Health Care Reform Articles - March 25, 2011

HCAN Analysis Shows Health Insurers Pocketed Huge

Profits in 2010 Despite Weak Economy

Report

Underscores

Importance

of

Blocking

Republican

Efforts

to

Repeal

Health

Law

Washington, DC—The five largest Wall Street-run health insurance companies parlayed the economic meltdown of

2008 and the nationʼs subsequent fragile recovery into huge profits in 2010, the last year before market reforms in

the Affordable Care Act (ACA) take full effect, according to an analysis by Health Care for America Now (HCAN).

The five insurers made combined profits of $11.7 billion by reducing the share of premiums spent on the

http://hcfan.3cdn.net/b61802440a3b0e08a6_gum6bhxaw.pdf

More opt for low-cost coverage

Consumers with high deductibles cut back on care

By Kay Lazar

Globe Staff / March 25, 2011

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The number of Massachusetts residents enrolled in high-deductible health insurance plans nearly doubled last year as employers and consumers looked for lower-cost options amid soaring medical prices.
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/articles/2011/03/25/more_opt_for_low_cost_health_coverage/?page=full

Nursing a conundrum

By Steven Syre

Globe Columnist / March 25, 2011

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All the big-picture policy talk about controlling the cost of health care runs smack into the real world at the hospital nursing station.
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/articles/2011/03/25/nurses_feeling_the_crunch/

BRIAN MCGRORY

Health costs killing cities

By Brian McGrory

Globe Columnist / March 25, 2011

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No need to worry anymore about whether we keep Boston City Hall or move it, whether we live with the desert of brick in Government Center or try for the millionth time to change it.
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/articles/2011/03/25/health_care_costs_are_killing_city/

A glimpse of a future with Obamacare

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By Sally C. Pipes, Thursday, March 24, 7:56 PM

The one-year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act this week brings new reason to consider a major health-care announcement by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. Almost five years into his state’s Romneycare plan, it turns out that spending is out of control, threatening public-sector budgets and private-sector wealth generation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-glimpse-of-a-future-with-obamacare/2011/03/16/ABcNfkRB_story.html

Obamacare’ and the myth of rising cost estimates

By Glenn Kessler

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamacare-and-the-myth-of-rising-cost-estimates/2011/03/24/ABn6JmRB_blog.html

Health Care Reform Is a Law Worth Keeping

By Wendell Potter, Reader Supported News

25 March 11

s the health care reform law a good deal for Americans or is it so badly flawed that Congress should repeal it? Now that the measure is one year old - President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to law on March 23, 2010 - I humbly suggest we attempt an unbiased assessment of what the law really means to us and where we need to go from here.

To do that in a meaningful way, we must remind ourselves why reform was necessary in the first place. I believe the heated rhetoric we've been exposed to since the reform debate began has obscured the harsh realities of a health care system that failed to meet the needs of an ever-growing number of Americans.

http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/272-39/5400-health-care-reform-is-a-law-worth-keeping