Health Care Campaign 2008: New Addition Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

Health Care Campaign 2008: New Addition Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in Politics and Legislation

Even if you aren’t following the presidential election, you probably heard about Republican nominee Senator John McCain’s pick for vice president: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Governor Palin has been touted by Republicans as a fresh face for Washington, a reformer, and a true conservative — not to mention that she’s the first female on the Republican presidential ticket and she would be the first female vice president in American history.

So where does Governor Palin stand when it comes to health care and health insurance reform?

Unfortunately, she doesn’t have much of a health care record.

But from what we’ve researched, Governor Palin does have a traditional stance toward health care reform as many of her Republican colleagues.

For one, Palin seems to strongly support increased competition to reduce health care costs.

In Alaska, new medical facilities can only be opened if the state decides that the facility is actually needed. Any new facility needs to obtain a “certificate-of-need.” This year, Governor Palin fought to get rid of this law so new facilities could freely open and increase competition in the market.

In an Anchorage Daily News op-ed, Governor Palin quoted herself, “Under our present Certificate of Need process, costs and needs don't drive health care choices, bureaucracy does. Our system is broken and expensive.”

Even though her efforts eventually failed, reported the Washington Post in a health care piece on Governor Palin, it suggests the Republican vice-presidential nominee favors market health care solutions.

Governor Palin also sides with the majority of Republicans on expanding the State’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Legislation was introduced in Alaska this year to expand SCHIP, but Palin opposed it.

Now that Governor Palin has been introduced on the national stage, we’d expect to hear about her proposals and thoughts on health care reform sooner than later.

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Small Business, Group Health Insurance, and The Candidates

Small Business, Group Health Insurance, and The Candidates in Group Health Insurance

More on the Presidential Health Care Campaign 2008:

When it comes to rising health insurance and health care costs, there’s one group that’s hit especially hard: small businesses.

These days, if a small business can afford group health insurance for its employees, it’s just short of a miracle.

So when a small business owner goes to the voting booth on November 4, who will he or she choose?

Well, here’s where your candidates stand on small business health insurance (so far).

Arizona Senator John McCain, soon-to-be the official Republican nominee, wants to actually move away from the employer-based system — offering tax credits to individuals to purchase their own individual health insurance plan.

Senator McCain’s idea of helping small businesses is giving employees more options, such as purchase a health plan across state lines.

Illinois Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, would rather require all employers kick in something for health insurance for workers. Senator Obama wants all companies to either offer their employees coverage or help pay for their workers’ individual plans.

Under Obama’s plan, small businesses would be exempt.

Unfortunately for Senator Obama, that’s not convincing small business owners — the Democratic presidential nominee hasn’t yet said who qualifies as a small business.

“We’d like to see more specificity on almost everything. A lack of specificity breeds worries,” said a lobbyist for independent businesses.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Obama economic policy director, Jason Furman, said, “We would work with the Treasury to design the appropriate threshold for defining a small business.”

But Senator Obama does have some health insurance specifics for small businesses — he would offer small business employers 50 percent tax refund if they provide their workers health coverage.

“I’m announcing my plan to provide real relief for small business owners crushed by rising costs, an idea championed by my friend Hillary Clinton, who’s been leading the way in our battle to insure every American,” said Senator Obama.

The Wall Street Journal article said McCain has the edge with small business health insurance, but we’re not too sure…

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Obesity and Health Insurance: Alabama State Employees Must Pay For Coverage If Obese

Obesity and Health Insurance: Alabama State Employees Must Pay For Coverage If Obese in Individual Health Insurance

Alabama is the first state in the U.S. to require state employees to pay for their health insurance if they are obese.

The Alabama State Employees’ Insurance Board will assess a charge of $25 per month if any of the 37,527 state workers have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 35 or higher and doesn’t show weight-loss progress.

The plan was approved last week, reported the Los Angeles Times.

According the proposal, employees have until January of 2010 to get in shape.

Alabama already penalizes state workers for unhealthy habits — smokers must pay $24 per month for their health insurance. If they also are obese, their health insurance will go up to $49 a month.

“We are trying to get individuals to become more aware of their health,” said an Insurance Board member.

On the surface, the proposal makes sense. It’s widely accepted that being obese is a health risk — risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, high cholesterol, and a myriad of other health problems. So why not penalize people for being unhealthy?

Well, the problem is every overweight and obese person is not necessarily unhealthy.

A recent study found that about half of overweight Americans (BMI of 25 to 30) have normal blood pressure and normal cholesterol levels. Of those who are obese, having a BMI more than 30, almost one-third have normal blood pressure and cholesterol counts, wrote the LA Times article.

“[The new plan is] terrible. Some people come into this world big,” pointed out an Alabama state employee.

It seems like an interesting debate to come.  

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Health Insurance/Health Care Policy Advisor To Senator John McCain Can Instantly Erase Number Of Uninsured

Health Insurance/Health Care Policy Advisor To Senator John McCain Can Instantly Erase Number Of Uninsured in Individual Health Insurance

That title is admittedly a bit misleading, but John C. Goodman, the president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis, says it is possible to instantly erase the number of uninsured Americans.

How would he do it?

“The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American, even illegal aliens, as uninsured,” said Goodman, who is also an advisor to presumptive Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain.

Goodman argues that the Census Bureau would get better data by finding out where people get funds if they need care. Presumably that includes financial help from family, friends, the government, and free care from a hospital.

He goes on to say that only people who are denied health care altogether are truly uninsured, wrote the Dallas Morning News.

In a nutshell, he’s arguing that everyone who has access to an emergency room — which is just about everyone — technically has health insurance.

But not everyone agrees with Goodman.

“[Access to an emergency room] is not the same thing as having health insurance. People without insurance are less likely to seek care, and when they do, the cost to the health system is greater,” said Eva Deluna, from the Center for Public Policy Priorities.

At the very least, Goodman brought a very interesting analysis of any statistic that shows the number of uninsured Americans.

And also… We hope everyone has a great Labor Day Weekend!

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Rhode Island Governor Can’t Raise Health Insurance Premiums For State Union Employees

Rhode Island Governor Can’t Raise Health Insurance Premiums For State Union Employees in Group Health Insurance

Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri set a goal to balance the state’s budget, taking aim at a state employee health insurance plan.

Governor Carcieri threatened to lay off hundreds of workers if union members with family health plans didn’t agree to pay more for their insurance premiums and forgo a pay raise.

Union leaders made a preliminary agreement with the governor — affecting some 4,000 members of Council 94, Rhode Island’s largest employees union.

But Council 94 members strongly voted against the proposal, reported the Boston Globe.

Governor Carcieri then tried to implement an executive order that would have forced the proposal, but that order was denied by Superior Court Judge Patricia Hurst.

Now, Carcieri will seek an immediate stay from the state Supreme Court and threatened state employee layoffs if he didn’t win, wrote the Globe article.

Should the family health insurance of Rhode Island’s state employees be a target for budget cuts?

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More Americans Had Health Insurance In 2007

More Americans Had Health Insurance In 2007 in Individual Health Insurance

In 2007, many health care experts had expected the number of uninsured Americans to increase for the seventh straight year, reported CNN.

But much to their surprise, the amount of uninsured Americans went down.

According to the Census Bureau, 45.7 million people in the U.S. had no health insurance in 2007, which is 1.3 million less than 2006.

What is the reason for the decrease?

The CNN article points to increased enrollment in government health care programs including the State’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and Medicaid.

Roughly 600,000 more children had health insurance in 2007 than 2006 and Medicaid enrollment went up by 13.2 percent in the same period.

The Census Bureau also found that the number of Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance or private health insurance dipped slightly.

So the report says that there are more people with government health care and fewer with private insurance.

Is this good news for expanding government health insurance programs?

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No Health Insurance? It'll Cost You $30 Billion

No Health Insurance? It'll Cost You $30 Billion in Individual Health Insurance

According to a report from George Mason University and the Urban Institute, if you don’t have health insurance, you’ll spend a pretty penny on your health care.

In total, uninsured Americans will spend a total of roughly $30 billion on health care this year.

The federal government’s health care bills aren’t looking any better — care for the uninsured will cost the feds around $56 billion.

The George Mason/Urban Institute report comes out at the same time as a Census Bureau report that will show total health care spending in the U.S. is $2.2 trillion.

That’s 16.3% of the total U.S. gross domestic product, reported the Wall Street Journal.

The article also reported that health care spending could double in just a decade. If spending continues to increase at that rate, we might actually be in an undisputed health care crisis.

So which health insurance reform is going to work again?

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Universal Health Care in Massachusetts: The Flip Side

Universal Health Care in Massachusetts: The Flip Side in Individual Health Insurance

Yesterday, we posted on the successes of the universal health insurance mandate in Massachusetts: the number of uninsured residents way down and the number of emergency room visits are down.

But like just about everything else in the world, there’s a downside to every upside.

For Massachusetts’ health insurance law, the major downside is government spending.

According to a report from Moody’s Investors Service, Massachusetts is set to spend $869 million for the 2008 fiscal year.

That’s a 41 percent increase in costs from fiscal year 2007, reported Reuters.

“Costs related to [Massachusetts’]2007 health care reforms are increasing far more rapidly than initially projected,” said a Moody’s representative.

So it seems like these high costs should be factored in when measuring the success of the state’s universal health care.

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Good News For Universal Health Care In Massachusetts?

Good News For Universal Health Care In Massachusetts? in Individual Health Insurance

There’s been a lot of debate of whether or not the health insurance mandate in Massachusetts is doing any good.

Supporters of the law point to numbers, like those reported by the Boston Globe, that show a heavy increase of residents who have insurance.

According to report from the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy, over two-thirds of residents who were uninsured in 2006 now have coverage.

The Globe article also reported that the state is actually saving millions of dollars because the number of emergency room visits has drastically gone down.

“This shows a cultural shift in public attitude, where people understand that as a community, by everyone getting health insurance, we are improving the health of everybody,” said Brian Rosman, research director for the consumer advocacy group, Health Care for All.

But critics of mandate laws say it significantly raises insurance premiums, reduces health care access, and relies on inefficient government bureaucracies to run health care.

Critics also argue that such laws make it more attractive for residents to hop on government coverage, rather than find a private health plan.

The report, however, showed something different.

Almost half of the newly insured Massachusetts residents got their coverage through an employer or found a plan in the individual market.

Still, costs for Commonwealth Care, the state-subsidized health care plan, are steadily increasing. The state has even asked for $11 billion in federal funds to help finance the plan over the next three years.

What’s your take on universal health care in Massachusetts?

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Senator Barack Obama and The Single-Payer Health Care System

Senator Barack Obama and The Single-Payer Health Care System in Politics and Legislation

Today, Senator Barack Obama was talking health care policy on the campaign trail in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

During a town-hall meeting, according to a Wall Street Journal blog, Senator Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said he would support a single-payer health care system in the U.S. if he could start new.

“If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer [health care] system,” said Senator Obama.

Such a system would get rid of private health insurance companies and the government would exclusively run all health care services.

It would bring universal health care to the U.S., which is a goal many Democratic lawmakers share.

Of course, Senator Obama knows he can’t start from scratch and our current health care system probably couldn’t be changed to single-payer any time soon.

“[M]y attitude is let’s build up the system we got, let’s make it more efficient, we may over time, as we make the system more efficient and everybody’s covered, decide that there are other ways for us to provide care more effectively,” explained the Illinois Senator.

So even though we can’t make the move to a single-payer health care system now, should we in the future?

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Arizona Voters Could Block Universal Health Care Efforts With New Proposition

Arizona Voters Could Block Universal Health Care Efforts With New Proposition in Politics and Legislation

Come November, universal health care and universal health insurance plans will be blocked by Arizona state law… if the voters so choose.

Recently, a petition obtained enough signatures to put Proposition 101 on the Arizona ballot, which would effectively prohibit any universal health care programs.

That includes any law which would mandate health care coverage or health insurance.

As Proposition 101 puts it, any law “that restricts a person’s freedom of choice of private health-care systems or private plans of any type,” reported the Arizona Daily Star.

The proposition, likely to be a part of an ongoing debate, had controversy written all over it before it was even approved for the November ballot.

When the petition was turned into the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, the County Recorder Helen Purcell determined some of the signatures were invalid.

Purcell based her findings on 22 possible invalid signatures that the Recorder’s Office checked. Some of these signatures were dated before the petition came out, some had inconsistent dates with other signatures on a petition sheet.

But a Maricopa Superior Court Judge ruled that the petitions were valid, and the Proposition will be up for approval in November.

As a side note, it’s ironic that Arizona, Senator John McCain’s home state,  is trying to block universal health care while Senator Barack Obama’s home state of Illinois is trying to pass it?

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An Introduction: The Presidential Health Care Campaign 2008

An Introduction: The Presidential Health Care Campaign 2008 in Politics and Legislation

It’s been a while since our last post about the 2008 presidential election, but we thought now was as good time as any to start talking about the health care policies of the two candidates.

After a year-long Democratic battle between New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama, Senator Obama has come out as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Arizona Senator John McCain had an impressive performance for the Republicans, coming back to win the New Hampshire primary and clinching the nomination after the political world thought his campaign was all but dead.

But now that the primary season is in the past, what do our candidates have in store for the future?

Senator McCain favors a system where the private market takes control to drive down prices. He’s even willing to provide a generous tax credit for individuals and families.

Senator Obama on the other hand is looking for the government to step in and require all children have insurance, and put restrictions on the health insurance companies so they can’t deny anyone coverage.

Obama also has promised he can reduce an average American family’s annual health insurance plan premiums by $2,500.

This was just an intro to what’s to come in the Presidential Health Care Campaign of 2008. Over the next few months, we’ll go deeper into the health care reform plans from Senator McCain and Senator Obama and keep up on the candidates’ latest health care news.

We also want to know what you think about each candidate’s health care plan — the comments section is now open for business.

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Does The Greatest Olympian Of All Time Eat Healthy?

Does The Greatest Olympian Of All Time Eat Healthy? in General Healthcare

As you might have heard, swimmer Michael Phelps became the greatest Olympic athlete of all time last night. He won his eleventh gold medal in a relay race and now has more gold medals than other Olympian in world history.

Now Phelps is three gold medals away from beating fellow swimmer Mark Spitz’s record of seven in one Olympic Games.

So does world’s greatest Olympian eat healthy?

According to the New York Post, Phelps eats three fried-egg sandwiches with cheese, tomatoes, fried onions, lettuce, and mayonnaise, two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast with powdered sugar, and three chocolate chip pancakes.

And that’s just his breakfast.

For lunch and dinner, Phelps consumes a total of two pounds of pasta, one whole pizza, two ham and cheese sandwiches, and over 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

Depending on the report you read, the Phelps’ daily calorie count is anywhere from 6,000 calories to 12,000 calories a day — three to six times more calories than an average person should eat per day. You would have to eat more than 22 Big Macs in a day to eat 12,000 calories.

But he needs all those calories for the energy to break world records and beat the best swimmers in the world with shocking ease.

Phelps’ diet isn’t too healthy for normal folks like us, but it’s pretty interesting to see how much a full-time athlete like him needs to eat.

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More Women Passing On Mammograms

More Women Passing On Mammograms in Individual Health Insurance

ORIGINAL POST: 1/24/08

A study conducted by Brown University and Harvard Medical School found when a copayment is required for a mammogram, many women between ages 65 and 69 years old with Medicare coverage do not get the screening for breast cancer.

The study’s results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Women with plans that required copayments for mammograms had an 8 percent lower rate of screening than women with full coverage, reported Medical News Today.

“The message is simple and it’s startling — a small copayment for a mammogram can lead to a sharp decrease in breast cancer screening rates,” said the lead author of the study, Amal Trivedi, M.D.

The study suggested even a $12 charge is a large enough barrier for women to skip mammograms.

“Eliminating copayments for mammograms in the Medicare program has the potential to save lives, because screening detects breast cancers at an earlier, more curable stage,” said Harvard professor and study co-author, John Ayanian, M.D.

But it’s important to make sure you go in for regular mammograms, recommends the National Institute of Cancer. Women over the age of 40 should go in for a mammogram once every 1 to 2 years. Younger women should also regularly do breast self-exams to check for lumps.

Breast cancer claims the lives for around 40,000 women in America, according the Mayo Clinic. And with the right preventive care and screening, women can make sure they catch it early. So, really, it is worth it to spend a few dollars to get screened.

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Health Care Costs Slow For The Sixth Straight Year

Health Care Costs Slow For The Sixth Straight Year in General Healthcare

A new survey of around 70 health insurance companies in the U.S. found that health care costs are increasing at a slower rate again.

The survey, conducted by Aon Consulting Worldwide, found that costs are expected to go up an average of 10.6 percent this year, reported the Associated Press.

That’s only 0.3 percent slower than last year, but a significant drop since 2002, when costs were expected to increase by 16 percent, wrote the AP article.

Aon largely attributes the six-year slowdown to efforts employers have done to cut back on health care costs — such as employee wellness programs.

The positive to these results is that health care costs are slowing. But only a 0.3 percent improvement from last year could mean the trend might not last long.

“It is encouraging that the growth in health care costs is going down, but there is still more work to be done,” said Robert Zirkelbach from America’s Health Insurance Plans.

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