Labor Campaign Pushes Healthcare as a Human Right, Not a Business
Micah Uetricht | January 22, 2013
As most American progressives know, nearly every industrialized country in the world has a government-funded health care program—except the US. Not as many of us know, however, that in nearly all of those countries, organized labor was a central player in fighting for and defending those systems.
The unionists gathered over the weekend at the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer conference in Chicago argue that if universal health care is ever to be achieved in the US, labor must play a key role in pushing for it—which many have plans to do, particularly on the state level, in the near future.
The LCSP was founded in 2009 by a broad group of union activists, including Mark Dudzic, a former union local president, and longtime labor organizer and rabble-rouser Jerry Tucker. Tucker, who died late last year [1] and was commemorated Friday by the campaign, was a stalwart organizer at the rank-and-file level, having little interest in the shifts of power in labor’s upper echelons. That spirit clearly still animates the campaign; attendees seemed to see the hopes for single-payer to come not from on high, but through organizing at labor’s grassroots.
Campaign activists, like many on the left, acknowledged the Affordable Care Act’s positive outcomes like some expanded coverage and the expansion of Medicaid while arguing it does not go nearly far enough in its reforms. Dudzic, the national coordinator of the campaign, says that labor and the progressive movement face a pivotal choice after the ACA has been cemented as the law of the land.
“We’re in a new strategic position,” Dudzic says. “We can either circle the wagons around what’s already been accomplished—which anybody who’s been around for the last 30 years would know is a strategy destined for failure—or we can continue to move forward to real health care justice.
“We want to challenge labor to keep moving.”
Many activists are looking to Vermont as an example to follow. The Green Mountain State saw a successful campaign for single-payer [2] that began in 2008. The fight was led by labor—not by a traditional union, but by the Vermont Workers Center [3], a community-based worker rights organization, who assembled a broad coalition including many unions that successfully pushed single-payer legislation around a “health care is a human right” framework.
http://www.thenation.com/print/article/172353/labor-campaign-pushes-healthcare-human-right-not-business
The California Department of Managed Health Care has been looking into the nation's largest operator of physician groups since last fall when a patient sued the Torrance company and accused it of acting like a health plan without the necessary Knox-Keene Act license. A spokeswoman for the managed-care agency said the allegations against HealthCare Partners "are still under review."
The case is part of a wider debate about whether regulatory oversight is keeping pace with consolidation among doctors, hospitals and insurers and changes in medical payment sparked by the federal healthcare law. A state healthcare board is expected to discuss these matters Monday in Sacramento.
HealthCare Partners, which runs large medical groups in Southern California and four other states, had $2.4 billion in revenue in 2011 and serves about 750,000 patients, including more than 190,000 in Medicare Advantage plans. The combined company, called DaVita HealthCare Partners, is based in Denver.
William Chin, executive medical director at HealthCare Partners, said the company is in full compliance with current law and its application for a limited health plan license is unrelated to the recent complaint.
Chin said the state license hasn't been necessary before because the company contracted with licensed health plans to care for their patients, but new initiatives with Medicare require a different arrangement.
"We are in violation of no statute or law," Chin said. The state "has reviewed these relationships and contracts for decades."
State regulators require insurers and other "risk-bearing organizations" to hold adequate reserves to pay medical bills and to comply with patient protections.
California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) asked officials to address these concerns about licensing in November, records show.
In December, Brent Barnhart, director of the Department of Managed Health Care, responded in a letter that the agency "has been actively engaged in discussions with HealthCare Partners regarding its business model."
Steinberg also asked whether the state had a conflict of interest because a HealthCare Partners executive and physician, Keith Wilson, serves as chairman of the agency's Financial Standards Solvency Board. The board advises the agency on certain rules for health plans and medical providers.
"Dr. Wilson's hand in advising the regulation of accountable-care organizations could be viewed as a contributing factor to a biased investigation," Steinberg wrote in his Nov. 20 letter.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-healthcare-partners-20130209,0,142783,print.story
The unionists gathered over the weekend at the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer conference in Chicago argue that if universal health care is ever to be achieved in the US, labor must play a key role in pushing for it—which many have plans to do, particularly on the state level, in the near future.
The LCSP was founded in 2009 by a broad group of union activists, including Mark Dudzic, a former union local president, and longtime labor organizer and rabble-rouser Jerry Tucker. Tucker, who died late last year [1] and was commemorated Friday by the campaign, was a stalwart organizer at the rank-and-file level, having little interest in the shifts of power in labor’s upper echelons. That spirit clearly still animates the campaign; attendees seemed to see the hopes for single-payer to come not from on high, but through organizing at labor’s grassroots.
Campaign activists, like many on the left, acknowledged the Affordable Care Act’s positive outcomes like some expanded coverage and the expansion of Medicaid while arguing it does not go nearly far enough in its reforms. Dudzic, the national coordinator of the campaign, says that labor and the progressive movement face a pivotal choice after the ACA has been cemented as the law of the land.
“We’re in a new strategic position,” Dudzic says. “We can either circle the wagons around what’s already been accomplished—which anybody who’s been around for the last 30 years would know is a strategy destined for failure—or we can continue to move forward to real health care justice.
“We want to challenge labor to keep moving.”
Many activists are looking to Vermont as an example to follow. The Green Mountain State saw a successful campaign for single-payer [2] that began in 2008. The fight was led by labor—not by a traditional union, but by the Vermont Workers Center [3], a community-based worker rights organization, who assembled a broad coalition including many unions that successfully pushed single-payer legislation around a “health care is a human right” framework.
http://www.thenation.com/print/article/172353/labor-campaign-pushes-healthcare-human-right-not-business
Slower Growth of Health Costs Eases U.S. Deficit
By ANNIE LOWREY
WASHINGTON — A sharp and surprisingly persistent slowdown in the growth of health care costs is helping to narrow the federal deficit, leaving budget experts trying to figure out whether the trend will last and how much the slower growth could help alleviate the country’s long-term fiscal problems.
In figures released last week, the Congressional Budget Office said it had erased hundreds of billions of dollars in projected spending onMedicare and Medicaid. The budget office now projects that spending on those two programs in 2020 will be about $200 billion, or 15 percent, less than it projected three years ago. New data also show overall health care spending growth continuing at the lowest rate in decades for a fourth consecutive year.
Health experts say they do not yet fully understand what is driving the lower spending trajectory. But there is a growing consensus that changes in how doctors and hospitals deliver health care — as opposed to merely a weak economy — are playing a role. Still, experts sharply disagree on where spending might be in future years, a question with major ramifications for the federal deficit, family budgets and the overall economy.
Part of the slowdown stems from “the recession and the loss of income and wealth” causing people to cut back on health care, Douglas W. Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, said last week. But he added that a “significant part” of the slowdown “probably arises from structural changes in the health care system.”
HealthCare Partners seeks license to operate as managed-care plan
Medical-group giant HealthCare Partners says its application for a limited health plan license is unrelated to a recent complaint.
By Chad Terhune, Los Angeles Times
February 9, 2013
The California Department of Managed Health Care has been looking into the nation's largest operator of physician groups since last fall when a patient sued the Torrance company and accused it of acting like a health plan without the necessary Knox-Keene Act license. A spokeswoman for the managed-care agency said the allegations against HealthCare Partners "are still under review."
The case is part of a wider debate about whether regulatory oversight is keeping pace with consolidation among doctors, hospitals and insurers and changes in medical payment sparked by the federal healthcare law. A state healthcare board is expected to discuss these matters Monday in Sacramento.
HealthCare Partners, which runs large medical groups in Southern California and four other states, had $2.4 billion in revenue in 2011 and serves about 750,000 patients, including more than 190,000 in Medicare Advantage plans. The combined company, called DaVita HealthCare Partners, is based in Denver.
William Chin, executive medical director at HealthCare Partners, said the company is in full compliance with current law and its application for a limited health plan license is unrelated to the recent complaint.
Chin said the state license hasn't been necessary before because the company contracted with licensed health plans to care for their patients, but new initiatives with Medicare require a different arrangement.
"We are in violation of no statute or law," Chin said. The state "has reviewed these relationships and contracts for decades."
State regulators require insurers and other "risk-bearing organizations" to hold adequate reserves to pay medical bills and to comply with patient protections.
California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) asked officials to address these concerns about licensing in November, records show.
In December, Brent Barnhart, director of the Department of Managed Health Care, responded in a letter that the agency "has been actively engaged in discussions with HealthCare Partners regarding its business model."
Steinberg also asked whether the state had a conflict of interest because a HealthCare Partners executive and physician, Keith Wilson, serves as chairman of the agency's Financial Standards Solvency Board. The board advises the agency on certain rules for health plans and medical providers.
"Dr. Wilson's hand in advising the regulation of accountable-care organizations could be viewed as a contributing factor to a biased investigation," Steinberg wrote in his Nov. 20 letter.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-healthcare-partners-20130209,0,142783,print.story
As Medicare looks to penalize hospitals for readmissions, some Maine hospitals could be in trouble
Posted Feb. 12, 2013, at 6:30 a.m.
LEWISTON — Medicare patients discharged from most area hospitals were slightly more likely than others in Maine or across the nation to end up back in the hospital within 30 days, according to a new report.
The one local hospital below the state and national average: St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston. Ironically, it was penalized recently by the federal government for having a separate readmission rate that was too high.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on Monday released a report looking at the readmission rates for Medicare patients who were admitted for medical care or surgery in 2010, the latest year data was publicly available. Nationally, it found 15.9 percent of medical patients and 12.4 percent of surgery patients were readmitted to the hospital within a month — percentages that it said changed little since 2008.
In Maine in 2010, 14.9 percent of medical patients ended up back in the hospital.
At Rumford Hospital it was 18.6 percent. At Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston it was 17.2 percent. At Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington it was 16.1 percent.
In Maine, about 11.9 percent of surgical patients ended up back in the hospital. At CMMC it was 15.3 percent.
Of those listed in the tri-county region, only St. Mary’s was below the state and national average. There 13.4 percent of medical patients and 10 percent of surgical patients were readmitted.
The report also looked at readmission rates for three common illnesses and conditions, but area hospitals had too few of those patients in 2010 for it to calculate a rate, a foundation spokeswoman said. The report also does not list hospitals that have too few patients who meet the criteria for medical care and surgical readmission, which is why only St. Mary’s and CMMC are listed for surgical readmission rates.
Hospitals, government agencies and insurance companies have focused on readmission rates in recent years as concern has grown over patient care and cost. Nearly 2 million Medicare beneficiaries alone are readmitted within 30 days, costing $17.5 billion, according to the federal government.
Last year, Medicare began penalizing hospitals that had too-high readmission rates for Medicare patients with heart failure, heart attack or pneumonia between 2008 and 2011. Franklin Memorial and St. Mary’s were penalized because they each missed the benchmark for one of those categories.
EMMC makes Hampden latest expansion destination with medical center at former Rite Aid
Posted Feb. 11, 2013, at 8:23 p.m.
HAMPDEN, Maine — Eastern Maine Medical Center executives’ desire for continued expansion and Hampden town officials’ desire for continued economic growth have combined to create a new primary care physicians and medical center in Hampden.
Renovations at the former Rite Aid store space at 7-13 Main Road North have been ongoing for about six weeks and are expected to be completed in time for Hampden Family Medicine to open in mid-July.
“We have practices in Orono, Brewer and Union Street, so geographically we feel this was a gap in our coverage umbrella,” said John Branscombe, EMMC’s administrator for physician practices. “We’ve built the practice to be sort of a flagship involving physician practices and we’re looking forward to being there.”
Dr. James Raczek, EMMC’s senior vice president of operations and chief medical officer, said the timing for this project was perfect.
“It was the right size for a relatively large practice,” he said. “Also, it helps in the growth of our inpatient facility as well as we move forward with our modernization project. From an economic growth perspective, you have to have a good medical services infrastructure to maintain any kind of growth.”
The 11,400-square-foot space is being leased to accommodate a family care medical office staffed with four physicians among a total projected staff of about 32 people.
“It’s built to have four nurse practitioners or physician assistants and also four primary care providers at the physician level,” Raczek explained. “The ratio of that could change depending on who we recruit to fill positions.”
Regardless of the staff makeup, Hampden town officials are thrilled to have EMMC join the community.
“It’s great. This is huge,” said Dean Bennett, Hampden’s community and economic development director. “It’s all about providing a needed service here locally.”
The location is part of the same 26,000-square-foot Hampden Shopping Center complex that currently houses a physical therapy business, Schacht’s True Value Hardware and V and S Variety.
“Its plan calls for around 24 offices, plus lab space, a waiting area, triage, checkout area and inner office space,” said Ben Johnson, Hampden’s code enforcement officer. “This is a big renovation that will increase the value of that space significantly.”
The original building that occupied the 2½-acre site was built in 1966 and renovated in 1995, according to records in the Hampden assessor’s office. Rite Aid bought it in 1995, demolished the old building and built the current structure. It operated there until May 2010, when it moved to its current location on Western Avenue.
Ellsworth hospital helps patients obtain millions in free medications
Posted Feb. 11, 2013, at 2:43 p.m.
Fred Dunham of Ellsworth was sitting in his doctor’s office when he noticed a flier asking, “Do you need help paying for your prescription medications?”
He did. Dunham, 57, had been forced to give up his nursing career after being put on oxygen for a progressive lung condition. While he waited for federal disability benefits to kick in, he needed handheld inhalers that cost at least $200 as well as prescription steroids, which caused side effects such as high blood pressure that necessitated even more drugs.
“I can be on sometimes as many as 20 prescriptions at a time,” Dunham said. “It’s extremely costly.”
Two weeks after seeing the notice, Dunham was filling out forms that would save him thousands of dollars over the following two years. Through a program overseen by Ellsworth’s Maine Coast Memorial Hospital, Dunham received one-on-one help to apply for free drugs directly from major pharmaceutical companies.
“I would have been lost without it,” he said.
Since 2005, Maine Coast Memorial has dedicated staff to helping patients navigate the often intimidating maze of paperwork required to apply for drug makers’ “patient assistance programs,” which provide medications at no cost to eligible individuals. Area physicians refer their patients to the hospital for assistance.
During the last fiscal year, Maine Coast Memorial Hospital helped nearly 1,500 patients from Hancock and Washington counties to obtain 5,708 medications. The retail value of those drugs totaled roughly $5.7 million, according to the hospital’s annual report.
The hospital’s help has made the difference for many patients who would have otherwise given up needed medications, said Dr. Kerry Crowley, a Gouldsboro physician who refers about one patient a week to the program.
“The reason I usually send people there is that patients tell me, ‘I cannot afford this medication. I know I need it, but either I’m going to be homeless or I’m going to go without this medication, so I’m going to go without this medication,’” he said.
National studies have shown that up to 40 percent of low-income individuals either fail to fill prescriptions or take less than the recommended dose. Medication “noncompliance” undermines control of chronic diseases such as diabetes and results in more frequent visits to doctors, emergency rooms and hospital inpatient units. It costs the U.S. more than $290 billion each year in avoidable medical spending, according to a 2009 study by the New England Healthcare Institute.
Profits should not be put above patients’ well-being
By J. Wesley Boyd, M.D.
The Boston Globe, Letters, Feb. 10, 2013
Re “Steward is already a force for change” (Page A1, Feb. 3): Although the for-profit Steward Health Care System might be investing in repaved parking lots, nicer waiting areas in their facilities, or other renovations, nobody should discount the significant negative impact on patient well-being of cuts in nurse staffing, stifling demands on physicians to see ever-increasing numbers of patients, or disgruntled employees in general.
The fact that Cerberus, owner of Steward Health Care, has been a major owner of weapons manufacturers blatantly illustrates that it does not care about health per se but instead about generating revenue. The final sentence of the article nicely sums this up when an observer states that the goal of Steward executives “in the end … is to make money for their investors.”
Practically speaking, this means whenever there is a choice that Steward needs to make between turning a profit or improving health, one can expect profit to win out every time. Most Americans believe that health care is a right, and subjecting anything that is a right to the whims of the marketplace places our humanity in jeopardy.
Dr. J. Wesley Boyd is a psychiatrist at Cambridge Health Alliance and an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He resides in Needham.
http://www.pnhp.org/print/news/2013/february/profits-should-not-be-put-above-patients’-well-being
The Boston Globe, Letters, Feb. 10, 2013
Re “Steward is already a force for change” (Page A1, Feb. 3): Although the for-profit Steward Health Care System might be investing in repaved parking lots, nicer waiting areas in their facilities, or other renovations, nobody should discount the significant negative impact on patient well-being of cuts in nurse staffing, stifling demands on physicians to see ever-increasing numbers of patients, or disgruntled employees in general.
The fact that Cerberus, owner of Steward Health Care, has been a major owner of weapons manufacturers blatantly illustrates that it does not care about health per se but instead about generating revenue. The final sentence of the article nicely sums this up when an observer states that the goal of Steward executives “in the end … is to make money for their investors.”
Practically speaking, this means whenever there is a choice that Steward needs to make between turning a profit or improving health, one can expect profit to win out every time. Most Americans believe that health care is a right, and subjecting anything that is a right to the whims of the marketplace places our humanity in jeopardy.
Dr. J. Wesley Boyd is a psychiatrist at Cambridge Health Alliance and an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He resides in Needham.
http://www.pnhp.org/print/news/2013/february/profits-should-not-be-put-above-patients’-well-being
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