Health Care
US Health Care: When Is a Crisis a Crisis?
A piece we ran this morning examines the current crisis in health care and the political barriers to fixing it. As the story points out, the U.S. spent about 16 percent of its gross domestic product -- or $2.1 trillion -- on health care in 2006. That raises the question: What do comparable countries spend on the same thing?
The quick answer: Not nearly as much. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which represents 30 developed-world democracies, Switzerland is second behind the U.S., spending 11.5 percent of its GDP on health care in 2004, the last year when comprehensive data are available. (By comparison, the U.S. spent 15.2 percent of GDP in the same year). Japan and the United Kingdom spent about half of what we did in 2004: 8.0 and 8.1 percent of GDP, respectively.
Health Care Reform Waits
Former Health and Human Services secretary Tommy Thompson urged action this week, saying 2009 brings a perfect storm to sweep through change.
Mending Mental Health Coverage?
House lawmakers pushing for broad patient benefits have been met with resistance by senators of both parties, the White House, business groups and the insurance industry.
Taxpayers Fund Both Sides of Fight Over Bush's Illegal SCHIP Rules
Arriving too late to sneak into this morning's SCHIP story, one advocate's comments on the program's enrollment controversy reveal an interesting take on the saga. While the Bush administration hopes to limit program enrollment to the lowest-income kids, states are suing, both to keep higher-income youngsters on the rolls (if, like New Jersey, they already cover them) and to expand coverage to include wealthier kids (if, like New York, they don't).
Report: Bush SCHIP Rules Illegal
It's unlikely that the White House will scrap the rules voluntarily, but states might take officials to court over the new legal opinion.
Hospital-Induced Fatalities Gets Public Airing
Today the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform investigated the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S.: infections from hospital errors. Last year alone, a startling 100,000 people died from hospital-associated infections and almost 2 million suffered non-fatal health problems.
Democratic and Republican Committee members and witnesses shared their astonishment at the volume of deaths. Henry A. Waxman, (D-Calif.), committee chairman, noted that thousands of deaths can be prevented by elementary procedures like hospital personnel washing their hands and using clippers instead of a razor to remove hair before surgery. "You seem to be of one mind," Waxman said to the witnesses representing government and the medical profession. "Unlike other causes of death, this is one we know how to reduce."
Less clear is how much government can do to reduce them. Cynthia Bascatta, Director of Health Care Issues at the Government Accountability Office, said one way to alleviate the problem is to improve information-sharing between the Centers for Disease Control and other agencies under the Department of Health and Human Services. In fact, four different agencies are compiling their own data on hospital associated infections. As Arthur Allen reported for The Independent, former CDC scientists believe the agency's hospital infection program is increasingly dysfunctional.
Dingell to Investigate 'Abortion' Search Ban
In the wake of news that a federally funded reproductive health database was programmed earlier this year to ignore searches containing the word "abortion," Congress has gotten in on the act.
Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) announced today that the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which he chairs, will investigate the manipulation of the Population Information Online database, run by The Johns Hopkins University and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Reports indicate that university employees blocked "abortion" searches after USAID officials expressed concerns that two articles contained in the database centered on abortion advocacy.
If That's the Dems' Grand Plan to Save Medicare, We're Done
It's an annual event as predictable as the blooming cherry blossoms: Every spring, the group assigned to diagnosis the fiscal health of Medicare delivers a grim report on the solvency of the program. And every year, certain members of Congress react with various degrees of alarm, indignation or incredulity -- and then do nothing.
The latest report arrived Wednesday, offering similar news to that delivered last April: In short, the Medicare trust fund -- the hospital insurance reserve to which working Americans contribute with every paycheck -- will begin paying out more than it receives this year, and will be exhausted by 2019.
The report led to the predictable degree of finger-pointing over who bears responsibility for the country's long-term budget crisis. The White House said Congress hasn't done enough to enact the administration's budget-trimming proposals. Congressional Democratic leaders countered that the administration has opposed several of their own reform blueprints -- some with a veto.
But in the midst of the flurry, a statement from House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) stuck out as even more absurd than the others. Here's Hoyer:
White House Rules Clip Kids From SCHIP
States hoping to install broad SCHIP expansion plans face nearly impossible White House hurdles.
The Autism-Vaccine Connection: Reopened Can of Worms
At a news conference in Atlanta on Thursday (which I haven't seen, but read accounts of), the Atlanta parents of 9-year-old Hannah Poling revealed that in November, the vaccine court conceded their claim that vaccines caused her autism-like symptoms. At first glance, this case seems to contradict the scientific consensus that vaccines don't cause autism. Anti-vaccine groups are howling with glee about it. The decision requires some explanation, and it will take a bit of space.
Abortion Ban For American Indians Only
The new rule, sponsored by scandal-scarred Sen. David Vitter, adds a race-specific layer to a federal law that prohibits abortion coverage under federal health programs.
The Looming Medicare Crunch
The New York Times' Robert Pear has been covering health care policy for years, and today he's got a nice succinct piece about the trouble facing Medicare and Medicaid. It's not a pretty picture. As Pear points out, the cost of the two programs last year was $627 billion, constituting 23 percent of all federal spending. In a decade that dollar figure will double, representing 30 percent of the budget.
FEMA Sticks to Guns on Temporary Housing
After Hurricane Katrina, FEMA pushed thousands into toxic trailers. Now the agency is turning to bad solutions -- for its bad solution.
Why We Need Universal Healthcare
Uninsured women are three times more likely than the well-insured to have their breast cancers diagnosed when it may be too late to cure them, according to a major study published this week by the American Cancer Society. Uninsured patients with colon cancer are twice as likely to be diagnosed in the late stages, it found. Previous, smaller studies have shown similar results, but this piece of research included 3.7 million patients -- about 75 percent of all U.S. cancer patients diagnosed between 1998 and 2004.
SARS -- The Culprit is Still At Large
Five years ago, an epidemic caused by a previously unknown coronavirus, known as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), swept through China and then the world, killing 900 people and setting off a panic with billions in economic damage. Then, almost as suddenly as it sprang upon the unsuspecting world, SARS disappeared.
A few years later, I wrote in Slate that the virus would probably never return. Scientists had discovered that its main wild reservoir was a species of bats, I wrote. But the bat variety of SARS didn't effectively grow in people--it seemed to have mutated after infecting civet cats, a delicacy sold at many Chinese markets.After the epidemic, the Chinese slaughtered the civet cats and said they were closing the so-called "wet markets" at which wild game was sold live. It appeared the virus would
War on Drugs, Eh?
Since 2003, addicts in Vancouver, British Columbia have been able to shoot up with free heroin at a supervised “safer injection facility,” the first of its kind in North America. It has been a success, in the view of the 500 people who use it daily, their downtown east side neighbors (who report less crime), the city government (which sees it as part of its pre-2010 Winter Olympics beautification campaign) and even the cops. Research published in the British Medical Journal, the Lancet and elsewhere shows the facility has helped slow the spread of HIV and cut crime. Counselors available at the site have helped get many addicts off drugs. The same approach has been used for decades in Western Europe.
Steroid Hearing an Awkward Affair
House Oversight Committee called the hearing to probe whether baseball star Roger Clemens used Human Growth Hormone, in the process Clemens may have perjured himself.
Medicaid ID Law Backfires
A controversial federal law designed to keep illegal immigrants out of Medicaid is still ensnaring U.S. citizens 18 months later.
Sorry Kids, SCHIP Fails Again
To the surprise of no one, the House failed today to override Bush’s veto of SCHIP, the popular children’s health care program. Foreseeing this inevitability, last month Congress extended current levels of funding until after November’s elections (with a little extra to prevent states from running dry). But anyone who believes the issue won’t resurface in the campaign season didn’t follow last year’s debate very closely.
Indeed, the issue exposes the very heart of the (mostly) partisan ideological controversy over the role of government in providing health coverage.
