MMWR: Mass. reform narrowed insurance gap
Filed under: Health care reform, Health data, Studies
Studying data from the Massachusetts Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System has led researchers to conclude that health care legislation in that state has narrowed the gap in insurance coverage for underserved populations. The data did show that “some groups continue to experience lower rates of annual checkup and less access to a personal care provider.”
The percentage of respondents who reported having health insurance rose 5.5%, from 91.3% in the pre-law period to 96.3% in the post-law period.
The report, “Short-Term Effects of Health-Care Coverage Legislation — Massachusetts, 2008″ is in the March 12 issue of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Lieberman: Joe’s looking out for folks at home
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has been a vocal burr in the saddle of the Democrat majority’s push for health care reform. Writing for CJR.org, Trudy Lieberman seeks to explain why Joe Lieberman has so vigorously opposed measures like the “public option” and the long-term care CLASS Act. Trudy Lieberman says the senator’s position would seem to have something to do with his constituent base.
Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman at the 2008 Republican National Convention. Photo by NewsHour via Flickr.
Joe Lieberman comes from Connecticut, and Hartford is America’s insurance capital. It’s home base to Aetna, one of the country’s largest health insurers and a huge lobbying force this year, not to mention some lesser carriers that dabble in the health insurance business.
Trudy then goes down Lieberman’s reform stances issue-by-issue, pointing out exactly how vested interests in his constituency could have influenced each one.
There certainly seems to be some data to back Trudy Lieberman’s insights. OpenSecrets.org shows that the “Finance, Insurance & Real Estate” sector has been the largest donor to the senator.
Covering Health: First year’s most popular posts
With a year of posts behind us, we thought it would be a good time to look back and see what posts proved to be the most popular – or at least the most read:
- Lewin group linked to private insurers
- Autism news raises question: When is an embargo not an embargo?
- Hensley joins NPR’s expanding health team
- Report: $25,000 buys access to Post’s health reporters
- CDC monitors H1N1 swine flu-human reassortment
- Oransky to take helm at Reuters Health
- Top N.Y. neurosurgeons suspended, sued
- Pharma industry still finding its way in social media
- Hospital says it gives content to short-staffed media
- Kuklo scandal spotlights DoD/Medtronic ties
- ‘Playing through’ concussions is damaging
- Where to find the facts on health care reform
- CBS questions CDC’s H1N1 prevalence estimates
- VA officials seize reporter’s audio recording
- Oprah’s health advice needs a shot in the arm
- Autism and vaccines: A failure to communicate
- Will pharmacists play a role in H1N1 vaccinations?
- Covering Obama’s stance on stem cell research
- Appleby to report for Kaiser Health News
- Prevention vs. treatment in global health
- FDA staff calls for end to corruption, wrongdoing
- Mentally ill patients, elderly mix in nursing homes
- Three health-care issues Obama, Congress will face
- Jost discusses consumer-driven health plans
- Tim Tebow’s head fuels concussion debate
Fox’s Stossel to appear at Ark. health-care forums
Filed under: Conflicts of interest, Health care reform, Health journalism
While plenty of people are paying attention to the Obama administration’s assertions that Fox News is “ideologically predisposed against Obama and his agenda,” fewer have noticed that the host of a new show on Fox Business will appear at town hall meetings in Arkansas sponsored by Americans for Prosperity to “discuss the dangers of government-forced health care.”
John Stossel, until recently co-host of ABC’s 20/20, will appear at three events on Thursday with the organization’s president, Tim Phillips; AFP Texas director Peggy Venable and a small business owner “to debate solutions and discuss the dangers of government-forced health care,” according to a press release from AFP that bills Stossel as a “veteran journalist.”
John Stossel
Americans for Prosperity’s “Patients First” project advocates against “a costly, government-defined plan paid for by American taxpayers.”
According to Fox, Stossel’s new show “will feature in-depth reports on domestic and international libertarian issues and will debut during the fourth quarter of this year in FBN’s primetime lineup. Stossel and a panel of experts will explore a wide range of topics including civil liberties, the business of health care and Social Security.” Stossel also will make regular appearances on Fox News as well.
This is not the first time Stossel has made appearances at the group’s forums.
Anecdotes unleashed as reform battle heats up
Filed under: Health care reform, Hot Health Headline
Carla K. Johnson of the Associated Press takes a look at the avalanche of anecdotes used as ammunition by both sides in the health care reform debate. Organizations have been stockpiling anecdotes, sometimes for decades, and their pervasiveness in the health care showdown raises the specter of “policy by anecdote” in which a few outlying examples obscure broader, more complicated concepts like “which policy will do the most good for the most people?”
Fittingly, Johnson begins her own story with an anecdote, of a carpenter injured when his pickup truck rolled over who allowed his story to be used by an advocacy group (see the Youtube video here).
Reinhardt calls for price research/transparency
Filed under: Health care reform, Health policy, Hospitals, Hot Health Headline
Princeton health economist Uwe Reinhardt – the keynote speaker at Health Journalism 2009 – 
spoke to U.S. News & World Report’s Dr. Bernadine Healy about health reform. Their discussion revolved around the lack of transparency in medical pricing and the role it plays in high health care costs and also touched on insurance reform and the research needed to better understand what has caused regional health care cost disparities.
According to Reinhardt, American health care is expensive because our prices are high. It’s a surprisingly obvious statement. When compared to citizens from other countries, Americans pay higher prices for the same health products and services. To reduce this disparity, Reinhardt calls for full transparency in medical pricing and a standardized insurance coverage package.
My wife, May, called up the Princeton hospital and asked what a normal delivery would cost. She got nowhere. I called about a colonoscopy and got the same runaround. So I asked a guy at New Jersey Blue Cross. He just roared. “Are you serious? We pay 50 prices. We pay every hospital a different price. We pay the same hospital five different prices.”
I asked, “Are they public? Can I look them up?” The answer was, “No. That’s proprietary.” Imagine if a bunch of people were blindfolded, shoved into Macy’s, and told to shop prudently.
For years, I’ve argued hospitals should post their fees relative to Medicare. I’ve put it to the White House, the Senate. People look at me: “Are you serious? Transparency?”
Find a copy of Reinhardt’s Health Journalism 2009 presentation here (pdf).
NPR series follows the money on health reform
Filed under: Health care reform, Hot Health Headline
A new NPR series, Dollar Politics, looks to, both figuratively and literally, turn the camera away from the politicians up on stage and train it on the army of lobbyists and special interest representatives that has descended upon the city.
Between 1998 and 2008, the number of registered lobbyists on health care more than doubled, to 3,627, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The statistic doesn’t include players who don’t engage in lobbying as defined by federal law — among them, grass-roots organizers, producers of TV campaigns and former members of Congress who remain in Washington as senior advisers to corporate clients.
Spending on lobbying jumped even higher over the past decade. Organizations lobbying on health care spent $484.4 million in 2008, more than two and a half times the spending in 1998.
In addition to looking at where the money is coming from and why its being spent, NPR reporters Peter Overby and Andrea Seabrook also considered the effects of this massive cash infusion, writing that with so many interests pushing and pulling on every decision, gridlock may set in. As the series goes on, they hope to track even more of the money and connect the lobbying dots.
Washington Post launches health reform blog
The Washington Post has announced the Daily Dose, a blog they call a “one-stop source on the biggest policy debate brewing today.”
In the inaugural post, the bloggers promise “the latest news and analysis, facts and figures, and even a bit of gossip on how the inside-the-Beltway crowd is attempting to reshape an industry that accounts for one-sixth of the U.S. economy.” The same post promises that the paper’s reporters and columnists will also use the blog’s pages to weigh in on health reform issues.
Posts so far include profiles of power players like Kathleen Sebelius and Peter Orszag as well as reports and analysis of reform-related news.
CJR: Educate ordinary folks about reform debate
In the Columbia Journalism Review, Trudy Lieberman, president of AHCJ’s board of directors, urged journalists to help educate the public about the health care reform debate, particularly concerning the differences between public and private plans. She finds fault with coverage that only focuses on the Capitol Hill debate over options and says many individuals currently lack the basic knowledge necessary to understand the partisan fracas in context.
So far, mostly experts, stakeholders, and members of Congress have engaged in the debate, and the media has been noting their pronouncements, passing them along to their audiences. Clearly there’s a big disconnect. Reconnection is needed soon, before the ads and commercials begin peddling their persuasive and subtle messages. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the public can easily be swayed on the details of reform, and special interests have plenty of leeway to shape the direction of the debate.
Lieberman passed on tips that Reed Abelson of The New York Times and Noam Levey of the Los Angeles Times shared during AHCJ’s recent Talking Health webcast about how to better cover the issue.
- Explain what is meant by a public plan — who can join; what do they get; what it costs; who’s left out; who sponsors it; what regulations apply.
- What’s the practical implication of a plan — can enough people use it to provide a real choice, as advocates claim? …
- Show how it will affect different groups of people.
- Move beyond the ideology. There’s a lot more to talk about than insurers demagoguing “socialized medicine” and advocates hoping for single-payer through the back door.
Dems split on public plan, eye SF model
Filed under: Health care reform, Hot Health Headline
The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein writes that splits are emerging in the Democratic party over health reform as President Barack Obama tries to stay out of the fray and allow legislators to put together the final reform proposal.
Gavin Newsom
Party centrists, including newly minted Democrat Arlen Specter, oppose a publicly funded plan, while progressives like Howard Dean say reform would be worthless without one.
Stein reports that, mired in a complex and contentious reform discussion, some Democrats are looking to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom for inspiration.
One thing that Democratic sources say the White House and Congress are looking closely at is the model Gavin Newsom has constructed in San Francisco, in which a universal program (at a relatively low cost) has been applied through the use of public clinics. Newsom met with administration officials as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this past week and came away convinced that something would have to be done “not in 16 months but in six months.” Helping to corral other mayors to support the president’s health care priorities, Newsom was appointed chair of the US Conference of Mayors’ Task Force on Health Care Reform.
On his weekly radio show on Saturday, Newsom will discuss the challenges Congress and the administration face in reforming the health care system with Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa. Harkin also says Congress is looking at San Francisco’s universal health care program as a national public model. Harkin leads the Prevention and Public Health Working Group, which will craft the wellness and prevention portions of health reform legislation.
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Health Journalism 2010, AHCJ's annual conference, features a world-class program with story ideas, sources, stronger reporting skills, chances to meet newsmakers and network with other journalists.
- Health and education: Covering these intersecting beats
- Reporting on the business of health care
- Health reporting resources for journalists on state and local government beats
- Shortened Lives: How location, lifestyle affect health
- Covering a complex story for the long haul
- Aging in the 21st Century: Presentations and tip sheets
- AHCJ calls for better information from Joint Commission Web site
