Mary R. Grealy is president of the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC).
The mission of Prognosis is to explore the nexus at which healthcare policy meets healthcare practice and how one affects the other. This blog makes readers more aware of the innovations taking place in healthcare delivery, financing and technology and the types of public policies that will encourage further progress.
Healthcare In Focus is a public education initiative of the HLC, created to promote a constructive dialogue about the state and future of American healthcare.
This morning I had the pleasure of speaking to C.E. Huffman at KTVO TV in Ottumwa, Iowa about the Medicare Part D open enrollment period. It was a good opportunity to inform seniors about Medicare’s prescription drug benefit and to let them know how to find additional information. You can access our full conversation here.
Almost four years after the Medicare Part D prescription drug program went into effect, an overwhelming majority (88 percent) of America’s seniors approve of their individual plan and coverage. In a national survey released this morning by HLC’s nonpartisan Medicare Today coalition, 95 percent of seniors who used their plan and received prescriptions over the past year also reported that their plan has worked well, while 85 percent continue to find their monthly premium to be affordable.
The survey, conducted from October 16-25 by market research firm KRC Research, offers the latest evidence that seniors continue to see the prescription drug program as a success. The annual open enrollment period, in which Americans eligible for Medicare can add, drop or change their prescription drug coverage for 2010, begins on Sunday, November 15th, 2009. Read more
There is a great deal to analyze in the more than 1,900 pages that make up the proposed health reform legislation unveiled by House leaders this week, and we’ll be discussing different components of the bill in this space in the days ahead. There’s at least one provision in the bill, though, that has already been discussed at great length and doesn’t warrant revisiting.
The House legislation would change the Medicare Part D prescription drug program to have the Department of Health and Human Services, rather than private companies, negotiate prices for pharmaceuticals used in the program. This is an issue that was furiously debated during and in the immediate aftermath of congressional passage of the Medicare Modernization Act, which created the Part D program. Let’s review why government “negotiation” of drug prices is a bad idea. Read more
They’ve been called “immoral,” “skyrocketing” and “obscene,” but the fact is that health insurer profits don’t match the rhetoric coming from proponents of a government health plan option.
Unfortunately, health reform debate is degenerating into us-versus-them rhetorical warfare. Those who want a larger role for the federal government in the health insurance markets are trying to rile populist anger by talking about the insurance companies making outrageous profits at the expense of American consumers.
The numbers, though, don’t back up the accusations. According to a report this week in the Associated Press, health insurance profit margins last year were 2.2 percent, which placed the industry 35th in profitability among 53 industries on the Fortune 500 list. Read more
One of the more interesting discussions within the larger health reform debate concerns the financial impact of wellness and disease prevention initiatives. Logic says that doing a better job of preventing disease and keeping people healthier will save money in the long run through fewer lengthy hospitalizations and emergency room visits.
The Congressional Budget Office says otherwise, asserting that any savings would be negated by the costs of extending prevention initiatives to the full U.S. population.
A new study, though, says the problem lies in the expanse of time over which government budget counter measure the financial effect of federal programs.
A study by University of Chicago researchers, sponsored by Novo Nordisk and published in the Health Affairs journal this week, says that cost estimates for healthcare legislation should be examined over a period of 25 years in order to better ascertain how having healthier, longer-living patients would affect costs. Read more
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