Viewing entries tagged with 'Costs'
MUST SEE TV: AHIP's Karen Ignagni on MSNBC "We'll have a cost explosion."
Posted by The Campaign on March 17, 2010 at 8:48 AM
AHIP's Karen Ignagni appeared on MSNBC's The Daily Rundown this morning. In the appearance, she outlined the strong concerns with the current bill and the lack of cost containment in the bill. At one point she stated "We'll have a cost explosion."
MUST READ: The Christian Science Monitor -- Health Reform Must Cut Costs First
Posted by The Campaign on March 16, 2010 at 7:35 PM
The Christian Science Monitor hits the nail on the head in its latest editorial on health care reform. The editorial writers argue that health care reform must first address ways to get costs under control or reform will not be sustainable.
Here are some key excerpts:
"Insurance companies are easy political targets but they are not the main drivers of medical inflation. The causes are more fundamental, from Americans living longer to ever more costly medical procedures to too few incentives for consumers to control costs. Those issues need to be addressed first before taking an expensive leap into making sure the uninsured are insured."
"But in implicit admission that such reform probably wouldn’t bring enough savings, he proposes the creation of a seven-member federal board – the Health Insurance Rate Authority – that would bluntly set price controls on rate increases in health insurance. In other words, don’t expect much savings from the Obama plan, and so government will need to keep a cap on insurance premiums."
Click here to read the full editorial -- it's definitely a must read.
MUST READ: The Washington Examiner Puts Health Plan Profits in Perspective
Posted by The Campaign on March 16, 2010 at 7:21 PM
The Washington Examiner shines a spotlight on one of the industry deals and how the campaign to vilify health plans is misdirected.
Here are some highlights:
"...the battle at this point is not reformers versus industry, as Obama would have you believe. Rather, it is a battle between most of the health care industry and the insurance companies."
"Of all the single-industry lobbies in Washington, the largest is the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America. PhRMA spent $26.2 million on lobbying last year — that's nearly three times as much as the insurance lobby, America's Health Insurance Plans, which spent $8.9 million."
"Let's look at those profits. Drug makers' combined profit margin last year was 22.2 percent, compared with insurers' 4.4 percent. Drug maker Merck's net income, $12.9 billion, exceeds that of the 10 largest insurers combined."
For the full article click here.
FACT CHECK: What They Are Saying About Costs
Posted by The Campaign on March 16, 2010 at 5:00 PM
Uwe Reinhardt, economist, Princeton University:
“What really drives it is the cost trend of health care, which is composed in part of utilization and in part of prices.” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Insurers alone can’t be blamed for rates, economists say, 03/13/10)
Mort Kondracke, Roll Call:
“CMS figures show that insurance costs closely track the underlying — and surging — costs for hospitals, doctors and drugs. National health spending rose a whopping 5.7 percent in 2009, according to a February CMS report, and the ‘primary drivers’ were a 5.9 percent increase in hospital costs, a 5.2 percent increase for drugs and 6.3 percent for physician care. Insurance company administrative costs were not even mentioned as a driver — they dropped 2 percent last year — and abundant evidence indicates that industry profit margins run 3 percent to 4 percent, compared with 20 percent for drug companies and an average 13 percent for the health care industry.” (Roll Call, Will Democrats Fare Worse With or Without Passing Obamacare?, 03/11/10)
Robert Samuelson, The Washington Post:
“Whatever their sins, insurers are mainly intermediaries; they pass along the costs of the delivery system. In 2009, the largest 14 insurers had profits of roughly $9 billion; that approached 0.4 percent of total health spending of $2.472 trillion. This hardly explains high health costs. What people need to know is that Obama's plan evades health care’s major problems and would worsen the budget outlook. It’s a big new spending program when government hasn’t paid for the spending programs it already has.” (The Washington Post, Obama’s illusions of cost-control, 03/15/10)
“The big problem is uncontrolled spending, which prices people out of the market and burdens government budgets. Obama claims his proposal checks spending. Just the opposite. When people get insurance, they use more health services. Spending rises.” (The Washington Post, Obama’s illusions of cost-control, 03/15/10)
Dr. JudyAnn Bigby, secretary of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services:
“So much of what drives costs now is the revenue that hospitals want to generate.” (The Boston Globe, Insurer details its unequal payments, 03/16/10)
USA Today:
“As the debate reaches the endgame, here are five ways the final product could be better: -- Go after costs. The biggest void in the legislation is any major effort to control medical inflation…” (USA Today, Our view on medical reform: Five ways to improve the health care hybrid, 03/16/10)
Doug Schoen, Democratic Pollster:
“The data has been clear since at least the summer about how the American people feel about health insurance and their fears about the scope of government and the cost of this initiative. They would like greater focus on cost than any other goal.” (Politico, The handwriting on the wall, 03/15/10)
San Diego Union-Tribune:
“Another factor that has barely been debated is also sure to inflate premium costs…because the annual fine for refusing to buy health insurance is only up to $750 or 2 percent of income, whichever is greater, millions of Americans would pass on coverage, aware they could readily get insurance if facing a major medical problem. This ‘free riding’ means honest citizens would have to pick up the tab for those who game the system.” (San Diego Union-Tribune, Health Reform Bill Fails Two Tests, 03/16/10)
The Wall Street Journal:
“Above all other reasons, voters who oppose ObamaCare cite their fear over costs: They think it will cause their insurance premiums to soar and result in far higher taxes to fund a vast new entitlement.” (The Wall Street Journal, The Cost-Control Illusion, 03/13/10)
Richard Lord, Associated Industries of Massachusetts:
“You have to address the underlying medical costs.” (The Boston Herald, Business group backs health-care price caps, 03/11/10)
MUST SEE TV: AHIP's Karen Ignagni on Fox Business News
Posted by The Campaign on March 16, 2010 at 4:54 PM
AHIP's Karen Ignagni appeared on Fox Business News to discuss the health care reform debate and rising health care costs.
Watch the video below:
ICYMI: AHIP Letter to HHS Secretary Sebelius
Posted by The Campaign on March 16, 2010 at 11:31 AM
AHIP sent a letter to HHS Secretary Sebelius yesterday to respond to her request for specific cost savings recommendations that could be included in the current legislation. Below are a few highlights from the letter:
Increased Transparency
To address your request for greater transparency, we immediately began working with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) to develop a template our members can use across the country to provide information on the factors that are driving premium increases.
As you request transparency from our members, we urge you also to consider pursuing transparency for hospitals, physicians, pharmaceutical and device companies, and other suppliers.
First Do No Harm
We are particularly concerned that there are inadequate incentives in the legislation to bring everyone into the system, that new age-rating requirements would drive up costs for younger families, and that the proposed premium tax on health insurers would further drive up costs for consumers in the individual and small group markets.
Limiting the amount by which premiums can vary by age can have particularly significant effects for young adults, as moving from a 5:1 to 3:1 rating band...raises rates for adults under age 30 by approximately another 30 to 50 percent beyond that projected for the population as a whole.
Enacting insurance reforms and coverage expansions without meaningful cost control will bring more people into an unsustainable, unaffordable system.
The Senate legislation would establish a new commission to review Medicare and private sector health care spending. That is a start, but it will not provide the comprehensive oversight needed because it would exempt Medicare payments for hospitals, physicians, and other key services from review during the first five years.
Payment Reform
Within a comprehensive framework for cost containment, we recommend broadening and expediting certain provisions of the Senate bill that focus on realigning incentives and promoting innovation. The following are several specific examples:
- To reduce preventable hospital readmissions, we recommend strengthening the Senate bill's proposal to require modest Medicare payment reductions for hospitals with unnecessary risk-adjusted readmissions for three conditions. Increasing the amount of the payment reduction and applying it to a broader range of conditions will create stronger financial incentives for improvements in patient care, thereby reducing unnecessary admissions that are contributing to higher costs while also improving patient safety and quality.
- To reduce hospital-acquired infections, we recommend building upon the Senate's proposal to reduce Medicare payments by one percent for the worst performing hospitals on medical conditions identified by the Secretary. The Senate proposal would be more effective if it established a stronger financial incentive and applied to all "never events" identified by the National Quality Forum.
- To accelerate the adoption of payment reform and quality improvement, incentives under the Value-Based Purchasing program should be accelerated forward to begin in 2011 with final recommendations by 2015. By building on existing collaborations to tie hospital performance on quality measures to common high-cost conditions (AMI, Heart Failure, Pneumonia, etc.), we can more rapidly move away from traditional fee-for-service structures.
- To advance new payment reform models on a system-wide basis, we recommend that the Senate proposal for a CMS Innovation Center be expanded beyond Medicare and Medicaid. Focusing solely on public programs will not improve the overall health care system.
- To improve the value of comparative effectiveness research and the proposed Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, we recommend that such research focus on both the clinical and cost effectiveness of treatments.
Provide Malpractice Protections for Doctors
To reduce the burden of defensive medicine, a fresh approach to medical liability reform should be adopted that combines a safe harbor for following evidence-based medicine and a system to ensure that harmed individuals are compensated adequately. As an alternative to the existing litigation system, we recommend an approach that offers protections for providers who follow established best practices and implement safe, accountable care models based on the latest scientific evidence.
ICYMI: AHIP's New Ad on Costs
Posted by The Campaign on March 16, 2010 at 6:05 AM
Building on AHIP's national television advertising campaign on health care costs, the below open letter to the American people has begun running in national newspapers. For a printable version of the letter, click here.
MUST SEE TV: AHIP's Karen Ignagni on CBS' Face the Nation
Posted by The Campaign on March 15, 2010 at 11:21 AM
AHIP's Karen Ignagni appeared on CBS' Face the Nation this weekend. Karen set the record straight on what is driving premiums higher (underlying costs), health plan profits (other industries profit margins are much higher), and the need for the current legislation to do more to control costs (can't pay for $1 trillion legislation by only focusing on 4% of all health care spending.)
MUST SEE TV: AHIP's Karen Ignagni on Fox Business News Discussing Rising Health Care Costs
Posted by The Campaign on March 11, 2010 at 7:08 AM
AHIP's Karen Ignagni was on Fox Business News last night discussing rising health care costs and AHIP's new ad campaign on health care costs.
Watch the full video below:
MUST SEE TV: AHIP's Mike Tuffin on PBS' Newshour
Posted by The Campaign on March 11, 2010 at 6:18 AM
