Health 'Reform' Gets a Failing Grade

I found this article by Jeffrey S. Flier the dean of Harvard Medical School. What I find interesting, is he compares the current healthcare bill to the Massachusetts' plan that "suffers from problems of cost, access and quality, and needs major reform", after just a couple of years of being in effect. And he also states "Worse, currently proposed federal legislation would undermine any potential for real innovation in insurance and the provision of care. It would do so by overregulating the health-care system in the service of special interests", is that what they say it will fix?

I just do not get why this congress is such a rush. Less than a week after they release the new and improved 1,990 page bill, they call for a vote and pass it. did the member really read and understand what they are voting for? Is it because the want to enact the quickly to Americans? No, because it will not go into effect untill 2014. So why the rush?

Please read:
Health 'Reform' Gets a Failing Grade
The changes proposed by Congress will require more draconian measures down the road. Just look at Massachusetts.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704431804574539581994054014.html

Should the Healthcare Debate be One Sided?

I am confused, the President goes around saying how he wants the eliminate Medicare Advantage programs, which I have been told by some seniors that they love (I do not sell these products or supps), but when the insurance companies try to inform thei...r clients, they are required stop, what is going on? Can we not have open debate? Are we looking for solutions or elimination of private insurance companies?

Please read the below article.

GOP raps Dems for hushing insurers on Medicare
CHARLES BABINGTON - 9/22/2009 8:54:48 PM

Republican lawmakers rebuked the Obama administration Tuesday for telling health insurance companies to stop warning elderly customers about proposed health care legislation, which some equated to a gag order.

At least one prominent insurer has misrepresented the pending bills to frighten older Americans, the administration says. But GOP leaders said the companies, whose income could be reduced by the legislation, are entitled to free speech and political debate.

Tuesday's exchanges came as a Senate committee began debating a health care bill most Republicans oppose. President Barack Obama supports the bill's main provisions, and the flap over insurance companies' mailers is the latest front in a long-running dispute.
"It is outrageous that the Obama administration is trying to keep seniors in the dark about the consequences of congressional Democrats' costly government-run health care bills," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said.

The Senate's GOP leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said citizens and companies "have a fundamental right to talk about legislation they favor or oppose."

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid on Monday sent a notice to all companies that sell private Medicare coverage and stand-alone drug plans to seniors. Saying at least one insurer was misleading those customers about the proposed legislation, it told the companies "to immediately discontinue all such mailings to beneficiaries and to remove any related materials directed to Medicare enrollees from your Web sites."

The warning came after Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., launched an investigation of Humana Inc. Humana is one of the largest private insurers participating in a program called Medicare Advantage.

Federal subsidies to private Medicare plans average about 14 percent higher than those involved in traditional fee-for-service Medicare coverage. The health care bills pending in Congress would reduce or eliminate the difference.

A Humana mailer, now discontinued, told customers, "if the proposed funding cut levels become law, millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable." It encouraged customers to contact their members of Congress.

McConnell criticized Baucus, without saying his name, for targeting Humana, which is headquartered in Louisville, Ky. Humana executives have contributed heavily to McConnell's Senate campaigns and a university center named for him.

Baucus said Monday, "it is wholly unacceptable for insurance companies to mislead seniors regarding any subject _ particularly on a subject as important to them, and to the nation, as health care reform."

His office said Tuesday he stands by those remarks.

Workers Keeping Voluntary Benefits: Study

If you are not offering voluntary benefits to your employees, you should reconsider. First this article prove that the employee places value in these benefits. Second, theses benefits are employee paid, therefore not cost to the employer. And third, there could benefit a tax benefit for the company if the employee elects the benefit (s). Contract Ray Ward at 916-677-2130 x101 to see if these benefits would make sense for your company.

By STAFF WRITER National Underwriter Published 9/3/2009

Despite a drop in discretionary income, only 11% of workers plan to decrease their 2010 voluntary benefits coverage, a new MetLife Inc. poll finds.

And nearly one-quarter of those planning to decrease coverage this year expect to increase their benefits during next year’s open enrollment period if the economy improves, reports MetLife, New York.

According to MetLife’s new 2009 Open Enrollment Poll, 89% of employees are planning to maintain or increase the number of benefits they select or their coverage for next year, despite the fact that 37% report that their household’s discretionary income decreased this year.

Despite the depressed economy, 89% of employees are confident in their ability to evaluate their options and pick the right employee benefits for themselves and their families. As a result, 76% plan to spend about the same amount of time this year as last when it comes to choosing their benefits.

MetLife found 13% plan to spend more time on benefit selection during this year’s open-enrollment period. Of those, 57% will spend an extra 60 minutes or more. As for their reasons for spending more time, 64% cite current economic events or financial security, and 31% say a major life event was the impetus. Additionally, 15% felt they made some wrong decisions on the employee benefits they selected during last year’s open enrollment period. Yes just 3% of all workers surveyed say that they are not confident in their ability to weigh their options and choose the right benefits.

MetLife found that employer communications make an important difference in employee involvement in their benefits decisions. Of employees who said they’ll spend more time making benefits decisions this year, 29% say their employers were communicating more about the importance of employee benefits.

“Employer communications regarding benefits need to be targeted in a way that encourages dialogue and address all family members, since half of employees share the benefits decision-making with their spouse or domestic partner,” said Dr. Ronald Leopold, vice president for MetLife’s U.S. Business.

Noting the rapid approach of the open enrollment season, MetLife recommends several steps for employers to take to ensure that employees get the information they need to make informed decisions:

--Distribute personalized, clear total compensation statements, which explain to employees the value of their complete compensation and benefits. Only 43% of employers provide a total compensation statement, another MetLife study found.

--Provide decision-support tools to employees, such as Web-based calculators, which can advise employees on which benefits to select and proper coverage levels.

--Personalize materials—for instance, by providing access to information based on employee life-stage and life events (e.g., getting married, having a child or buying a home).

--Use several communication channels, such as on-site educational programs, telephone consultation services and on-line tools.

--Provide off-cycle enrollment: MetLife found 38% of employees would be interested in learning about and modifying their benefits choices more frequently than once a year, in particular those that are planning on spending more time on their benefits decisions.

The telephone poll was conducted in late July among 1,000 full-time employees, 18 years or older, at companies with 10-plus employees.

Despite a drop in discretionary income, only 11% of workers plan to decrease their 2010 voluntary benefits coverage, a new MetLife Inc. poll finds.

And nearly one-quarter of those planning to decrease coverage this year expect to increase their benefits during next year’s open enrollment period if the economy improves, reports MetLife, New York.

According to MetLife’s new 2009 Open Enrollment Poll, 89% of employees are planning to maintain or increase the number of benefits they select or their coverage for next year, despite the fact that 37% report that their household’s discretionary income decreased this year.

Despite the depressed economy, 89% of employees are confident in their ability to evaluate their options and pick the right employee benefits for themselves and their families. As a result, 76% plan to spend about the same amount of time this year as last when it comes to choosing their benefits.

MetLife found 13% plan to spend more time on benefit selection during this year’s open-enrollment period. Of those, 57% will spend an extra 60 minutes or more. As for their reasons for spending more time, 64% cite current economic events or financial security, and 31% say a major life event was the impetus. Additionally, 15% felt they made some wrong decisions on the employee benefits they selected during last year’s open enrollment period. Yes just 3% of all workers surveyed say that they are not confident in their ability to weigh their options and choose the right benefits.

MetLife found that employer communications make an important difference in employee involvement in their benefits decisions. Of employees who said they’ll spend more time making benefits decisions this year, 29% say their employers were communicating more about the importance of employee benefits.

“Employer communications regarding benefits need to be targeted in a way that encourages dialogue and address all family members, since half of employees share the benefits decision-making with their spouse or domestic partner,” said Dr. Ronald Leopold, vice president for MetLife’s U.S. Business.

Noting the rapid approach of the open enrollment season, MetLife recommends several steps for employers to take to ensure that employees get the information they need to make informed decisions:

--Distribute personalized, clear total compensation statements, which explain to employees the value of their complete compensation and benefits. Only 43% of employers provide a total compensation statement, another MetLife study found.

--Provide decision-support tools to employees, such as Web-based calculators, which can advise employees on which benefits to select and proper coverage levels.

--Personalize materials—for instance, by providing access to information based on employee life-stage and life events (e.g., getting married, having a child or buying a home).

--Use several communication channels, such as on-site educational programs, telephone consultation services and on-line tools.

--Provide off-cycle enrollment: MetLife found 38% of employees would be interested in learning about and modifying their benefits choices more frequently than once a year, in particular those that are planning on spending more time on their benefits decisions.

The telephone poll was conducted in late July among 1,000 full-time employees, 18 years or older, at companies with 10-plus employees.

http://www.lifeandhealthinsurancenews.com/News/2009/9/Pages/Workers-Keeping-Voluntary-Benefits-Study.aspx#

Canadians visit U.S. to get health care

What happens to the poor Canadians if we go to socailized medicine? Actually, the scary part of this article is that we consider angioplasty a common procedure in our system.

Deal lets many go to Michigan hospitals

BY PATRICIA ANSTETTFREE PRESS MEDICAL WRITER

Hospitals in border cities, including Detroit, are forging lucrative arrangements with Canadian health agencies to provide care not widely available across the border.

Agreements between Detroit hospitals and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care for heart, imaging tests, bariatric and other services provide access to some services not immediately available in the province, said ministry spokesman David Jensen.
The agreements show how a country with a national care system -- a proposal not part of the health care changes under discussion in Congress -- copes with demand for care with U.S. partnerships, rather than building new facilities.

Michael Vujovich, 61, of Windsor was taken to Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital for an angioplasty procedure after he went to a Windsor hospital in April. Vujovich said the U.S. backup doesn't show a gap in Canada's system, but shows how it works.

"I go to the hospital in Windsor and two hours later, I'm done having angioplasty in Detroit," he said. His $38,000 bill was covered by the Ontario health ministry.

Canada eyed in the health care debate

Dany Mercado, a leukemia patient from Kitchener, Ontario, is cancer-free after getting a bone marrow transplant at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit.
Told by Canadian doctors in 2007 he couldn't have the procedure there, Mercado's family and doctor appealed to Ontario health officials, who agreed to let him have the transplant in Detroit in January 2008.

The Karmanos Institute is one of several Detroit health facilities that care for Canadians needing services not widely available in Canada.

Canada, for example, has waiting times for bariatric procedures to combat obesity that can stretch to more than five years, according to a June report in the Canadian Journal of Surgery.
As a result, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in April designated 13 U.S. hospitals, including five in Michigan and one more with a tentative designation, to perform bariatric surgery for Canadians.

The agreements provide "more immediate services for patients whose health is at risk," Jensen said.

Three Windsor-area hospitals have arrangements with Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, to provide backup, after-hours angioplasty. Authorities will clear Detroit-Windsor Tunnel traffic for ambulances, if necessary. The Detroit Medical Center also provides Canadians complex trauma, cancer, neonatal and other care.

"In the last few years, we've seen more and more Canadian patients," said Dr. J. Edson Pontes, senior vice president of international medicine at the DMC. They include Canadians such as Mercado, whose care is reimbursed by Canada's health system, as well as people who pay out of pocket to avoid waiting in Canada.

Pontes declined to give revenue figures for the DMC's international business, but said the program "always has been a profitable entity." About 300 of the DMC's 400 international patients last year came from Canada, he said.

Tony Armada, chief executive officer of Henry Ford Hospital, said the hospital received $1 million for cardiac care alone.

Critics of a health care system like Canada's -- a publicly funded system that pays for medically necessary care determined by provinces -- often cite gaps in Canada's care to argue that the United States should not allow its current debate over health care to move it to a socialized system.

No plan currently under discussion in Congress calls for a universal plan like Canada's, but opponents fear socialized medicine, anyway.

Canada's U.S. backup care "speaks volumes to why we don't need government to take over health care," Scott Hagerstrom, the state director in Michigan for Americans for Prosperity, said of the Canadian arrangements with Michigan hospitals. "Their system doesn't work if they have to send us their patients."

But Dr. Uwe Reinhardt, a Princeton University health economist who has studied the U.S. and Canadian health systems, said arrangements with cities like Detroit "are a terrific way to manage capacity" given Canada's smaller health care budget.

"This is efficient," he said. "At least in Canada, you don't worry about going broke to pay for health care. You do here."

Pat Somers, vice president of operations at Windsor's Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital, one of the hospitals that sends patients to Henry Ford, said the issue of finding ways to pay for and prioritize care requests is not in only Windsor.

"The ministries are quite aware of" waits for care in Sarnia and Hamilton, she said. "That's why we are investing in a wait list strategy" to best determine how to prioritize cases for people who need hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and treatment for cancer, for example.
Mercado, 26, faced a longer wait because he could not find a matching blood donor, even though his family conducted a broad search.

He said doctors told him money was limited for transplants, particularly ones using unmatched donors, which are riskier.

After his family's doctor wrote the Ontario ministry, the agency agreed to pay $200,000 for the operation.

The family, their church and Mercado's school, Conestoga College in Kitchener, raised another $51,000 to cover expenses going back and forth to Detroit.

"I think of this every day as a gift from God," Mercado said.

Contact PATRICIA ANSTETT: 313-222-5021 or panstett@freepress.com
link: http://freep.com/article/20090820/BUSINESS06/908200420/1319/

Is it a Lie When You Use Numbers That Only Tell Part of the Story?

Check it out It's true that the United States spends more on health care than anyone else, and it's true that we rank below a lot of other advanced countries in life expectancy. . . . One big reason our life expectancy lags is that Americans have an unusual tendency to perish in homicides or accidents. We are 12 times more likely than the Japanese to be murdered and nearly twice as likely to be killed in auto wrecks. In their 2006 book, 'The Business of Health,' economists Robert L. Ohsfeldt and John E. Schneider set out to determine where the U.S. would rank in life span among developed nations if homicides and accidents are factored out. Their answer? First place. That discovery indicates our health-care system is doing a poor job of preventing shootouts and drunk driving but a good job of healing the sick. All those universal-care systems in Canada and Europe may sound like Health Heaven, but they fall short of our model when it comes to combating life-threatening diseases. Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman.

Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0816chapmanaug16,0,1666314.column

Benefits Are More Than Just Medical Insurance

Many small to medium sized employers think that if they offer only medical insurance that they are keeping their costs down and that they have a benefit package to offer their employees. Yes and no!

Yes, it is better than nothing but the business is competing for employees with larger companies that offer more choices. So, with that in mind consider the cost of turnover. Department of Labor states that the cost to replace an employee is 1/3 their annual salary, that means it would cost $6,933 to replace a $10 per hour employee. If you can keep one employee from leaving because of a better benefit package, how much will you save? How much better will your customer service be? Will you increase customer loyalty?

In addition, most larger company offer addition benefits that are paid for by the employees thru payroll deduction. Guess what, as a small business owner you can do the same thing. Offer your employees plans such as disability, life and other plans that provide the employee protection for them and their family and now you have a more complete benefit package. Also did you know that if your employees choose these plan that you might be able to pre-tax the deduction, which means the company can SAVE some money on their portion of payroll taxes.

To learn more about how you can increase your benefit package, please contact me at 916-677-2130 ext. 101.

Obama Wrong on AARP Endorsement

I understand things continue to change in the healthcare debate but, when the President or any politician lies to try to influence our citizens, they are not doing their job. You need to check into almost everything they say, how sad!

August 11, 2009

At his town hall event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, President Obama went too far in claiming the support of AARP:

Obama: We have the AARP on board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors. …

[A]nother myth that we’ve been hearing about is this notion that somehow we’re going to be cutting your Medicare benefits. We are not. AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare, okay?

But AARP, while in support of overhauling the health care system, hasn’t endorsed any bill. AARP Chief Operating Officer Tom Nelson issued a statement, saying: "While the President was correct that AARP will not endorse a health care reform bill that would reduce Medicare benefits, indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate."

Nelson said AARP had been "working with Democrats and Republicans to fix our broken health care system" and added: “We share the President’s commitment to act this year, and our members appreciate his insistence that any final reform package will not reduce Medicare benefits for the millions of people that literally depend on that program as a lifeline."

A hat tip to ABC News’ Political Punch blog for writing about this claim.

Posted by Lori Robertson on Tuesday, August 11, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Filed under The FactCheck Wire · Tagged with Barack Obama, health care

Link to this article: http://factcheck.org/2009/08/obama-wrong-on-aarp-endorsement/