The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, sided with his party's liberals and announced that he would include a government-run insurance plan in healthcare legislation that he plans to take to the Senate floor within a few weeks. Under the proposal, however, a state could refuse to participate in the public insurance plan by adopting a law to opt out.
In 2010, Dallas County will lead the state of Texas in the percentage of uninsured children, a rate nearly triple the national average, according to a report Children's Medical Center Dallas is releasing. More than half of the 730,000 children in Dallas County have limited access to primary and preventive healthcare, Children's said in its report, "Beyond ABC: Growing Up in Dallas County."
The nation's preeminent seniors group, AARP, says many of the healthcare proposals under consideration will lower costs and increase the quality of care for older Americans. But not advertised in the lobbying campaign have been the group's substantial earnings from insurance royalties and the potential benefits that could come its way from many of the reform proposals, according to the Washington Post. The group's dual role as an insurance reformer and a broker has come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks from congressional Republicans, who accuse it of having a conflict of interest in taking sides in the fierce debate over health insurance, the Post reports.
According to this editorial from the Washington Post, one issue that could end up bringing down the current health-reform effort is the baby steps that the Senate Finance Committee takes toward addressing the problem surrounding "the unfair and counterproductive effect of the special tax treatment given to employer-sponsored health insurance."
Many small businesses say they are facing the steepest rise in health insurance premiums they have seen in recent years, the New York Times reports. Insurance brokers and benefits consultants say their small business clients are seeing premiums go up an average of about 15% for the coming year—double the rate of last year's increases. That would mean an annual premium that was $4,500 per employee in 2008 and $4,800 this year would rise to $5,500 in 2010.
Overall healthcare prices increased 0.2% in September and were 2.8% higher than a year ago, according to data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to the BLS' Producer Price Indices, which measure average changes in selling prices received by domestic producers for their output, overall hospital prices increased 0.2% in September and were 3% higher than a year ago, while physician office prices increased 0.1% from August to September and were 2.6% higher than in September 2008.