By JOSEPH DE AVILA
Michele Wallace had worked for Medialink Worldwide Inc. for 18 years when the New York video-distribution company laid her off last May. When the company’s information-technology staff quickly shut down her computer and her BlackBerry, the senior vice president of client services lost family photos and every personal and business contact on her cellphone and computer.
via Wiped Out: Along With Jobs, Laid-Off Lose Photos, Emails – WSJ.com.
An Affordable Fix for Modernizing Medical Records – WSJ.com
April 30, 2009
By LAURA LANDRO
At Midland Memorial Hospital in Texas, nurse William Winslett used to spend hours deciphering physician’s scribbled notes, filling out forms and retrieving misplaced patient charts. Worst of all was the pneumatic tube system used to shoot orders and other documents between floors — or, at least, that was the idea.
via An Affordable Fix for Modernizing Medical Records – WSJ.com.
Henninger: 100 Days: Harry, I Have a Gift – WSJ.com
April 30, 2009
By DANIEL HENNINGER
If opinion polls were real life, Barack Obama would be walking with the immortals. In polls taken as he headed to his 100th day, his numbers are high and heavenly, cruising on issue after issue at 70-plus percent.
One number in last weekend’s Washington Post/ABC poll, however, stands out. On whether he is “willing to listen to different points of view,” Mr. Obama elevates into hyperspace, hitting 90%. Just behind is “he understands the problems of people like you,” at 73%.
The Real Culture War Is Over Capitalism – WSJ.com
April 30, 2009
Tea parties, ethical populism, and the moral case against redistribution.
By ARTHUR C. BROOKS
There is a major cultural schism developing in America. But its not over abortion, same-sex marriage or home schooling, as important as these issues are. The new divide centers on free enterprise — the principle at the core of American culture.
By Tommy G. Thompson
Most public surveys show that the public overwhelmingly supports the idea of reforming health care. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Americans are increasingly concerned about the burden of health care costs and overwhelmingly support reform. In fact, the public feels that, in light of the economic downturn, it is more important than ever to reform health care.
via Healthy lifestyle key to controlling costs – Tommy G. Thompson – POLITICO.com.
Baucus’ Vow: Deliver a bipartisan health care reform bill before the Oct. 15 / Kaiser Health News
April 30, 2009
Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has promised to deliver a bipartisan health care reform bill before the Oct. 15 deadline, the Washington Post reports. However, Baucus “faces a host of competing demands,” with many Senate Republicans opposed to health care reform that includes a public plan option to compete with private insurers and many Senate Democrats demanding that such an option be included in any overhaul legislation, according to the Post.
In addition, fiscally conservative Democrats want the Obama administration to guarantee that health care reform will rein in health care spending for federal health programs and not only expand coverage. According to Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.), a leader of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, the administration’s challenge is “to convince enough of us that their proposal will actually contain costs over the long term” (Montgomery, Washington Post, 4/30).
By Dr. Nick Jouriles, president, American College of Emergency Physicians
As Congress gears up for the fight over healthcare reform, we urge everyone in both parties not to forget the 120 million Americans who need emergency care each and every year. The nation’s emergency departments are the backbone of the overall healthcare system. That has never been more apparent than during this economic crisis as more and more Americans are out of work and losing their health insurance.
via TheHill.com – In health reform, fix inequity that saddles emergency care.
Senate Finance Committee reaches “broad agreement” on how to slow rising health costs / NAHU.org News
April 30, 2009
CQ Today (4/30, subscription required) reports, “Senate Finance Committee members on Wednesday got their first look at what might be in the healthcare overhaul bill the committee hopes to mark up in mid-June, but concerns over how the proposals would affect different parts of the country still have to be resolved.” The six-hour meeting, led by Sens. Max Baucus and Charles E. Grassley, was billed as “the first of three ‘walkthroughs’ the two lawmakers are hosting for members.” And in spite of “broad agreement…on the problems the committee proposed taking on,” both said “there was still much work to be done on the solutions.” Among the major topics being discussed were the “healthcare spending disparities in different parts of the country,” irrespective of quality, and the practice of “bundling” payments for certain health conditions.
The New York Times (4/30, A20, Pear) adds that the meeting was an “opening salvo in a broad effort to overhaul the healthcare system” and part of a “detailed set of recommendations” that are “intended to slow the growth of Medicare, hold doctors and hospitals more accountable, and improve the care of patients with chronic illnesses.” Among the recommendations: “Medicare would increase payments to doctors who regularly exceed ‘national benchmarks’ for the quality of care. Doctors who did not meet federal standards would be subject to financial penalties; Medicare would pay bonuses to hospitals that provide superior care for heart attacks, heart failure, pneumonia and selected other conditions; doctors could receive extra payments if they hired nurses to manage follow-up care for Medicare patients who were discharged from the hospital after being treated for chronic conditions like diabetes, asthma, depression and coronary artery disease;” and “the government would set national standards for the appropriate use of CAT scans, magnetic resonance and other diagnostic imaging techniques. Medicare would cut payments to doctors who drive up costs by overuse of imaging services.”
Bloomberg News (4/30, Marcus) reports, “Senator Max Baucus said there is ‘not much disagreement’ among lawmakers on the Finance Committee about using Medicare’s payment system to reward hospitals for the quality of their healthcare.” Members of both parties “want to force changes that could slow rising healthcare costs and improve care, Baucus told reporters after a closed-door panel meeting.” Senator Grassley agreed, saying, “There wasn’t a lot of disagreement about what was a problem. There may be disagreement on how to handle it.”
CongressDaily (4/30, Edney) reports that the options paper “suggests increasing primary-care physicians’ pay relative to higher-paid specialties by cutting Medicare payments for specialties and bumping up primary care pay 5 percent.” This disappointed specialty physicians, who said it is “vague on how it might avert a 21 percent cut in Medicare physician payments slated for January.”
Right Time for Obama to Fix Health Care – WSJ.com
April 30, 2009
By David Wessel
It would seem an unpropitious moment for President Barack Obama to renovate the American health-care system amid battles to prevent the collapse of the American banking system, conquer the worst recession in his lifetime, and defeat the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Mr. Obama is determined to try, and chances that he will have something to boast about by year’s end look surprisingly good.
Democrats seen as increasing support of government-run insurance plan / NAHU.org News
April 30, 2009
CQ Today (4/30, Wayne, subscription required) reports, “Congressional Democrats appear increasingly determined to create a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers as part of a healthcare overhaul, despite warnings by Republicans, business groups and insurers that doing so would mean the end of employer-sponsored health insurance.” A group of fifteen Senate Democrats and one Independent, Bernie Sanders of Vermont “sent a letter to the chairmen of committees writing the healthcare overhaul, urging them to include a ‘public plan option’ in the legislation.” Their request appears more likely, “after the passage of the budget reconciliation rules in House version of the fiscal 2010 budget resolution.”
The Politico (4/30, Brown) reports, “Sixteen Democratic senators put a finer point Wednesday on their support for a public insurance plan, urging key Senate committee chairmen not to abandon the option as they negotiate a healthcare overhaul bill.” These lawmakers “did not say” that they “would oppose a bill without the public plan, but” they expressed “a strong desire that suggests this component of healthcare reform will remain a controversial element of the debate.”
The Hill (4/30, Young) reports that the letter “was addressed to the two senators expected to shape healthcare reform legislation; Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT).” It comes a day after “more than 100 liberal House Democrats, represented by the Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Asian-Pacific American Caucus, sent a similar letter to House leaders Tuesday.” Brown said that although “the support for a public plan is very broad. … We don’t have everybody in the Democratic caucus convinced.” Republicans, meanwhile, “contend that the plan will muscle out private insurers by cutting payment rates to medical providers in order to charge lower premiums, and will lead to the federal government dominating the insurance market.”
The New Republic’s (4/30) The Treatment blog reports that the list of signatories is “interesting,” because besides including the party’s liberal wing, it also includes such members as Gillibrand, Casey and Webb, senators who “don’t typically appear on lists of the party’s most liberal members.” This is “a signal that the public plan has a decent reservoir of congressional support, because more than a few members believe it’s the right thing to do, it’s the popular thing to do, or both.”
The Columbus Dispatch (4/30, Riskind) reports, “A government-run medical plan would ’serve as a check’ on private insurers and is key to overhauling the nation’s healthcare system, Sen. Sherrod Brown says.” Along with the letter, Brown joined Schumer and Sanders “at the Capitol in unveiling a national poll that found two-thirds of respondents favor a ‘public health plan that people can count on to cover what they need at more affordable rates.’” Republicans have said that a public plan would be “a deal-breaker in any healthcare reform bill,” arguing that “many employers would drop private coverage, and that it would lead inevitably to the entire healthcare system being run by the federal government and the rationing of medical treatment. Private insurers, too, are opposed to the idea, saying it would be unfair competition.”
A source well within the White House has indicated that not all is well behind closed doors in the Obama Administration. Frustrations are being felt and expressed by former campaign advisors with former Clinton advisors in the White House. Statements indicate that Clintonites are viewed as hell-bent on resurrecting and pushing many of both Hillary and Bills’ “failed policies” of the 90s – pushing unnecessary and far-reaching “regulation” as opposed to “fixing” the problems. Grumblings also within White House indicate belief that Hillary is the “least prepared” of Secretaries of State in generations.
Time will tell who wins by which staffers leave in 2010.
By Louise Kertesz
“We’re running out of time,” says Ms. Cindy Nayer, co-founder of the Center for Health Value Innovation. Hospitals, squeezed by Medicaid, are running out of dollars to care for the increasing number of people who are losing their jobs and their health insurance in the economic downturn. “We cannot isolate health care in a vacuum one more day. We have to talk about how to get our communities healthy,” Ms. Nayer says.
via Economic Health of Communities Tied to Value-Based Benefit Design.
FactCheck.org: 100 Days of Spin
April 29, 2009
What Obama said — and what has been said about him.
Summary
After 100 days in office, we find President Obama is sticking to the facts – mostly.
Nevertheless, we find that the president has occasionally made claims that put him and his policies in a better light than the facts warrant. He has claimed that private economists agreed with the forecast in his budget, when they were really more pessimistic. He’s used Bush-like budget-speak trying to sound frugal while raising spending to previously unimagined levels. And he has exaggerated the problems his proposals aim to cure by misstating facts about school drop-out rates and oil imports.
At the same time, there’s been no shortage of dubious claims made about the president by his political opponents. Republicans have falsely claimed that Obama planned to spend billions on a levitating train and that his stimulus bill would require doctors to follow government orders on what medical treatments can and can’t be prescribed, among other nonsense.
And those whoppers are mild compared with some of the positively deranged claims flying about the Internet. No, the national service bill Obama signed won’t prevent anybody from going to church, for example. And no, he’s not trying to send Social Security checks to illegal immigrants.
By Rebecca Ruiz
The counties and metro areas with the nation’s poorest air quality.
Nouriel Roubini – “I am not Dr Doom: I am Dr Realist”: Interview with Newsweek and Washington Post
April 29, 2009
Lally Weymouth of Newsweek and The Post sat down last week with economist Nouriel Roubini.
Excerpts:
Q. You are the economist known for predicting the economic downturn in 2008. What do you believe is happening to the economy today?
A. The consensus among economists is that they see the economy that was contracting for the last two quarters at 6 percent going into positive economic growth by the second half of this year. . . . I believe that the rate of economic contraction is going to slow from negative 6 percent in the last two quarters to negative 2 percent by the fourth quarter.
Next year, I believe that the growth rate is going to be low — 0.5 percent for the U.S., compared to the consensus view of [plus] 2 percent. I believe the unemployment rate this year is going to go well above 10 percent and will be well above 11 percent next year, so even if we are technically out of a recession, we are going to feel like we are in a recession.
via RGE – “I am not Dr Doom: I am Dr Realist”: Interview with Newsweek and Washington Post.
