PA Man Confronts Governor For Refusing To Expand Medicaid: ‘How Many People Have To Die?’
January 24, 2014 |
This week, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) had a run-in with one of his constituents [3] as he was leaving a fundraising event. Scot Rosenzweig — who identified himself as a fellow Republican — showed Corbett a large photograph of his fiancee, Dina Nelson, who died at the age of 41 because she was uninsured and couldn’t afford a liver transplant. “I think maybe we should consider accepting the Medicaid expansion,” Rosenzweig told his governor, explaining that people like Nelson need access to lifesaving health treatment.
“I can’t do that,” Corbett responded.
Corbett is one of 25 governors who have declined to accept [4] Obamacare’s optional Medicaid expansion, a move that is preventing an estimated 700,000 [5] low-income Pennsylvanians from accessing public health insurance. Rather than accepting the federal funds designated for expanding his state’s Medicaid pool, Corbett is trying to win federal approval for analternate plan [6], called “Healthy Pennsylvania,” that would give low-income people subsidies to buy private coverage. But Corbett’s plan has beensharply criticized [7] by anti-poverty advocates, who say it could actually reduce benefits for the state’s neediest constituents.
In his exchange with Rosenzweig, Corbett reiterated his desire to implement “Healthy Pennsylvania,” which he hopes to put in place by 2015. He said he can’t both accept Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion and fix the existing problems he sees with the Medicaid program. But that didn’t satisfy Rosenzweig.
“How many people have to die while we work on the problems?” he asked Corbett
High deductibles perpetuate system’s issues
By Jonathan D. Walker, M.D.
The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, Ind.), Jan. 14, 2014
“Doc, I need to get this done before my new deductible kicks in.” Physicians hear this a lot; it reflects the increasing use of so-called consumer-directed health plans, where people are responsible for the first several thousand dollars of care before their insurance company has to pay. If you don’t already have one, you probably will soon.
And, believe it or not, this trend has nothing to do with Obamacare. The adoption of high-deductible plans is a symptom of a deeper problem: the fact that everything costs way more in America than anywhere else. For decades, there has been so much money sloshing around the system that there has been an “arms race” over who can charge the most. And for-profit insurance companies have never had the leverage to actually bring those prices down – the system is too fragmented.
There are some good things that come from those prices; part of that money goes to developing new treatments and technology. But a lot of that money ends up being wasted. For instance, a huge amount is thrown away on needless bureaucracy. A 2003 paper in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that up to 30 percent of our health care costs come from administrative waste.
And it gets even worse. Researchers have shown that some of the care provided may not be as necessary or effective as doctors think. For instance, there is a whole website created by the American Board of Internal Medicine to help doctors and patients decide which tests and treatments actually are useful (choosingwisely.org).
So we have a system that is insanely expensive, that wastes money on needless paperwork and may not always provide the right type of care. But no one can fix it because it is too disjointed and unwieldy. So what do you do if you are a for-profit insurance company? You figure out a way to make someone else pay
http://www.pnhp.org/print/news/2014/january/high-deductibles-perpetuate-system’s-issues
The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, Ind.), Jan. 14, 2014
“Doc, I need to get this done before my new deductible kicks in.” Physicians hear this a lot; it reflects the increasing use of so-called consumer-directed health plans, where people are responsible for the first several thousand dollars of care before their insurance company has to pay. If you don’t already have one, you probably will soon.
And, believe it or not, this trend has nothing to do with Obamacare. The adoption of high-deductible plans is a symptom of a deeper problem: the fact that everything costs way more in America than anywhere else. For decades, there has been so much money sloshing around the system that there has been an “arms race” over who can charge the most. And for-profit insurance companies have never had the leverage to actually bring those prices down – the system is too fragmented.
There are some good things that come from those prices; part of that money goes to developing new treatments and technology. But a lot of that money ends up being wasted. For instance, a huge amount is thrown away on needless bureaucracy. A 2003 paper in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that up to 30 percent of our health care costs come from administrative waste.
And it gets even worse. Researchers have shown that some of the care provided may not be as necessary or effective as doctors think. For instance, there is a whole website created by the American Board of Internal Medicine to help doctors and patients decide which tests and treatments actually are useful (choosingwisely.org).
So we have a system that is insanely expensive, that wastes money on needless paperwork and may not always provide the right type of care. But no one can fix it because it is too disjointed and unwieldy. So what do you do if you are a for-profit insurance company? You figure out a way to make someone else pay
http://www.pnhp.org/print/news/2014/january/high-deductibles-perpetuate-system’s-issues
Obamacare coverage hits 3 million mark
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| The Obama administration announced Friday that 3 million people have signed up for health insurance through Obamacare exchanges since Oct. 1 — still behind the pace the administration hoped to set for the law’s first enrollment period but steady enough to encourage officials. Signups in private plans through state and federal exchanges grew by about 800,000 since the end of December, when there was a late surge to sign up for coverage that started Jan. 1. Before the health care law’s deeply flawed rollout, the administration hoped to have 3.3 million in exchanges by the end of December and 7 million by the time the 2014 enrollment season closes March 31. Officials are counting on another significant surge by the end of March. PHOTOS: 12 Democrats criticizing the Obamacare rollout) “As our outreach efforts kick into even higher gear, we anticipate these numbers will continue to grow, particularly as we reach even more uninsured young adults, so that they know that new options and new ways to help eligible individuals pay for their premium are now available,” Marilyn Tavenner, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator, wrote in a blog post Friday. Tavenner’s post didn’t provide any age breakdown or further details on the new enrollment figures, including how many people had officially completed enrollment by paying their first month’s premium. CMS also hasn’t said how many of those enrolling through exchanges previously lacked insurance. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Friday that the latest exchange enrollment data represent a “dramatic improvement” from where exchange signups were last October. They show that the problems with HealthCare.gov were the major obstacle in getting people signed up — not Americans’ lack of interest in obtaining coverage, he stressed. “How are we doing? I think that we’re making significant progress,” Carney said. “But you won’t hear anyone in this building … say that we’re done with this effort. http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=DE971EA4-1342-4FB7-A7EE-E270B41A3D3C
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