RWJF News Digest - Coverage

Bipartisan Health Bill Looks Increasingly Unlikely

webmail@rwjf.org — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

"Congressional Republicans are finding much to dislike in Democratic health care proposals, illustrating the immense difficulty Democrats face in fashioning an overhaul that can attract enough Republican support to be portrayed as bipartisan," reports the New York Times.

Senators Announce Plan to Cut Health Plan Cost Below $1 Trillion

webmail@rwjf.org — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) announced that he and his colleagues had found a way to keep their health care proposal below $1 trillion over a 10-year period, moving Congress "a bit closer to a deal on legislation to lower costs and provide coverage to nearly 50 million Americans who lack it," reports the Associated Press.

Opinion: Obama Should Stick With a Public Plan

webmail@rwjf.org — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

At his recent press conference, President Barack Obama offered "a crystal-clear explanation of the case for health care reform, and especially of the case for a public option competing with private insurers," but at the same time implied that he was willing to consider a bill without a public option, leaving New York Times columnist Paul Krugman to wonder whether Obama’s quest for common ground would lead to a health policy that is too weak.

Senate Committee Questions Credibility of Private Insurers

webmail@rwjf.org — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

The Senate Commerce Committee, led by Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), issued a report saying that "health insurers have forced consumers to pay billions of dollars in medical bills that the insurers themselves should have paid"—"part of a multi-pronged assault on the credibility of private insurers" at a time when some Democrats are pushing for a public health care option, reports the Washington Post.

Governors Worry That Medicaid Expansion Will Cost States Too Much

webmail@rwjf.org — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

In a meeting with President Barack Obama, a bipartisan group of governors said they agreed with the need to reform the health care system but expressed concern about a proposal to expand Medicaid to help cover the uninsured because of the increased financial burden on states, reports the Washington Post.

Opinion: Public Health Plan Is Not Needed

webmail@rwjf.org — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Rather than creating a public health plan similar to Medicare, which "has a dismal record of controlling costs and improving quality," Congress should instead create an insurance exchange "through which individuals could comparison shop for health insurance," write David Riemer, director of Community Advocates Public Policy Institute, and Alain Enthoven, professor emeritus of management in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford, in a New York Times guest commentary.

Opinion: New Health Care System Must Include a Public Option

webmail@rwjf.org — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Health reform must include a public option, because without one "the other parties that comprise America's non-system of health care—private insurers, doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and medical suppliers—have little or no incentive to supply high-quality care at a lower cost than they do now," writes Robert B. Reich, the former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, in a Wall Street Journal guest commentary.

White House Accelerates Grassroots Effort to Achieve Health Care Reform

webmail@rwjf.org — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

In an effort to ensure "that we don't get sucked in by the Washington discussion," according to one White House adviser, President Barack Obama is ramping up a grassroots effort to achieve health care reform, including the creation of an online database of personal stories to "humanize the health-care debate," reports the Washington Post.

Senators Want to Avoid Eroding Employer-Sponsored Health Coverage

webmail@rwjf.org — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Senators working on overhauling the health care system and providing coverage to all Americans are struggling with the problem of "inadvertently speed[ing] the erosion of employer-provided coverage, which they want to preserve," reports the New York Times.

Drugmakers Agree to Lower Costs for Medicare Patients

webmail@rwjf.org — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Drugmakers and lawmakers have worked out a deal that will cut prescription drug costs for Medicare recipients, which "could boost drug industry profits and help Congress pay to overhaul the nation's health care system," reports USA Today.

Obama Makes Case for a Public Option

webmail@rwjf.org — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

At a White House news conference, President Barack Obama made his case for the creation of a new government-administered health insurance plan, "but he did not rule out signing a bill that lacks such an option if he cannot win enough support from Democrats in Congress," reports the New York Times.

Opinion: Failure to Achieve Health Reform Could Rest With Democratic Centrists

webmail@rwjf.org — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

"With costs soaring and insurance dwindling, nobody can now say with a straight face that the U.S. health care system is O.K.," writes New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. "The question now is whether we will nonetheless fail to get that change, because a handful of Democratic senators are still determined to party like it's 1993."

Opinion: Obama Intends for the Public Option to Become a Single-Payer System

webmail@rwjf.org — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

President Barack Obama has said that if he were "starting from scratch," he would prefer to create a single-payer, government-run health care system, so the fact that he is insisting on including a public insurance plan in his reform proposal shows that "such a plan will lead to a single-payer system," writes Washington Post columnist George Will.

House Health Care Bill Offers Sweeping Changes but No Details on Cost or Funding

webmail@rwjf.org — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

House Democrats presented a health care reform bill last Friday that would provide coverage to 95 percent of Americans, but did not include any details about how much the changes would cost and how they would be paid for, reports the New York Times.

Opinion: Kennedy Health Bill Would Offer Americans Substandard Care

webmail@rwjf.org — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

The health care reform bill offered by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, "will push Americans into stingy insurance plans with tight, HMO-style controls" and exempts members of Congress and federal employees, writes Betsy McCaughey, chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and a former lieutenant governor of New York state, in a Wall Street Journal guest commentary.

Unexpectedly High Cost Estimates for Senate Health Bills Lead to Delay and Discord

webmail@rwjf.org — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

"A set of unexpectedly high cost estimates" for the health care reform legislation being crafted in two separate Senate committees "sent shockwaves along Pennsylvania Avenue," causing one of the committees to delay action and leading members of Congress to engage in both partisan and intraparty bickering, reports the Washington Post.

Polls Show Americans Support Health Care Reform

webmail@rwjf.org — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Polls conducted by the New York Times/CBS News and the Wall Street Journal/NBC News show varying degrees of support among the American people for major changes to the health care system, including the creation of a government-run health insurance plan.

Opinion: Insured and Uninsured Alike Are Suffering Under a Failing Health System

webmail@rwjf.org — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Not only do the 47 million Americans without health insurance need help, so do the millions who have inadequate coverage through their employers and are now facing the threat of bankruptcy, according to a Houston Chronicle editorial.

Employers Are Expected to See a 9 Percent Increase in Health Care Costs

webmail@rwjf.org — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, employers could experience a 9 percent increase in health care costs next year and are likely to pass some of that burden on to their employees, who could see double-digit increases, reports the Associated Press.

Partisan Tensions Flare on Senate Health Committee

webmail@rwjf.org — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee began the process of publicly drafting health care legislation, but within 15 minutes "Republicans began to protest," suggesting that it may not be feasible to achieve "President Obama's goal of signing a bill within four months," reports the New York Times.

Former Senators From Both Parties Unite to Create a Health Care Compromise Proposal

webmail@rwjf.org — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

"Trying to prevent a repeat of the 1990s standoff over health care," former Democratic Senators Tom Daschle and George Mitchell have collaborated with former Republican Senators Bob Dole and Howard Baker to create a health care reform proposal that "combines ideas from both political parties to guarantee coverage for all," reports the Associated Press.

Budget Chief Discusses Difficulties of Curbing Health Spending

webmail@rwjf.org — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

"Overhauling the nation's health care system won't easily lead to the long-term budget savings that President Obama hopes to achieve," according to CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf, primarily because the cost of providing coverage to the uninsured will continue to rise while "savings from efforts to curb health care spending may be elusive," reports USA Today.

Medicare Report Highlights the Challenges of Cutting Health Care Costs

webmail@rwjf.org — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

"As Congress and the Obama administration seek to restrain potentially crushing increases in health-care spending," a report from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), which advises Congress about issues related to Medicare, illustrated how the debate over rising health care costs is "long on problems and short on solutions," reports the Washington Post.

Opinion: Obama's Plan Will Not Decrease Health Spending