Two top Democrats with close ties to the White House have outlined a framework for financing a $1.2 trillion healthcare overhaul. The proposal, which laid out options on taxes and other tough issues without making final decisions, was made by former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle and former White House chief of staff John Podesta. The proposal would raise $400 billion each over 10 years from three sources: Medicare and Medicaid savings, from new tax revenues and from modernization.
Louisiana Health Secretary Alan Levine, speaking after the Louisiana State University System Board of Supervisors rejected a teaching hospital deal he helped negotiate, floated the idea of a medical center that is not legally affiliated with the school at all. Though not an official proposal, it could be considered by Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration if LSU and Tulane University cannot agree on how to run the proposed $1.2 billion teaching hospital slated for construction in New Orleans, Levine said.
Four divisive issues could dash President Barack Obama's hopes of overhauling healthcare: cost, creating a government-run plan, taxing workers' benefits, and penalizing employers that don't offer coverage.
These are potential deal-breakers as Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress work to revamp the system to cover the nearly 50 million uninsured Americans and try to control rising medical costs.
The radiation oncologist whom regulators accuse of mishandling scores of radioactive seed implants at the Philadelphia veterans' hospital told a Congressional panel that while he "could have done better" with some implants, his patients over all received effective treatment for their prostate cancer. Speaking publicly for the first time, Gary Kao, PhD, said at the hearing at the Veterans Affairs hospital that he was not a "rogue physician" and that his academic credentials and an absence of malpractice lawsuits underscored that point.
New Jersey will be receiving nearly $17 million in federal stimulus money to upgrade and expand community health centers across the state.
The grants will go toward pressing health center facility and equipment needs, and toward generally increasing access to healthcare. First Lady Michelle Obama made the announcement.
A bill to open Pennsylvania's government-subsidized health-insurance program to 85,000 more lower-income adults has won House approval. But while passage had been a priority of House Democrats who symbolically numbered it House Bill 1, only a single Republican representative crossed party lines in the 104-96 vote. It was sent to the Republican-majority state Senate, where a GOP spokesman said there were no plans to take it up.
Karen Ignagni is the chief executive of America's Health Insurance Plans, the main health insurance lobby, at a time when a the president is planning a sweeping healthcare overhaul. Insurance executives believe this is a critical moment: If Congress creates the strong government insurance option that liberals want, insurers say they would be unable to compete and would eventually go out of business.
On the other hand, if lawmakers pass a healthcare bill that has no public insurance alternative but that does require everyone to obtain insurance, the industry could pick up millions of new subscribers.
The widespread use of expensive cancer drugs to prolong patients’ lives by just weeks or months was called into question by an article published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. But while some policy experts consider the rationing of healthcare resources inevitable in the quest to control medical spending, many Americans have long resisted putting the collective fiscal good over their individual health.
The issuance today of recommendations from the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research to Congress and the Obama administration will likely receive close attention from all sides of the healthcare reform debate--particularly over defining the phrase "comparative effectiveness."
The 15-member council was selected in March to propose--with public input--how $1.1 billion could be spent under the economic stimulus legislation to assist federal agencies in coordinating and comparing the effectiveness of health services research. The goal was to save roughly $700 billion (as noted by the Congressional Budget Office last year) by determining what goes into healthcare spending that does not necessarily improve individual healthcare or provide quality healthcare.
However, the term "comparative effectiveness" has become a hot button item in the healthcare reform debate with various legislators and interest groups equating the term with an attempt by the federal government to ration care.
Today's report emphasized how it sought multiple perspectives--including through three public hearings--in how CER should be defined, what criteria were needed for determining which research projects should be a priority, and how a strategic framework should be established to identify gaps and future priorities.
The panel said that: "Comparative effectiveness research is the conduct and synthesis of research comparing the benefits and harms of different interventions and strategies to prevent, diagnose, treat and monitor health conditions in 'real world' settings. The purpose of this research is to improve health outcomes by developing and disseminating evidence based information to patients, clinicians, and other decision makers, responding to their expressed needs, about which interventions are most effective for which patients under specific circumstances."
The council also recommended that:
Research should focus on the needs of priority populations, such as racial and ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, persons with multiple chronic conditions, the elderly, and children
Research should be in specific high impact health arenas, such as medical and assistive devices, surgical procedures, behavioral interventions, and prevention
Investments should be made in data infrastructure to link current data sources to help answer CER questions
