Health Care Reform Articles - March 7, 2011

Leo Girard on Canadian healthcare
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osk1ofyiPSM&feature=youtube_gdata_player#t=15m00s

March 5, 2011

West Virginia Hospital Overradiated Brain Scan Patients, Records Show

By WALT BOGDANICH

A large West Virginia hospital seriously overradiated patients suspected of having strokes with CT scans for more than a year after similar episodes prompted federal officials to alert hospitals nationwide to be especially careful when using those types of scans, interviews and documents show.

The patients, at Cabell Huntington Hospital in Huntington, W.Va., were overdosed with radiation until late November, records show, even after the Food and Drug Administration had publicly issued its final report on hundreds of overdoses involving brain scans at other hospitals and the errors had been discussed publicly in Congress and by state officials and professional organizations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/health/06radiation.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print

Shortage of grocers plagues Mass. cities

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/03/07/shortage_of_grocers_plagues_mass_cities/?page=full

Public employee unions will pitch plan on health insurance

Proposal to come as soaring costs frustrate leaders

By James Vaznis

Globe Staff / March 7, 2011

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/03/07/public_employee_unions_will_pitch_plan_on_health_insurance/

HEALTH CARE | GLOBE EDITORIAL

Romney elevates GOP debate

March 7, 2011

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NECESSITY BEING the mother of reinvention, Mitt Romney has set the stage for a substantive discussion of health care reform among Republican presidential candidates — a discussion that goes well beyond the tweets and sound bites that most of his potential competitors have offered.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2011/03/07/romney_elevates_gop_debate/

Drug giants’ profits threatened by expiring patents

By Duff Wilson

New York Times / March 7, 2011

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At the end of November, Pfizer stands to lose a $10-billion-a-year revenue stream when the patent on its blockbuster drug Lipitor expires and cheaper generics begin to cut into the company’s huge sales.

The loss poses a daunting challenge for Pfizer, one shared by nearly every major pharmaceutical company. This year alone, because of patent expirations, the drug industry will lose control over more than 10 megamedicines whose combined annual sales have neared $50 billion.
http://www.boston.com/business/healthcare/articles/2011/03/07/drug_giants_profits_threatened_by_expiring_patents/

SUNDAY, MARCH 6, 2011

Fixing America's Health Care Reimbursement System

This post is authored by Brian Klepper and first appeared at Kaiser Health News:

A tempest is brewing in physician circles over how doctors are paid. But calming it will require more than just the action of physicians. It will demand the attention and influence of businesses and patient advocates who, outside the health industrial complex, bear the brunt of the nation's skyrocketing health care costs.

http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2011/03/fixing-americas-health-care.html

Senate Dems Consider Health Care Fix That Could Hit Poor Consumers The Hardest

First Posted: 03/ 7/11 05:37 PM Updated: 03/ 7/11 05:37 PM

WASHINGTON -- Democrats on the Hill are growing increasingly convinced and, in some cases, concerned that in an effort to offset the cost of repealing a tax requirement in the president’s health care bill, the party will settle on a policy that jacks up insurance prices for low-income Americans.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/07/health-care-fix-poor-consumers_n_832488.html?view=print

Health Care Reform Articles - March 6, 2011

March 5, 2011

Talk Doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns to Drug Therapy

By GARDINER HARRIS

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — Alone with his psychiatrist, the patient confided that his newborn had serious health problems, his distraught wife was screaming at him and he had started drinking again. With his life and second marriage falling apart, the man said he needed help.

But the psychiatrist, Dr. Donald Levin, stopped him and said: “Hold it. I’m not your therapist. I could adjust your medications, but I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/health/policy/06doctors.html?_r=1&ref=general&src=me&pagewanted=print

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Single-payer health legislation on the move in Vermont

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20110306/NEWS03/110305007/1095/Single-payer-health-legislation-on-the-move-in-Vermont

N.H. hospital watches Vt. single-payer debate

Created Friday, March 4, 2011

Adam Sullivan
WCAX News, Lebanon, New Hampshire - March 2, 2011

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center's Frank McDougall knows a lot of people who impact the health care industry in New Hampshire and Vermont, and all the way to the White House.

"We can't go on the way we are going," said McDougall, the VP of government relations at DHMC. "The system is significantly broken, the financing system. The percentage of our Gross National Product is getting to the point where we can't afford this, can't sustain it."

Dartmouth-Hitchcock is located in New Hampshire, but Vermont is a big player.

"About 40 percent of everything that happens at our Lebanon campus, for Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center is Vermont," McDougall said.

Over 300,000 Vermont patients visited the facility last year alone. And 2,300 Vermonters work at the medical center, which has an annual payroll-- solely to Vermonters-- upwards of $160 million.

"The fact is the Green Mountains pretty much divide the market," McDougall said.

So as the Shumlin administration moves forward drafting a single-payer health plan for Vermont, DHMC has a keen interest.

KEVIN CULLEN

Blue Cross at top of the heap, thanks to governor’s inaction

By Kevin Cullen

Globe Columnist / March 6, 2011

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/03/06/blue_cross_at_top_of_the_heap_thanks_to_governors_inaction/

Health Care Reform Articles - March 5, 2011

Boston.com Most Emailed

by ROBERT WEISMAN  •  MARCH 3, 2011READ LATER

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said yesterday that her office has begun an investigation into the employment contract and severance package given to Cleve L. Killingsworth, former chief executive of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, by the board of the nonprofit health insurer.

http://www.boston.com/business/healthcare/articles/2011/03/03/ag_to_review_exit_pay_for_blue_cross_executive/

March 3 Letters to the editor, March 3, 2011 Controversy over public workers George Will's recent column regarding the political protests in Wisconsin are a quintessential example of ideology masquerading as journalism. Mr. Will describes the protests as an attempt to "repeal an election." While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was clear during the campaign regarding his intentions to cut spending, Will fails to mention that Wisconsin workers have already agreed to Walker's demands for economic concessions. What the workers are protesting is Walker's post-election power play to take away collective bargaining rights that have been earned over decades of struggle. This blatant attempt to break the unions was never raised during the election campaign, and it is the issue at the heart of the present debate, yet Mr. Will deems it not even worthy of mention. Mr. Will criticizes unions as interest groups organized to lobby for their own continued growth. He is at least half right here: Unions are interest groups, but their interest lies in preserving and furthering the dignity and rights of American workers. This role has become even more crucial in the aftermath of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case, which allowed unlimited and anonymous corporate spending in political campaigns. The effect of this travesty was made clear in the recent midterm elections; Scott Walker was one of the chief beneficiaries of the ruling, receiving considerable financial support from the billionaire Koch brothers and their special interest advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity. Mr. Will's claims that the protests in Wisconsin were coordinated by national organizations. In truth, while unions across the nation eventually rallied to the cause in support of the Wisconsin workers, the initial protests were a bona-fide grass-roots expression of the outrage felt by workers across the state. Mr. Will's pattern of telling only a portion of the story, while ignoring details that inconveniently conflict with his ideological agenda, exposes him as a partisan political hack. It also raises the question of why The Portland Press Herald continues to publish his column under the guise of serious journalism. Bill Lundgren Portland

March 3, 2011

Judge Stays Own Ruling Against Health Care Law

By KEVIN SACK

A federal judge in Florida stayed his own ruling against the Obama health care law on Thursday, allowing the act to be carried out as the case progresses through the Courts of Appeal and on to the Supreme Court.

The judge, making evident his irritation with the Obama administration, sought to speed the process by conditioning the stay on the Justice Department’s pursuit of an expedited appeal, which he ordered filed within seven days.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/health/policy/04judge.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print

Boston.com Most Emailed

by BRIAN MCGRORY  •  MARCH 4, 2011READ LATER

And now it comes down to Martha Coakley to stop the insanity, to prevent otherwise pretty good people from further embarrassing themselves in the health care debacle that has unfolded in Boston this week.

Specifically, it came to light yesterday that the 18 members of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts board of directors are paid anywhere from $58,000 to $90,000 a year б nice work if you can get it, though вworkее is probably a stretch, given that itеs generally a meeting a month. Blue Cross is, of course, a nonprofit. That board just paid $8.6 million to the recently departed chief executive deemed unworthy of his job, with close to $3 million more to come.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/03/04/such_healthy_pay_its_sick/

nytimes.com

Health Costs Soar, G.O.P. and Insurers Differ on Cause

by ROBERT PEAR  •  MARCH 4, 2011READ LATER

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Workers at a circuit-board factory here just saw their health insurance premiums rise 20 percent. At Buddy Zaremba’s print shop nearby, the increase was 37 percent. And for engineers at the Woodland Design Group, they rose 43 percent.

The new federal health care law may eventually “bend the cost curve” downward, as proponents argue. But for now, at many workplaces here, the rising cost of health care is prompting insurance premiums to skyrocket while coverage is shrinking.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/health/policy/05cost.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

BBoston.com Most Emailed

by ROBERT WEISMAN  •  MARCH 5, 2011

READ LATER

The stateеs second- and third-largest health insurers yesterday said they have called off merger talks after deciding that joining forces would be more difficult than anticipated and might not further their goal of improving medical care while reining in costs.

The scuttled deal between Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan means they will continue to compete with each other, as well as with the market leader, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.

вWe had two strong companies going into this, and we have two strong companies going out,ее James Roosevelt Jr., president and chief executive of the Watertown-based Tufts, said in an interview.

https://www.readability.com/articles/yohffsar?legacy_bookmarklet=1

GLOBE EDITORIAL

Blue Cross at the trough

March 5, 2011

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BLUE CROSS Blue Shield of Massachusetts couldn’t have made a better case for a “public option’’ health plan than it did by granting an $11 million golden handshake to its former CEO. At a time when elected officials, hospitals, doctors, and insurers are all trying to hold down health-cost inflation, the pay, severance, and retirement money doled out to Cleve Killingsworth is an insult to well-meaning reformers: Why should those who treat patients receive lower reimbursments when even unimpressive suits like Killingsworth make out like bandits? Perhaps Blue Cross thinks it’s being prudent because Killingsworth’s payout fell short of the $16.4 million pocketed by his longer-serving predecessor as CEO, William Van Faasen.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2011/03/05/blue_cross_at_the_trough/

by DERRICK Z. JACKSON  •  MARCH 5, 2011READ LATER

IF MASSACHUSETTS is the model, then national health care reform is ultimately doomed. That can be the only conclusion after this week’s news that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is in the homestretch of paying out nearly $28 million in retirement and severance pay in the last five years to its last two CEOs. Adding more insult to consumers, the curtain was pulled back on the incestuous way Massachusetts’ top health care providers pay board members tens of thousands of dollars. National nonprofit consultant BoardSource says just 3 percent of nonprofits pay board members an honorarium.

https://www.readability.com/articles/ahwb2wyi?legacy_bookmarklet=1

latimes.com

Taking 

Takilatimes.c

Taking a scalpel to the healthcare system -- latimes.com

READ LATER

Social Security now doles out more money in benefit checks than it takes in from taxes, and its trust fund is projected to run out of cash in about 26 years.

So this is a good model for healthcare reform?

https://www.readability.com/articles/nrzfon8j?legacy_bookmarklet=1

pressherald.com

Bill Nemitz: A pointed budget message hits the mark

READ LATER

Posted: March 4
Updated: Today at 10:39 PM

Some might have looked at the long lines of people waiting to testify on Gov. Paul LePage's proposed budget and decided it wasn't worth it.

After all, you can wait hours for your turn to speak.

https://www.readability.com/articles/5jzhaopn?legacy_bookmarklet=1

Health care “unsustainability” a myth, report finds

Created Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Public sector care stable, though problems loom in private health care sector

Canadian Doctors for Medicare
Press release, Feb 28, 2011
Toronto ‐ A new report on health care financing demonstrates that the widely repeated concern about the sustainability of public health are is unsubstantiated. Despite comments by Prime Ministers, Premiers, bank presidents and newspaper reporters suggesting that we are in a public health care financing crisis, the facts show that Medicare and public sector health care spending in general has grown little over the last 30 years and shos no signs of rapid future growth. The report, “Neat, Plausible and Wrong”, was released today by Canadian Doctors for Medicare (CDM) and draws on the full range of health care statistics to put the myth to rest.
http://www.pnhp.org/print/news/2011/march/health-care-“unsustainability”-a-myth-report-finds

ANALYSIS — A Canadian-Style Single-Payer Health System in Vermont?

Created Tuesday, March 1, 2011

By Wendell Potter
The Center for Public Integrity, March 01, 2011
MONTPELIER, Vt. — Chances are you’ve never heard of Peter Shumlin, who last month was sworn in as the 81st governor or Vermont. That’s about to change. If Shumlin makes good on a signature campaign promise, he might end up as well-known and beloved in the United States as Tommy Douglas is in Canada.
OK, maybe you’ve never heard of Tommy Douglas, either. A former Baptist preacher and member of the Canadian parliament, Douglas is considered the father of Canada’s popular government-run medical insurance program.
If you’re surprised to learn that Canadians like that system, it’s probably because you’ve been convinced otherwise by a years-long propaganda campaign from American insurers — a campaign I used to help carry out as an industry PR executive.
http://www.pnhp.org/print/news/2011/march/analysis-—-a-canadian-style-single-payer-health-system-in-vermont

Health Care Reform Articles - March 2, 2011

Fox News' Lies Keep Them Out of Canada

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Reader Supported News

01 March 11

s America's middle class battles for its survival on the Wisconsin barricades - against various Koch Oil surrogates and the corporate toadies at Fox News - fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice can take comfort from a significant victory north of the Wisconsin border. Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canadian regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada's right-wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/276-74/5123-fox-news-lies-keep-them-out-of-canada

March 1, 2011

Mr. Obama’s Health Care Challenge

President Obama had a splendid idea this week. He challenged governors who oppose his health care reforms, most of whom are Republicans, to come up with a better alternative. He has agreed to move up the date at which states can offer their own solutions and thus opt out of requirements that they oppose, like the mandate that everyone buy health insurance and that most employers provide it.

Let as many states as possible test innovative approaches to determine which works best.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/opinion/02wed1.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

March 1, 2011

Dr. Machine Will See You Now ...

To the Editor:

Re “Treat the Patient, Not the CT Scan” (Op-Ed, Feb. 27):

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/opinion/l02medical.html?tntemail1=y&emc=tnt&pagewanted=print

Blue Cross CEO got $8.6m in exit deal

In frugal times, critics see excess

http://www.boston.com/business/healthcare/articles/2011/03/02/blue_cross_ceo_got_86m_in_exit_deal/#

Patrick defends Mass. health care

Overhaul works, governor says at Capitol hearing

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2011/03/02/patrick_defends_bay_state_health_care_law_before_congress/

Ariz. Medicaid Cuts Spur Debate Over Impact On Providers

TOPICS: MEDICAID, STATES, UNINSURED, HOSPITALS

By PHIL GALEWITZ

KHN Staff Writer

MAR 01, 2011

Arizona's plan to cut about a quarter million adults from Medicaid would lead to uninsured patients crowding emergency rooms, hospitals slashing services and laying off thousands of workers and health plans increasing premiums to make up for lost revenue, health providers say.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2011/March/02/impact-of-ariz-medicaid-cuts.aspx