“Blog Watch” offers readers a roundup of health conduct-kin blog posts.
The recession’s effects on salubrity care continue: Country-wide Journal’s Marilyn Weber Serafini on the Health Sorrow Expert Blog says the Medicare Trustees are expected to predict the Medicare Nursing home Trust Fund will head for the hills out of money earlier than the more up to date prognosis of 2019, in character well-earned to the economy. But she asks if the insolvency is “really a problem” and whether it’s deserving of the on-husky headlines. Responders included AARP’s John Rother, who says repair of the undamaged delivery combination could brace up the trust repository, and National Center for Policy Analysis’ John Goodman of the Civil Center for the benefit of Principles Analysis, who focuses his colloquy on cash move, not the dimensions of the coffers.
Medicare By B’s Protection Fund also force need more revenue, although premium increases can help avoid insolvency. Congressional Budget Office President Douglas Elmendorf blogs about how this on work with a deep in the weeds justification of the “hold-harmless” provision of Medicare Separate B scarce as hen’s teeth increases, the relationship to Social Security increases and the strong that some beneficiaries could face Medicare premium increases higher than others.
In the interim, Peter Orszag, arguably the nation’s zenith wonk and founder of the greater than CBO blog, was the subject of a hunger Remodelled Yorker profile by Ryan Lizza in this week’s issue. The American Prospect’s Ezra Klein (reportedly heading to the Washington Postal service, by the way) pulls commission a R from Orszag where he tries to simplify his argument for conducting comparative effectiveness research: “You bribe paid more if the treatment has been shown to be effective and a little less if not.” Klein credits Patriotic Cost-effective Council Go-between Director Jason Furman with the idea that research when one pleases change, rather than eliminate reimbursement rates, writing: “Statins, concerning instance, are truly effective and we in need of them to be widely used. So be enough that at 100 percent. No out of pinch payment at all. Lumbar surgeries, conversely, are same ineffective, and the display suggests that fewer should be used. So cover them at 30 percent. You’re not barring anyone from accessing the attend to they want.”
Opponents of such research, especially if it includes cost measures, are receiving attention for specifics they might include in response to a Democratic remodel scheme. Cato@Liberty’s Michael Cannon issues a pre-emptive warning to congressional Republicans rumored to be tough to adjudicate whether to contain an individual mandate in their own health watch over proposal: “The more people who rely on regulation aid for their health anxiety, the harder life will become for the hop of exhaust cuts.” Cannon says that “the entire free-exchange health system community — including scholars from the Patrimony Foundation — opposes such a make.” Cannon argues that a mandate is a “leap to socialized medicine” even if insurers ends b body undisclosed entities because “by [forcing] Americans to purchase guaranty, they will effectively nationalize the salubrity insurance perseverance.”
Speaking of Patrimony, The Foundry blogger Conn Carroll endorses Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) budget motion, which attempts to ensure that the Senate budget conferees don’t “decrease the number of Americans enrolled in withdrawn health insurance, while increasing the number of Americans enrolled in government-managed, rationed robustness care.”
Fascinating somewhere else:
- Jane Sarasohn-Kahn of Health Populi looks at statistics from the NPR/Kaiser/Harvard School of Public Health poll (.pdf) that found 72% of Americans said “scientific evidence is not always clear when differentiating between different treatment options for their health”;
- Andrew Van Dam of AHCJ’s Covering Health points to a new Economist special report on health care and technology, including how consumers use technology to get medical advice;
- Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic’s The Treatment broke the news that congressional Democrats had agreed to include reconciliation instructions in the final budget resolution and had decided on an Oct. 15 deadline;
- Michael Miller of the Health Policy and Communications Blog posts about an e-mail campaign using a 30%-off “coupon” to promote a public plan option in health proposals;
- Kyle Noonan of the New America Foundation’s New Health Dialogue links to a new Health and Human Services report on small businesses and increasing costs of providing health insurance;
- Uwe Reinhardt on the New York Times’ Economix says if Americans view their children as “national treasures,” then all U.S. children should have access to public health insurance until they turn 22 years old;
- Igor Volsky of the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s Wonk Room critiques a series of articles by Politico on the right-leaning health lobbying group, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights.
Reprinted with gentle permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Salubriousness Policy Crack, search the archives, or sign up for up appropriate for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Every day Fettle Game plan Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Forebears Foundation.
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