the article here.

Elizabeth Edwards Issues a Challenge to McCain on Health Care

This is obviously a veiled attempt to get her husband back on the ticket as VP and be seen as relevant again. She mischaracterized McCain's plan, but this article from the Washington Post is interesting anyway. Enjoy the article.

Elizabeth Edwards Issues a Challenge to McCain on Health Care

By Krissah Williams

Since her husband suspended his run for the Democratic nomination three months ago, Elizabeth Edwards has remained largely out of the public sphere. A fierce proponent of her husband's run for office and once a regular on the campaign stump -- despite her ongoing battle with cancer -- Edwards stepped back into the fray last weekend with an attack on Sen. John McCain's health-care plan.

Under the presumptive Republican nominee's health-care plan, Edwards told reporters, she would not be covered, an accusation that McCain's aides deny.

Continue reading the article here.

Record number of people without health insurance

The numbers for 2007 health insurance figures are just out. It finds that the number of people without health insurance has gone up to 47 million people from just over 43 million people last year. Many people can not afford the increases in health insurance, and small businesses can no longer afford the luxury of offering health benefits to their employees.

There are options, and you can get plans with fewer benefits to protect against major losses in the event of a large medical expense. However these affordable plans cut benefits to the bare minimum, but should be very affordable.

HSA programs have recently lowered rates. These plans come with tax defered savings status similar to an IRA account. If you spend the money you put into the savings account on health related expenses, you don't have to pay taxes on it. If you don't spend the money, you get to keep it when you reach retirement and go onto medicare.

HSA programs generally come with a low premium high deductible (up to 10,000) catastrophic health insurance plan. It is ideal for someone who needs basic coverage for major expenses at the lowest possible monthly premium.

People between jobs who are looking for an alternative to COBRA until they can find other employment may be able to save money on short term health insurance program. Short term health insurance plans are basic major medical coverage at a fraction of the cost of full benefits health insurance plans.

There are options available for everyone to find an affordable solution. You have to know the right questions to ask and get with an honest agent who will shop around for the best deal. You can search plans and programs and prices at my websites http://www.thackeragency.com and also http://www.short-termhealthinsurance.com . You can get quotes and apply online if you find an affordable solution. If you need to speak with an agent, call us toll free.

"United States National Health Insurance Act"

I have provided a link to the act introduced in January of this year by Congressman Conyers entitled The United States National Health Insurance Act (HR676). This bill outlines the desires of Congress for addressing the health care situation in America.

It is a very comprehensive bill and includes a lot of things that many candidates would ignore in such a proposal. They have been working on some version of this bill for at least 15 years so I would expect some level of complexity. However, it still does not address the main BIG sticking point. The price. $1.86 TRILLION/YEAR.

OK, for some perspective, this year's budget for Washington DC was a record by a long shot, but it wasn't more than 3 Trillion dollars. This vote that they are proposing with one stroke of the Presidents pen will lock in future generations to this new entitlement program.

Having said that, I don't have to remind you that anytime DC wants to pass something, they over-promise and under-deliver. I imagine that 1.86 Trillion dollar price tag will double AFTER they vote for this legislation.

They go into some detail as to how exactly the government is going to come up with this extra astronomical amount. It all looks good on paper. But here again, with a program so massive (larger than the military) - you can not just legislate on general principals. This bill will affect every single taxpayer and their children for decades. Do you want to make promises that your children will have to keep for you?

Read the article. It is a summary and reads fast. It links to the actual bill. It is very comprehensive and well thought out. I just don't think it'll work.

Clinton softens governments role in Universal Health Care

Hillary Clinton started the debate on Universal Health Care in the early to mid 90's. Along the way she realized that the health care system in the United States was too vast for a simple solution to the issues. While she wanted a welfare health insurance state paid for by the government, she had to address prescription drugs, health insurance companies, doctors, hospitals, and finally consumers (the American people) when dealing with this issue. She had hoped that the only people who would matter in this debate were the public. But it isn't the public who will lose the most with government controlled Universal Health care.

Here is an article which discusses her views on Universal Health Care as it stands today. She points out that the current system just needs to be fixed instead of changed. Her liberal competitors for president have all come out with their own plan, and essentially said that they would have to raise taxes for it to work. It used to be political suicide if you told voters you would raise their taxes if you elected them. Now I guess it's the best thing some candidates can think to propose.

Here is the article.

I don't believe that Clinton has the answer. Why don't I believe that? Because if she did, we'd have already heard about it. She knows what won't work which is why she's allowing her competitors to propose programs that she knows won't work. Health care is not a right. The system needs to be fixed, but only a little bit. The problem with our system is how much it costs. The problem is not that our health care system is bad.

VA Medical Records Model

There has been a lot of reporting about the VA and how bad the program is for our Veterans. Most of the criticism comes from the main Walter Reed facility that was not properly maintained. Criticisms are appropriate in certain circumstances, however the VA does a lot of things the right way.

One important thing that the VA does good is digital medical records. Many times when you switch doctors or apply for health insurance, you have to physically get your own medical records from your doctor and hand them to your new doctor. Doctors don't like to spend time with this, and sometimes they charge for the extra administration work.

The VA has all of its medical records in a computer data base. Any time a VA patient goes from one facility to the next, the new doctor only has to pull up the records on the global database. This saves time and money from administering medical records. All doctors treating the same patient have the same information.

I have issues with many things that the Clintons did to health care when they were in office - including the privacy acts which don't seem to help anything but lawyers. However, they were responsible for the modernization of the medical records in the VA facility. As a result, the VA is a model of how medical records should be kept and transferred from doctor to doctor seamlessly.

Access to Health Care

One other problem confronting the issue of Universal health care is Access to health care. Any time you reduce the cost to the consumer (free under universal health care), utilization rises. Right now our emergency rooms are overworked because a significant number of people use the emergency room as their primary care physician. I have spoken with many Hispanic immigrants who have told me that the reason that they do not have health insurance is that if they get sick they will just go to the emergency room. Everyone knows that they have to treat them whether or not they have insurance.

As soon as everyone is guaranteed health care on demand, demand for that health care will overwhelm the services that are available now. In countries where the government provides the health care, the main complaint is the waiting lines for services. You have to increase the amount of doctors, the amount of hospitals, emergency rooms and clinics to deal with the exact same number of people under a universal system.

Before the government even looks at ways to provide health care for all through some sort of government mandated insurance program, they are going to have to address the issue of access. Guaranteeing health care is one thing. Providing QUALITY health care is something quite different. I would hate for the government to treat the health care system the way they did Iraq with poor planning for the long haul which would deny health care to those who could otherwise afford it and need it.

The AP recently published this article about the differences in health insurance premium for men and women. It is not actually "discriminatory", but it is based on statistics for individuals within a certain sex and class. If the statistics show that a male in a certain age bracket spends less money than a female in that same age bracket, the females will pay more. Anyway the article gives insight into how premiums are set and where differences are. I thought it was good to link to. Enjoy.

Popular health-insurance plans punish women

Females charged more for having reproductive organs, Harvard study finds:


ATLANTA - High-deductible health insurance plans favored by many employers often wind up being an unfair burden to women, a new study says, largely because women need many routine medical exams that quickly add up.

The median expense for men under 45 in these plans was less than $500, but for women it was more than $1,200, according to a study by Harvard Medical School researchers.

They also found that only a third of insured men in that age group spent more than $1,050 in annual medical costs, while 55 percent of women did.

New approach to control health care costs

This is an effort by a large insurance company (Wellpath) to attempt to control costs through modifying the behavior of the insured (it's own employees). This is a very good idea because the best way to control health care costs is to not need health care because of your health. If people stop smoking, eat healthy, and exercise on a regular basis, the cost of health care would dramatically go down. This is a good idea by Wellpath and one that will need to be monitored as "health care on a large scale".

On another note, this is the primary reason that I do not believe that Health Care is a "right". In other words, if I work hard to take care of myself so that I do not have health care issues, I should not be forced (through taxes) to pay for someone who does not live a healthy lifestyle to get their expensive health care.

Enjoy the article.

Health Insurer Ties Customer Health to Employee Bonuses

Tuesday , April 03, 2007


INDIANAPOLIS — WellPoint Inc. (WLP) employees will have a personal stake in the health of the company's customers, thanks to a new plan that ties a portion of their annual bonuses to it.
The nation's largest health insurer unveiled a plan Tuesday to link 5 percent of every annual bonus to a new measurement called the Member Health Index.
The index will monitor 20 different clinical areas to determine whether patient care is improving.

It aims to take measurements from broad categories like patient safety or care management and tell whether care has improved for most patients, but especially those dealing with chronic conditions like diabetes, or high blood pressure, said Dr. Sam Nussbaum, Wellpoint's executive vice president and chief medical officer.

If the index reaches an improvement goal set by the company, WellPoint's roughly 42,000 employees will see the result in their bonus check. The new measurement affects every employee from the executive suite on down, Nussbaum said.
"It's basically all or nothing for our company this year," he said. "We're either going to achieve it or we're not going to achieve it."

Linking employee bonuses to care improvements will "get everyone energized about improving health care in our company," he added.
Consultant Bob Boyer said he knows of no other insurer that links employee bonuses to the health of its customers.

The program shows WellPoint is making "a concerted effort to show that they've got some skin in the game, when it comes to their members' health," said Boyer, market business leader for the Indianapolis office of Mercer Health and Benefits.

"That might be the next evolution in measuring member health," he said. "I think it's an innovative approach."

Dennis Kucinich on Universal Health Care

While I disagree with a lot of what Kucinich says on the social political stage, I pretty much agree with where he stands on the debate on Universal Health Care for all Americans. He states that it should be done with a "Medicare for all" system through non-profit insurers administrating it. Kucinich believes that Health Care is a right and not a privilege which is where this writer disagrees with his premise.

However if Universal Health Care were to become a reality, the non-profit model would be the best blend between the government system and corporate system that we currently have. Kucinich points out that there are many places in our health care system where money is lost without giving any health care benefit. One of the big areas is the insurance companies. The profit that is built into the health care system is a large amount of our health care dollar that could be used to reduce costs and improve the system. Kucinich claims that 31% of health care dollars go to insurance company profits.

Insurance companies pay a lot of health care dollars in advertising and marketing so that their competitor does not get the profit that they want. The advertising and competition in this case does not grant a more efficient system because the insurance companies do not add value to the health care experience. Insurance companies merely provide a service through which health care dollars are distributed for services.

Insurance companies can make more or less money through negotiations with the health care providers such as doctors or hospitals. They do not have to make money by raising premiums, but they can raise rates without blame because they will just say that "the rising cost of health care" made them raise the premiums. The insurance companies will never say "we want more profit so we are raising rates", even though that is a primary motivation they consider when setting rates.

A non-profit system would take the profit incentive out of the system. There would be no share holders to demand profit, there would be no board members or executives with expensive contracts. There would be operating expenses and costs, but no extra profit. Our country has had a non-profit model that people know as the "Blue Cross Blue Shield" system. Across the country and one by one, these companies have been abandoning their non-profit mission so that they could squeeze more money out of the system. As a non-profit, Blue Cross has served the country well through quality plans at affordable prices. Over the last 10 years, many states have decided to allow Blue Cross to convert to for profit which goes against their mission.

A non-profit system would allow the insurance company a competitive edge in that they would not have to pay taxes. The HSA system that congress approved was designed to address health care costs through tax breaks. The non-profit system is a tax break across the board from a company with government regulation.

Back to Kucinich on health care. He believes that we can expand medicare for everyone. I think that is a great idea because I know that medicare is a fantastic vehicle for providing health care. I look forward to the day that I can get on medicare because I'll have better coverage than I do now and it will cost me much less. However I do not know how the system could handle so many more people on it, or how much it would cost. Cost is the major factor when considering new plans. Availability and access to care is the second biggest factor.

Of all the plans available, I believe that Kucinich's plan of using the non-profit model which brings Medicare for everyone under a single payer system is the best. This is only a part of the health care model that would be necessary for a government based system, but this would be the big part. A non-profit system would ensure that more dollars go toward health care. Once that system is in place, the second vampire of the health care dollar is the prescription drug companies. I will address the role of the prescription drug companies to the health care dollar in a later post.

United Health Care is healthy

Here is recent market analysis of how United Health Care is doing as a company. United Health Care is a major provider of health insurance benefits across the country. This article was issued 3/28/2007. Enjoy. . .

A Health Company That's Healthy

UnitedHealth Group saw its shares plunge 3.5% after an investment bank cut its rating on the stock. The decline is an opportunity to snap up shares of one of the industry's healthiest stocks.

By Robert Walberg

Stocks rallied today. So why couldn't UnitedHealth Group (UNH, news, msgs) find a pulse?
The immediate reason was a downgrade by investment bank UBS, which lowered its rating on the stock to "neutral" from "buy" and cut its price target to $59 from $67. The stock fell 3.5% despite attempts to revive it by analysts at Citibank and Merrill Lynch, which both reiterated positive outlooks.

The question is whether there are bigger issues ailing one of the nation's leading health-care providers.

According to the UBS analyst, Justin Lake, UnitedHealth's commercial business is likely to remain sluggish this year as a drop in membership losses is offset by increased spending on patient care. The company also stands to lose if Congress cuts spending on the Medicare Advantage program, Lake said.

A quick reversal Yet UBS issued positive comments on UnitedHealth just three days ago, according to StreetAccount, an independent market research and analysis firm. At the time, it cited channel checks that indicated UnitedHealth was likely to retain a $5 billion AARP medical-supplement contract past this year. UBS then reiterated its "buy" rating and $67 price target.
It's not as if the tone in Congress, or the operating environment for the commercial business, took a 180-degree turn. So if you're left questioning the UBS report, or at least Lake's apparent lack of conviction, then there must be another reason for the stock's miserable performance.
One answer is that UnitedHealth was overextended after a 25% climb from its November low. By comparison, the S&P 500 Index ($INX) was up a mere 3.2%, and the Dow Jones Health Care Providers Index gained 21%. When you consider that UnitedHealth was also bumping up against its 52-week high, a pullback of even of 5% to 10% shouldn't be considered a big deal.

But this could be more than a simple case of backing and filling. UnitedHealth faces risks to performance -- or at least to expectations of performance. In the near term, the most pressing threat is to its proposed $2.6 billion acquisition of Sierra Health Services (SIE, news, msgs). Both the American Medical Association and Consumers for Health Care Choices have appealed to the Justice Department to block the merger due to concerns that "greater concentration means less competition." For example, the proposed merger would leave UnitedHealth with a 78% share of the Nevada market, according to the AMA.

Threat to merger could hurt When the deal was originally struck March 12, UnitedHealth announced that it expected the acquisition to immediately add about 4 cents to earnings, even before cutting costs. Any risk to the deal would force investors to rethink their earnings expectations.

Over the longer term, the company could take a modest hit to earnings if Congress were to cut spending on the Medicare Advantage program. Yet there are many things to consider before rushing to sell. First, Congress doesn't act swiftly. Second, if an adjustment happens, it will likely be much smaller than currently proposed. Finally, any adjustments to the program could easily be offset by the likelihood of broader coverage down the road if any of the leading Democratic presidential candidates have their way. Many states are already moving to expand coverage of uninsured -- a trend that will only benefit UnitedHealth and other leading health-maintenance organizations.

Though UnitedHealth could continue to back up over the very near term, toward support near $50, material declines at this juncture are unlikely, especially if the Sierra deal goes through -- and given the current tone in Washington, D.C., there's little reason to think it won't.
In fact, when you consider that the stock trades at a modest discount to projected long-term growth and that UnitedHealth's return on equity is among the best in the industry, investors might want to use the current price weakness as a buying opportunity. There's upside over the next 12 months to the $65-to-$66 range.

At the time of publication, Robert Walberg did not own or control shares of any company mentioned in this article, but his clients owned shares of UnitedHealth.

Healthy Living saves money on health insurance

Many people complain about the cost of health care because it has increased so dramatically in the last 10 years with no signs of the increase slowing down. However part of the problem is the lack of personal responsibility within the health care system. When prospects apply for health insurance, their entire health history is evaluated before determining the final rate quote for the individual. If you smoke, are overweight, or have other health problems, you will pay more for insurance than those who are healthier.

Stopping smoking is the easiest way to reduce your health care costs. If an otherwise completely healthy person applies for health insurance yet they smoke, they can expect to pay 30% more for the insurance than a non-smoker. So in addition to paying all the state and federal taxes on cigarettes, smokers have to pay an additional 30% in insurance premium dollars just for the privilege of smoking. Stopping smoking will save you at least 30% in health care dollars, and much more in the future from other smoking related illnesses.

Another issue that causes rates to increase (sometimes even declined coverage) is an individual's weight. Insurance companies do not want people to be too thin or too heavy. A proper balanced diet with an exercise routine will help you maintain the appropriate body weight. You don't have to exercise much, just 20 minutes a day 3 times a week will cause insurance companies consider you to have an active and healthy lifestyle. Healthy diet will also help your blood pressure and cholesterol.

Part of the reason health care costs have gone up is that Americans want a pill to fix everything. Instead of eating healthy to keep blood pressure and cholesterol in check, people want to eat how they want and take an expensive pill to keep their body healthy. Cholesterol pills are some of the more expensive drugs available and some even cost $150/month. Healthy eating would help you save the money usually spent on prescription drugs, and it will once again ward off future health problems.

I hope that this article is helpful to you in understanding ways to keep your medical costs down. Consult your physician about a lifestyle plan that would help you live a healthy life apart from our expensive health care system. He could probably go over other ways to help you save money from health care.