1
POPSDeath By Denial Americans across the nation demonstrated in favor of guaranteed healthcare and in protest of AHIP — America’s Health Insurance Plans — the insurance industry lobbyists who profit from pain. Their annual convention was met today by thousands of protesters on site in San Francisco and simultaneously in cities across the nation.
5
POPSWall Street Shaken Over Health Insurers Profit Margins The nation's largest publicly traded health plans say they don't plan to temper premium increases for the sake of keeping members on their rolls -- particularly not while they are under pressure from Wall Street over what it sees as their disappointing earnings. Wall Street analysts were shaken over the long-term prospects of the health plan business after bellwethers WellPoint and UnitedHealth Group, the nation's two largest private-pay plans, reported less-than-expected profits from the first three months of this year. ...most say their risk-based commercial numbers -- representing traditional employer health benefits -- are declining or are not growing as quickly as anticipated. But health insurers say cutting premiums or reducing the rate of increase to keep customers would affect their bottom lines more than losing some members over premium hikes.
5
POPSHealthcare Reform You Shouldn't Believe In
The most progressive way to fund such a system would be through an earmarked income tax, which would be more than offset by eliminating premiums and out-of-pocket expenses. This is not the same as Medicare for all. Medicare is embedded in our market-based entrepreneurial private system, and therefore experiences many of the same inflationary forces, including having to deal with profit-maximizing hospitals and physicians' groups. Doctors' fees are skewed to reward highly paid specialists for doing as many expensive tests and procedures as possible. As a result, Medicare inflation is almost as high as inflation in the private sector and similarly unsustainable. ...the private insurance industry has managed to convince many political leaders, including progressives, that a single-payer system is unrealistic. But what is truly unrealistic is anything else. My greatest concern about the Massachusetts plan is that when it unravels, people will draw the wrong lesson.
2
POPSHealth Net ordered to pay $9 million after canceling cancer patient's policy What did Health Net and its Chief Executive Jay Gellert learn from this? Did they learn that they should cooperate with our effort to see that everyone would have health care without being exposed to financial hardship? No. What they learned is that they need to improve the process through which they cancel the policies of individuals who do need health care. They learned that it is in the interests of Health Net's financial well-being to avoid criminal conduct when they cancel those policies. In spite of the findings of the arbitration, what they did not learn is that they have an obligation to the well-being of those they insure.
3
POPSConservative businessmen sound out single payer Single payer healthcare could ultimately promote efficiency; improve pricing and quality-of-service transparencies; and reduce administrative costs and health-cost-related bankruptcies. Single payer health insurance could also ease the financial “burden” on big businesses by spreading the cost of healthcare across a wider pool of financial supporters who pay into the system. Also, healthier workers would mean fewer sick days and fewer sick days ultimately mean more profitable businesses.
4
POPSWake The Hell Up America! Enough Is Enough The broad ideological battle over the role of markets remains a basic dividing line and dominant theme in American health policy. The premise of what has often been called “managed care” is that in too many cases the wrong services are provided and that the right set of incentives or form of organization would lead to the right services provided to the right people at the right time. The theory of managed competition thus promised that a more market-oriented approach would increase value for money spent, by leading to better-informed or more prudent purchasing. Unfortunately, in order for any kind of “market-oriented” reform of American health care to have significantly positive effects on cost, access, and quality, it would have to include such substantial restrictions on the normal ways of doing business in U.S. markets that it would be barely recognizable as “market oriented."
Newest Clips
see Newest Clips
1
Latest Pops
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Tags
Print
Save
Turn on live update