Seeking Clues to Heart Disease in DNA of an Unlucky Family
By GINA KOLATA
Early heart disease ran in Rick Del Sontro’s family, and every time he went for a run, he was scared his heart would betray him. So he did all he could to improve his odds. He kept himself lean, stayed away from red meat, spurned cigarettes and exercised intensely, even completing an Ironman Triathlon.
“I had bought the dream: if you just do the right things and eat the right things, you will be O.K.,” said Mr. Del Sontro, whose cholesterol and blood pressure are reassuringly low.
But after his sister, just 47 years old, found out she had advanced heart disease, Mr. Del Sontro, then 43, and the president of Zippy Shell, a self-storage company, went to a cardiologist.
An X-ray of his arteries revealed the truth. Like his grandfather, his mother, his four brothers and two sisters, he had heart disease. (One brother, Michael, has not received a diagnosis of the disease.)
Now he and his extended family have joined an extraordinary federal research project that is using genetic sequencing to find factors that increase the risk of heart disease beyond the usual suspects — high cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking and diabetes.
The aim is to see if genetics can explain why heart disease strikes apparently healthy people. The hope is that a family like Mr. Del Sontro’s could be a Rosetta stone for heart disease — that their arteries’ profound but mysterious propensity to clog could reveal forces that do the same in millions of others.
“We don’t know yet how many pathways there are to heart disease,” said Dr. Leslie Biesecker, who directs the study Mr. Del Sontro joined. “That’s the power of genetics. To try and dissect that.”
Researchers have long known that a family history of early death from heart disease doubles a person’s risk independently of any other factors. Family history is defined as having a father or a brother who were given a diagnosis of heart disease before age 55 or a mother or sister before age 65.
Scientists are studying the genetic makeup of each member of the Del Sontro family, searching for telltale mutations or aberrations in the long sequence of three billion chemicals that make up human DNA.
Until very recently, such a project almost certainly would have been futile. Picking through DNA for tiny aberrations was so costly and time-consuming that it was impractical to take on for an entire family.
Analyzing the deluge of data would have been overwhelming. But costs have plunged, and data analysis has advanced.
Hospital Mergers Reset Abortion-Access Battle
By KIRK JOHNSON
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — Politicians seeking to restrict access to abortion, a marked trend this year from North Dakota to Arkansas, tend not to get much traction in this part of the country.
Washington is heavily Democratic, leaning left especially on social issues. A majority of voters even put into law a statutory right to abortion in 1970 — the only state ever to do that. The governor, Jay Inslee, a Democrat, is pushing the Legislature even now to pass a law at a special session on Monday requiring health insurers to pay for elective abortions, another first for the state if it makes it to Mr. Inslee’s desk.
But now a wave of proposed and completed mergers between secular and Roman Catholic hospitals, which are barred by church doctrine from performing procedures that could harm the unborn, is raising the prospect that unelected health care administrators could go where politicians could not.
The merger wave is mirrored around the country, driven by the shifting economic landscape in health care and the looming changes in federal regulation. Previous Catholic takeovers in Kentucky, Illinois and Pennsylvania have made news and drawn scrutiny.
The concentration of mergers here, through happenstance and history — Catholic nuns arrived in Washington with the first waves of settlers in the 1850s — is particularly pronounced. If all the proposed religious and secular combinations go through, almost half of the hospital beds in the state — the highest percentage in the nation, and up from less than a third at the beginning of last year — would be controlled by the Catholic health systems, according to Merger Watch, a nonprofit group in New York that tracks hospitals.
Another wrinkle is that many Washingtonians are not that keen on religion to start with. A poll by Gallup conducted throughout 2012 put the state at 12th from the bottom in percentage of people who described themselves as “very religious.” It is also one of only two states — Oregon is the other — where voters have approved a physician-assisted suicide law for terminally ill people. Centuries of Catholic teaching hold suicide as a mortal sin.
“You happen to be the hot zone,” Sarah A. Dunne, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, said on a recent evening to a group of 75 or so residents here in Mount Vernon who are opposing the mergers.
Skagit Valley Hospital in Mount Vernon, about an hour north of Seattle, has joined with two other small local hospitals in seeking a merger partner and is entertaining bids from two Catholic and two secular hospitals. A decision is expected this summer.
Health insurance tax ‘scares the daylights’ out of some small-business owners
By J.D. Harrison,
Many small-business owners worry that a new tax on insurance providers in the health-care law will mean higher premiums for them, undermining the law’s capacity to lower their health-care costs.
Starting next year, the federal government will charge a new fee on health insurance firms based on the plans they sell to individuals and companies, known as the fully insured market. Meanwhile, the provision exempts health-insurance plans that are set up and operated by businesses themselves (the self-insured market).
Revenue from the tax will help pay for the health-care overhaul, which is expected to extend coverage to millions of uninsured or underinsured Americans.
However, because most large corporations self-insure their workforce, experts warn that insurance companies will pass the costs directly to small businesses. The vast majority purchase coverage in the fully insured market.
“Insurers have confirmed back to me that the tax will be passed down to consumers, and the direct impact will be staggering,” Ryan Thorn, owner of a small insurance planning firm near Salt Lake City, told lawmakers during a congressional hearing Thursday. “It disproportionately hits individuals and small-business owners, the people who have been hurt most by these challenging times.”
During his testimony, Thorn read letters from his small-business clients about the likely impact of the new health insurance tax. One wrote that the tax “scares the daylights out of us,” while another warned that it would likely “hasten the decision to move away from providing group coverage for our employees.”
The Department of Health and Human Services reports that among private businesses that offer health insurance, three of every four firms with between 100 and 500 employees purchase coverage in the fully insured market. The number jumped to 87 percent for firms with fewer than 100 workers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/health-insurance-tax-scares-the-daylights-out-of-some-small-business-owners/2013/05/12/40bf58fe-b8ca-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_print.html
WASHINGTON — Seeking to ensure his landmark healthcare law is successfully implemented, President Obama is reprising his 2012 election strategy in hopes of enrolling millions of uninsured Americans in health plans this fall.
The new campaign, whose outcome could largely shape the president's legacy, is targeting young people, Latinos and women — groups that were crucial to Obama's victory in November.
It will rely on some of the same tools that the reelection campaign pioneered for voter turnout, including extensive use of social media, mobilization of volunteers and data-driven outreach.
Even some of the same strategists are playing central roles, including Obama's former campaign manager Jim Messina. Messina heads Organizing for Action, the grass-roots nonprofit group that evolved out of Obama's campaign. The group has made enrolling uninsured Americans in health coverage a top priority.
The president, who faces rising anxiety from Democrats that a messy rollout could be politically disastrous for the party in the 2014 midterm election, tried again to reassure his supporters Friday.
"With something as personal as healthcare, I realize that there are people who are anxious — people who are nervous making sure that we get this done right," he said at a Mother's Day event in the White House East Room. "I'm here to tell you I am 110% committed to getting it done right."
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-obama-healthcare-20130511,0,1279840,print.story
Obama uses 2012 campaign tactics to sell healthcare law
President Obama is using his successful 2012 campaign tactics to try to make sure his healthcare law benefits those who lack insurance.
By Noam N. Levey and Kathleen Hennessey, Washington Bureau
May 11, 2013
The new campaign, whose outcome could largely shape the president's legacy, is targeting young people, Latinos and women — groups that were crucial to Obama's victory in November.
It will rely on some of the same tools that the reelection campaign pioneered for voter turnout, including extensive use of social media, mobilization of volunteers and data-driven outreach.
Even some of the same strategists are playing central roles, including Obama's former campaign manager Jim Messina. Messina heads Organizing for Action, the grass-roots nonprofit group that evolved out of Obama's campaign. The group has made enrolling uninsured Americans in health coverage a top priority.
The president, who faces rising anxiety from Democrats that a messy rollout could be politically disastrous for the party in the 2014 midterm election, tried again to reassure his supporters Friday.
"With something as personal as healthcare, I realize that there are people who are anxious — people who are nervous making sure that we get this done right," he said at a Mother's Day event in the White House East Room. "I'm here to tell you I am 110% committed to getting it done right."
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-obama-healthcare-20130511,0,1279840,print.story
Our View: Messy price data shows how health costs shift
Since prices are different depending on who pays, meaningful comparisons are impossible.
We are told not to pay too much attention to the hospital cost data released last week. But it speaks volumes.
The numbers show a system that is designed to shift costs between different classes of payers. It operates with a tangled mess of different prices and discounts, making it nearly impossible for any consumer to make a rational choice based on cost.
The result is a medical system so expensive it blows holes in the state and federal budgets, as well as pricing employers and individuals out of the insurance market, creating more upward pressure on prices.
The numbers released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services show vast differences in prices for the same procedure in different states, even among different hospitals in the same city. For instance, a major joint replacement would cost you $55,425 at Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle, but 20 miles down the road in Caribou, you could get the same procedure at Cary Medical Center for $22,870.
Caregiving As Humankind's Shared Project
By Andrew D. Coates, M.D., F.A.C.P.
WAMC Northeast Public Radio, May 13, 2013
In two recent essays Dr. Arthur Kleinman, the eminent Harvard anthropologist and psychiatrist, writes in the world's leading medical journals about caregiving as a moral experience.
One essay appeared last November in The Lancet. A few weeks ago The New England Journal of Medicine published another article by Dr. Kleinman with a similar theme but a slightly different emphasis.
“Consider how central caregiving is to what it means to be human,” Dr. Kleinman writes. “Caregiving is an indelible part of relations between partners, the raising of children, and response to the infirmities of aged parents and grandparents. It is, of course, the very definition of how families and friendship networks cope with sickness or disability among their own.”
He goes on to say there’s “an ancient lineage to caregiving across historical periods and societies,” and in today’s world “[n]ursing, medicine, and the allied health disciplines justify their status as healing professions by underlining their professional commitment to caregiving.”
Dr. Kleinman's words in these essays have delivered for me, a physician, the kind of a jolt you get if you pull off your clothes on a hot June day and jump into a Catskill mountain pond. A systemic shock, then the deep breaths that bring a liberating awareness of the world around us.
Kleinman has drawn a bright line around the sphere of caregiving. He reminds us that our relationships with those we care for give our lives meaning. He then extends this truth to the caregiving professions.
The shock and awareness come refreshingly thanks to Kleinman's gentle assertion that market forces and money interests -- profit-seeking -- serve only to poison and undermine the very relationships that are most defining of our humanity and our profession.
Kleinman writes: “Everyone who has been in love or built a family knows that there are things, essential things, that money can’t buy.
"Patients with serious illness and their network of caregivers know this too, because those things that really matter to us are threatened and must be defended.”
He then says many clinicians “reflecting on what is at stake in health care not only for patients but for themselves, know the same thing: the market has an important role in health-care financing and health systems reform, but it should not reach into those quintessentials of caregiving that speak to what is most deeply human in medicine and in living.”
http://www.pnhp.org/print/news/2013/may/caregiving-as-humankinds-shared-project
A high-stakes bidding war has erupted for St. John's Health Center, a storied Santa Monica hospital, with a local billionaire teaming up with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles on an unsolicited offer.
The latest bid, expected to be formally announced Wednesday, comes from former drug-company executive and healthcare entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong, who said in a statement the bid has the support of the archdiocese. This offer is competing against at least two other bidders'.
One bidder is a group that comprises UCLA Health System and two large Catholic hospital chains. Another potential buyer is Providence Health & Services, another Catholic hospital company.
St. John's is owned by the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System, a nonprofit chain based in Denver. Officials there began soliciting offers for St. John's this year. No dollar figures have been disclosed publicly.
Whoever wins would inherit a hospital rich in history but one that is steadily losing ground in a market that increasingly favors bigger institutions. Roman Catholic nuns founded St. John's in 1942 and oversaw the rebuilding of the hospital after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Hollywood stars Jimmy Stewart and Julie Andrews raised money for the hospital. St. John's celebrity patients have included Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and President Reagan.
This latest development in the bidding adds another chapter in a months-long drama playing out at St. John's. In November, its Denver owner abruptly fired most of the local board members and ousted the top two executives.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-st-johns-hospital-bid-20130515,0,3585111,print.story
WAMC Northeast Public Radio, May 13, 2013
In two recent essays Dr. Arthur Kleinman, the eminent Harvard anthropologist and psychiatrist, writes in the world's leading medical journals about caregiving as a moral experience.
One essay appeared last November in The Lancet. A few weeks ago The New England Journal of Medicine published another article by Dr. Kleinman with a similar theme but a slightly different emphasis.
“Consider how central caregiving is to what it means to be human,” Dr. Kleinman writes. “Caregiving is an indelible part of relations between partners, the raising of children, and response to the infirmities of aged parents and grandparents. It is, of course, the very definition of how families and friendship networks cope with sickness or disability among their own.”
He goes on to say there’s “an ancient lineage to caregiving across historical periods and societies,” and in today’s world “[n]ursing, medicine, and the allied health disciplines justify their status as healing professions by underlining their professional commitment to caregiving.”
Dr. Kleinman's words in these essays have delivered for me, a physician, the kind of a jolt you get if you pull off your clothes on a hot June day and jump into a Catskill mountain pond. A systemic shock, then the deep breaths that bring a liberating awareness of the world around us.
Kleinman has drawn a bright line around the sphere of caregiving. He reminds us that our relationships with those we care for give our lives meaning. He then extends this truth to the caregiving professions.
The shock and awareness come refreshingly thanks to Kleinman's gentle assertion that market forces and money interests -- profit-seeking -- serve only to poison and undermine the very relationships that are most defining of our humanity and our profession.
Kleinman writes: “Everyone who has been in love or built a family knows that there are things, essential things, that money can’t buy.
"Patients with serious illness and their network of caregivers know this too, because those things that really matter to us are threatened and must be defended.”
He then says many clinicians “reflecting on what is at stake in health care not only for patients but for themselves, know the same thing: the market has an important role in health-care financing and health systems reform, but it should not reach into those quintessentials of caregiving that speak to what is most deeply human in medicine and in living.”
http://www.pnhp.org/print/news/2013/may/caregiving-as-humankinds-shared-project
No Benefit Seen in Sharp Limits on Salt in Diet
By GINA KOLATA
In a report that undercuts years of public health warnings, a prestigious group convened by the government says there is no good reason based on health outcomes for many Americans to drive their sodium consumption down to the very low levels recommended in national dietary guidelines.
Those levels, 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day, or a little more than half a teaspoon of salt, were supposed to prevent heart attacks and strokes in people at risk, including anyone older than 50, blacks and people with high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease — groups that make up more than half of the American population.
Some influential organizations, including the American Heart Association, have said that everyone, not just those at risk, should aim for that very low sodium level. The heart association reaffirmed that position in an interview with its spokesman on Monday, even in light of the new report.
But the new expert committee, commissioned by the Institute of Medicine at the behest of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there was no rationale for anyone to aim for sodium levels below 2,300 milligrams a day. The group examined new evidence that had emerged since the last such report was issued, in 2005.
“As you go below the 2,300 mark, there is an absence of data in terms of benefit and there begin to be suggestions in subgroup populations about potential harms,” said Dr. Brian L. Strom, chairman of the committee and a professor of public health at the University of Pennsylvania. He explained that the possible harms included increased rates of heart attacks and an increased risk of death.
The committee was not asked to specify an optimal amount of sodium and did not make any recommendations about how much people should consume. Dr. Strom said people should not eat too much salt, but he also said that the data on the health effects of sodium were too inconsistent for the committee to say what the upper limit of sodium consumption should be.
Vermont Passes ‘Aid in Dying’ Measure
By PAULA SPAN
Vermont will become the fourth state to make it legal for a physician to prescribe lethal medication to a terminally ill, mentally competent patient who wants to end his life. It has also become the first state to approve the practice through legislation, instead of via a public referendum (as in Oregon and Washington) or a court decision (in Montana).
The Vermont House of Representatives approved the measure by a 75-to-65 vote on Monday night, after 17-to-13 approval in the Senate last week. Gov. Peter Shumlin has said he will sign it into law.
“It’s been a long road in Vermont,” said Kathryn Tucker, director of legal affairs for the national Compassion and Choices organization, who testified in both chambers in favor of the bill.
Supporters of what advocates call “death with dignity” (and opponents sometimes label “physician-assisted suicide”) have been introducing similar legislation in Vermont since the mid 1990s. In the only previous vote, a bill went down to defeat in the state house in 2007.
Given polls that consistently show broad support among Vermont voters, a referendum might well have passed years ago, said Michael Sirotkin, one of the lawyers representing the group Patient Choices at End of Life Vermont. But the state doesn’t permit ballot initiatives, so organizers turned to the legislature.
“I’d say this is actually a harder path, because often the public is ahead of legislators on controversial issues,” Mr. Sirotkin said.
So-called aid in dying will look different in Vermont than elsewhere, because of an 11th-hour compromise required to win over two state senators who initially voted for the proposed law, then changed their positions.
“You saw a real tension between legislators who wanted to ensure freedom of choice on this enormously personal issue and, on the other side, legislators reluctant to bring government into the practice of medicine,” Ms. Tucker said.
St. John's bidding war escalates
Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong is among suitors for the Santa Monica hospital.
By Chad Terhune, Los Angeles Times
3:05 AM PDT, May 15, 2013
The latest bid, expected to be formally announced Wednesday, comes from former drug-company executive and healthcare entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong, who said in a statement the bid has the support of the archdiocese. This offer is competing against at least two other bidders'.
One bidder is a group that comprises UCLA Health System and two large Catholic hospital chains. Another potential buyer is Providence Health & Services, another Catholic hospital company.
St. John's is owned by the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System, a nonprofit chain based in Denver. Officials there began soliciting offers for St. John's this year. No dollar figures have been disclosed publicly.
Whoever wins would inherit a hospital rich in history but one that is steadily losing ground in a market that increasingly favors bigger institutions. Roman Catholic nuns founded St. John's in 1942 and oversaw the rebuilding of the hospital after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Hollywood stars Jimmy Stewart and Julie Andrews raised money for the hospital. St. John's celebrity patients have included Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and President Reagan.
This latest development in the bidding adds another chapter in a months-long drama playing out at St. John's. In November, its Denver owner abruptly fired most of the local board members and ousted the top two executives.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-st-johns-hospital-bid-20130515,0,3585111,print.story
Computer flaws added to Maine Med financial loss
A new $150 million centralized database failed to bill patients for some services, which has helped lead to a hiring freeze and cuts.
PORTLAND – Maine Medical Center's new $150 million electronic health records system failed to properly charge for some services, prompting the state's largest hospital to go back to insurance companies and government programs such as MaineCare to recover its fees.
The hospital launched the computer system in December, centralizing in one place all the information about Maine Med patients' doctor visits, hospital stays, prescriptions, lab work, X-rays, outpatient therapies, billing and scheduling.
Hospital officials noticed the problems with the system when patient charges failed to properly appear, said Mark Harris, vice president of planning and marketing at Maine Med and at the hospital's parent company, MaineHealth.
Harris said there is no indication that patients' medical records were affected, or that any medical procedures were not noted in patients' records. He would not say how many patients were incorrectly billed.
Bills seek to open Maine hospital board meetings to public
Posted May 14, 2013, at 6:16 p.m.
AUGUSTA, Maine — Two bills that would open hospital board meetings to public scrutiny went before lawmakers Tuesday.
One bill, LD 1118, seeks to make board meetings of hospitals that receive significant taxpayer funding open to the public. The law would apply to hospitals that receive more than 50 percent of their gross operating revenues from the state and federal government. That would apply to nearly all Maine hospitals, which are reimbursed by Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the poor, and Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors and people with disabilities.
The other bill, LD 684, would make hospitals’ bylaws and board meeting minutes subject to the state’s freedom of information law. Sponsored by Rep. Bruce McDonald, D-Boothbay, the bill drew support from Boothbay-area residents who oppose plans to close the emergency room at their local St. Andrews Hospital in October. They complained that hospital officials failed to appropriately inform the public of the closure plans.
Both bills were debated Tuesday in public hearings before the Legislature’s judiciary committee. Supporters argued for greater transparency given that hospitals affect public policy by accepting taxpayer money and providing critical health services. Hospitals also play a significant role in Maine’s economy as major employers, supporters said.
The Maine Hospital Association argued against both bills, contending that hospitals are private organizations that shouldn’t be subject to public right-to-know requirements. Hospitals don’t receive an allocation of state money, like other private nonprofits with open board meetings, but rather are reimbursed for providing services, said Jeff Austin, a lobbyist with the association.
Similar efforts to make hospital board meetings public have been defeated in past legislative sessions.
Report: 2 million fewer Americans will gain health coverage through Obamacare
Posted May 14, 2013, at 8:18 p.m.
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s landmark health care reform law will extend coverage to 2 million fewer uninsured Americans than expected only a few months ago, congressional researchers said on Tuesday.
A new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said 25 million people who lack insurance will obtain coverage through subsidized marketplaces or an expanded Medicaid program over the coming decade, down from a February CBO estimate of 27 million people.
The office attributed the drop to a change in administration policy that will exempt 500,000 to 1 million more people from the law’s individual mandate, which levies a fine on those who fail to obtain health coverage beginning in 2014.
There are nearly 49 million uninsured people in the United States, according to the Census Bureau. The number of uninsured expected to gain coverage under the law has been declining since last June, when the Supreme Court allowed states to opt out of the Medicaid expansion.
The broader mandate exemption, and the accompanying reduction in revenue from fines, is one factor behind a $39 billion rise in the net cost of providing coverage under the law.
The law offers tax credits to help low- to moderate-income people pay premiums and rich subsidies to states that expand their Medicaid program for the poor. Coverage provisions are now expected to cost a net $1.36 trillion.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is due to take full effect on Jan. 1. But the administration faces mounting political pressure from Republicans who want it repealed and Democrats who worry that implementation could fail just as the 2014 midterm congressional election campaign gets under way.
Medicine can make you sick. How to check out side effects.
Posted May 15, 2013, at 9:19 a.m.
A few years ago, I developed a painful infection. My doctor prescribed an antibiotic and a second drug to alleviate the agonizing, burning sensation. Despite the medicine, my misery increased. After a desperate call to my doctor, I deduced that my worsening symptoms were the result of the second medication, not the infection.
I’d been warned that the pain drug was likely to turn my pee orange but not that it might make me nauseated and headachy. When I stopped the medication, I felt better almost immediately.
All drugs have the potential to cause side effects, but doctors aren’t always adept at informing patients about them, says Joe Graedon, a pharmacologist and author of more than 15 books about drugs, including “Best Choices From the People’s Pharmacy.”
The Food and Drug Administration requires every prescription drug to come with a leaflet describing possible side effects, but this document is mostly intended for medical professionals.
“It’s not written in a way that’s easy for patients to understand,” says Maria Marzella Mantione, a pharmacist and associate clinical professor at St. John’s University in New York. A package insert might list dozens of adverse effects, but it won’t tell you which ones are most likely to happen to you, Mantione says.
Accepting federal health care dollars will strengthen Maine
Posted May 14, 2013, at 10:51 a.m.
This year, Maine has a chance to take a major step forward in health insurance coverage. The federal government, through the Affordable Care Act, will pay for Maine to cover nearly 70,000 more of its citizens.
Democrats in the Legislature are moving forward with a bill that would accept these federal dollars and accelerate the final debt payment owed to Maine’s hospitals. Lawmakers and Gov. Paul LePage should embrace this proposal.
For every $1 spent on preventive care, we save $5.60 in money that we don’t spend treating people after they’ve already become very sick, according to the Trust for America’s Health. That’s one of the big reasons why Maine is actually projected to save $690 million over the next 10 years if it accepts the federal dollars, according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
Using these federal dollars to cover more Mainers will encourage more people to visit their primary care doctors early and head off major health problems before they can get worse and more expensive to address. It will also cut down on costly emergency room visits, which is often where uninsured Mainers end up when health problems become too serious to ignore.
These newly covered Mainers will be much more likely to remain healthy, productive members of the workforce. This is a boost for employers who count on hard-working, experienced employees to keep their businesses running strong.
Right now, too many Mainers are one illness or accident away from financial ruin. It doesn’t have to be that way. Accepting federal funds to increase health coverage is the right thing to do and will give Maine families the security they need to get the care they need when they need it — without facing huge medical bills.
Working families should not have to fear bankruptcy because someone gets sick. With health insurance coverage, they can focus on making ends meet while putting money back into Maine’s economy every day.
Accepting federal funds is a bargain for Maine. The federal government will pay 100 percent of the cost for covering all newly eligible people for the first three years. After that, the state’s share would still be considerably smaller than under the current MaineCare program. In addition, Maine can opt out at any time.
The Legislature’s plan to accept federal health care dollars also includes a plan to pay in full the debt that Maine owes to its hospitals. Democrats and Republicans have been working to pay off Maine’s hospital debt for more than a decade. We reformed the payment system to prevent debt from accruing, and now we have an opportunity to address a cost driver in the system.
Maine’s hospital debt is a symptom of our high health care costs. By accepting federal health care dollars to cover more Maine families, we reduce hospital charity care costs, which are passed on to all Maine people.
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