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Health Care Reform Must Focus on Patients’ Needs |
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As Congress begins to consider comprehensive health care reform, one health expert is telling Congress reform must be focused on making sure the most vulnerable patients are served.
Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, told a Senate Finance Committee’s health care reform roundtable this morning that if “we can make the system work for vulnerable patients with multiple chronic conditions, we can make it work for everyone.” Ness told the panel:
We will not achieve meaningful reform unless we improve our health care delivery system so that more people have access to better, more affordable care and get better value for their health care dollars.
Ness told the senators a health care system that puts a greater emphasis on patient’s needs will help improve the quality of health care, lower costs and make health care more accessible.
Our most vulnerable patients do not get the care they want or need, do not get better, and often feel abandoned and overwhelmed by the system. The ultimate measure of our success is whether we can create a delivery system that addresses the needs of these most vulnerable patients. If we can make the health care system work for them, we can make it work for everyone. If we fail them, we will never get health care spending under control.
Ness was one of about a dozen persons participating in the roundtable, which focused on health care delivery. The other participants were mainly representatives and CEOs of health care insurance companies such as Aetna and Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
You can let us know about your experiences with the health care system by logging on to our health care survey here. We plan to share the results with lawmakers to help shape the debate to be of most benefit to working families.
The AFL-CIO Executive Council in a statement last month called for a restructuring of the nation’s health care system to achieve better quality and better value, by
- Measuring and reporting on the quality of care, the comparative effectiveness of drugs and procedures and what medical science shows to be best practices.
- Putting technology in place to automate health care data.
- Reforming the way we pay for care so doctors have the information, tools and financial incentives to continuously improve care for their patients.
Ness agrees, saying:
We must rebuild our health care infrastructure so we are better able to deliver the high quality, coordinated care patients need. This will require a strong foundation of measurement, reporting and ongoing quality improvement [and] widespread adoption of health information technology that helps us improve quality, coordination, and safety, engages patients and caregivers, reduces costs, and allows assessment of quality and improvement.
The Senate Finance Committee roundtables come as polls show a large majority of Americans supports President Obama’s plan to finance national health care reform by eliminating tax breaks for the rich, according to a poll by Lake Research Partners.
The poll shows a clear majority of Americans (63 percent) favor a health care funding proposal to raise taxes on those who earn more than $250,000 per year by decreasing their tax deductions. An even larger majority of those polled (80 percent) oppose funding health care reform by treating employer health care benefits as income.
Obama’s budget sets aside more than $630 billion over the next 10 years as a reserve fund to help finance reforms to the nation’s health care system. To help pay for it, Obama will allow the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent to expire in 2010 and will eliminate other tax breaks for those making more than $250,000 a year.
The Senate Finance Committee will hold two more health care roundtables in May. Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has said the committee will markup comprehensive health reform legislation in June and should deliver a bill to President Obama this year.
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Yesterday the Associationof Health Insurance Advisors released a statement opposing a public plan option. They represent agents who make commissions from the sale of individual health insurance policies.
Their argument - “…administrative costs are not reduced simply by switching administrators — a government plan will not be less expensive unless services are reduced in some as yet ill-defined way,” states AHIA President Robelynn H. Abadie, LUTCF, CSA, RFC.
See - http://www.ahia.net/newsevents/releases/20090420_php.html
What they are afraid of is that the services that will be reduced will be their services.
Let them know and the politicians know that their work is less valuable than the work of autoworkers or steel workers. I’m sure we can find retraining money for them too.
http://thehealthcaremaze.wordpress.com
In oe of his debates, Obama said that illegal aliens should NOT be covered under a “universal plan”. Across the board legislation is needed to deny illegals aliens access to healthcare–not be covered under any “universal” plan. They already are overwhelming our healthcare facilities–driving up costs–driving some facilities out of business. Enough is Enough…
I volunteer at a local community rec place and often hear stories from elders about skipping dosages and choosing grocery over medications. I started referring Medtipster to my friends and some of them have saved money and time from the website
http://www.medtipster.com recently launched an early version of its drug price comparison Web site. Consumers type in their drug name, dosage and ZIP code, and can find prescription drugs available on discount generic programs and where they can find them in their neighborhoods. The site will eventually offer users information on scheduled immunizations, health screenings and mini-clinics in their area; recalls and warnings; an “Ask the Pharmacist” feature; and an online community in which individuals can share information.
AHIA and AHIP are only looking at the profit margin. Lobbyists are looking at the profits lost if a National Health Plan comes to place. They are reaping in millions on the backs of us who pay premiums. Enough is enough! Single payer: HR 676 The National Health Care Act by Rep. John Conyers & SB 703 The American Health Security Act of 2009 by Sen. Bernie Sanders are the solutions to the crisis.
Patients over Profits, You can encourage President Obama to support HR 676, single payer health care, here:
Email: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Write: The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Call: 202-456-1111
Fax: 202-456-2461
Also bug your Congress person.
HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save hundreds of billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs.
In the current Congress, HR 676 has 74 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.
HR 676 has been endorsed by 509 union organizations in 49 states including 125 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 39 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI, MT, NE, NY, NV & MA).
A majority of state AFL-CIOs have endorsed single payer, John Sweeney is ignoring us. Happy retirement!!!
We need single-payer health insurance. All the talk now is for “efficiency” in healthcare, as if “trimming” Medicare/Medicaid (and other) health expenditures are the solution–but we all know who such “efficient trims” hurt. Yes, the centrists among the president’s advisors claim that “experts” say that hospitals and regions using “less intensive” treatment (in tests, number of doctor visits, rehospitalizations) give “equally good” treatment to what more intensive-treating hospitals and physician practices give. But these claims are based on, mostly, the so-called Dartmouth Health Atlas (”Dartmouth”), a very solid comparison of aspects of treatment of a large cohort of patients around the whole country–but which does not say anything about how intensity of treatment affected patient outcome. . .and cannot speak to that, since records were selected on the basis of being precisely records for patients’ last two years of life. There is no adequate “expert” study on which “trimming” intensity of treatment could be based. But hey, it sure saves the administration a head-to-head fight with the conservatives anxious not to pay more taxes, and it sure saves monies for wars.