Financing
National health care expenditures in the U.S. will rise to $2.5 trillion this year as businesses and families increasingly find they cannot afford health insurance or care.
From Rx for Reform
NCHC Action Fund President and CEO, Ralph G. Neas, calls for an insurance policy for health care reform.
Noting that last spring, leaders of the health care industry, including representatives from PhARMA, America's Health Insurance Plans, the American Medical Association and American Hospital Association, met with President Obama and pledged to him and the American people that they would decrease the annual rate of cost increases by 1.5 percentage points to save $2 trillion or more over the next decade. Neas said the commitment that industry leaders made to the President and the American public "should be more than a photo op, press statement and promise." Citing Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus' piece about legislative cost containment efforts and needing a fail-safe mechanism to ensure that the rate of health care inflation is slowed, Neas urged that industry pledges to the President and the American people to control the growth of national health expenditures be codified and made enforceable as part of health reform.
The National Coalition on Health Care's recommendations, based upon the consensus view of 85 member organizations, to make the system less complex, reduce overly high prices, and create a truly competitive health care marketplace. The goal of the paper is to augment the NCHC Principles and Specifications with a more detailed and selective set of policy recommendations on cost containment and quality improvement.
How much merit is there to 11th-hour insurance industry claims that the health reform bill scheduled for a vote in the Senate Finance Committee this week would raise insurance premiums? And how big a problem is it that the industry, which had generally been cooperative in the reform effort, is now lashing out? -- Marilyn Werber Serafini, NationalJournal.com
The Congressional Budget Office and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation have issued a preliminary analysis of the Senate Finance Committee chairman's mark for the America's Healthy Future Act of 2009. They note it would reduce the federal budget deficits by $81 billion over the 2010-2019 period. What's your take?
From Facts & Research
The Congressional Research Service released an updated report on the potential impact of health reform on the Medicare program. According to their report, CRS finds that at least several provision of health reform legislation intend to improve the program’s overall efficiency and quality through modifications to the payment and provider reimbursement systems, as well as the delivery of care protocols. To read the full report, click here.
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in a preliminary cost estimate released today, the revised Health Care Reform bill -- H.R. 4872, the Reconciliation Act of 2010 -- would cost $940 billion over 10 years and cut the federal deficit over the next two decades. If enacted it will reduce the deficit by about $130 billion in the first 10 years and by $1.2 trillion over the second 10 years. Reform also will expand coverage to 95 percent of Americans, according to the CBO figures. To read the full CBO report, click here.
The House Rules Committee posted the text of the final health reform bill, H.R. 4872 – the Reconciliation Act of 2010 – along with a section-by-section breakdown of the bill. To read the bill, click here.
In 2009, almost 82% of the uninsured lived in families with at least one employed head of household.
National Coalition on Health Care
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