health Care Reform Articles - February 10, 2011

Single-Payer Feasibility Study: Public Hearing

By Stephan Burklin On February 9, 2011
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Advocates of single-payer health care in Maine spoke in favor of a resolve to update a feasibility study. 

“It is time for Maine to tackle our health care problems, and to do so, we need information,” Rep. Paulette Beaudoin, D-Biddeford, the bill’s sponsor, told members of the Insurance and Financial Services (IFS) Committee this morning. 

Representatives from the National Association of Social Workers, the Maine People’s Alliance, and the AFL-CIO lauded the resolve as a step in the right direction.

Philip Caper, a member of the Maine AllCare Steering Committee, ascribed the country’s current health care woes to a defective ideology. 

http://maine.watchdog.org/2011/02/09/single-payer-feasibility-study-public-hearing/

Plans Steer Patients To Lower-Cost Hospitals

Hundreds of small businesses have signed up in the past month for a new Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance plan that charges employees hefty fees for seeking care at more expensive hospitals, in an effort to steer them to lower cost care.

The popularity of the plan — Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts says it is the fastest launch ever of a new product — is the latest sign that the once radical idea has been embraced as a way to control soaring health care costs, even as pricier hospitals warn of a possible backlash and cuts in services.

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/articles/2011/02/10/plans_steer_patients_to_lower_cost_hospitals/

Lesson From Canada’s Universal Care: Socially Disadvantaged Patients Use More Health Services, Still Have Poorer Health

1. David A. Alter1,*, 
2. Therese Stukel2, 
3. Alice Chong3 and 
4. David Henry4

+Author Affiliations

1. ¹David A. Alter (david.alter@ices.on.ca) is a senior scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and the research director of the Cardiac Rehabilitation and Secondary Prevention Program of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, in Toronto, Ontario.
2. ²Therese Stukel is a senior scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.
3. ³Alice Chong is an analyst at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.
4. ⁴David Henry is chief executive officer of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.

1. *Corresponding author

Abstract

Lower socioeconomic status is commonly related to worse health. If poor access to health care were the only explanation, universal access to care should eliminate the association. We studied 14,800 patients with access to Canada’s universal health care system who were initially free of cardiac disease, tracking them for at least ten years and seven months. We found that socially disadvantaged patients used health care services more than did their counterparts with higher incomes and education.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/30/2/274.abstract?sid=dfa84dfa-58c0-457e-b012-2a772589e945