As Congress examines ways to overhaul the nation's healthcare system, the United Agricultural Benefit Trust has found itself in the national spotlight as a model for a proposed co-op option consumers could consider along with private insurers. The Trust works like a commercial insurer, negotiating rates with a network of doctors and hospitals, but it is owned by its members. Many of them say co-ops offer better service and are cheaper because they don't have to turn a profit. But critics say co-ops, which are not as tightly regulated as other insurance providers, are susceptible to insolvency and would not work on a large scale.
One of President Obama's primary goals is extending healthcare coverage to the millions of Americans who lack it. But the answer to just how many million are uninsured could make a huge difference in the billions of dollars it will cost to remake the national system. Obama frequently cites last year's Census Bureau number of 46 million people with no health insurance, but some experts argue that figure is off by tens of millions.
Candidate Barack Obama's campaign proposal to cover America's 45 million adults without health insurance seemed straightforward, says Sg2 Political Analyst James Bradford: offer subsidies for the poor to buy insurance or create a government-administered option available to the uninsured. But for President Obama and Congress, the devil has been in the details, Bradford says, and a new plan to allow formation of healthcare cooperatives may help shore up the foundering health reform bill.
A federal judge in Miami is considering whether a lawsuit claiming Florida's Medicaid program is failing children should be made into a class action affecting tens of thousands of people. Judge Adalberto Jordan must decide whether the 2005 lawsuit should cover every Floridian under age 21 who is eligible for Medicaid.
Pressed by industry lobbyists, White House officials have assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion. Drug industry lobbyists reacted with alarm to a House healthcare overhaul measure that would allow the government to negotiate drug prices and demand additional rebates from drug manufacturers. In response, the industry successfully demanded that the White House explicitly acknowledge for the first time that it had committed to protect drug makers from bearing further costs in the overhaul.
As the health reform debate heats up, America's Health Insurance Plans Chief Executive Karen M. Ignagni is facing her toughest test. After winning concessions and consensus from many insurance companies with competing interests, she now has to keep them together as the assault on the industry picks up. Rather than being cut out of the conversation, her strategy has been to push for changes her members can live with, in hopes of fending off too much government interference.