Health Insurance / Healthcare Website and Blog

The Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability projects that, if Governor Pat Quinn's budget proposals are adopted without modification, Illinois state workers and retirees could face huge increases in insurance premiums.

A state employee in the preferred provider health insurance program might be paying $309 per month from July (instead of the $89 now). For retirees not yet old enough to qualify for Medicare, premiums will be $582 a month (now it is $12.98).

Managed-care state health insurance programs will be cheaper, but even they will cost more than they do today.

A spokesperson from the governor's office said the proposals are an attempt to reduce the amount taxpayers pay as subsidy for the more expensive preferred provider health insurance.

Can universal health insurance really guarantee universal healthcare if doctors choose not to accept your insurance?

A 2005 Community Tracking survey of physicians in New York state showed that only 50% accepted Medicaid. Dr. Marc Seigel of New York University says the regular $25 payment from Medicaid for an office visit is not worth the paperwork involved. Doctors continue to drop out of the Health Insurance Plan of New York and Health Net of New York too.

Even at major medical centers like the New York University Langone Medical Center, where this is less of a problem, 11% of doctors don't accept at least two insurance plans, private or public.

The bottom line is that none of the present plans, public or private, provide patients with the care they need.

Louisiana state health secretary Alan Levine acknowledged yesterday that a tax on smoking could help meet the government's healthcare expenses, but said he was not qualified to argue tax policy with the legislature.

House speaker Karen Peterson (D-New Orleans) is pushing the Louisiana Healthier Families Bill, which proposes to increase the tax on a pack of cigarettes to $1. If this becomes law, it could raise $209 million a year.

But Governor Bobby Jindal is opposed to increasing taxes, and though the Department of Heath and Hospitals' budget will shrink by $413 billion this year from June, the Republican government is looking for other ways to cut costs. One way, Levine suggested, would be laws to limit indoor smoking so smoking-related healthcare costs go down.

The Down East Community Hospital (DECH) in Machias, Maine, is threatened with the termination of the Medicare program in the hospital after April 15. State and federal licensing agencies say the hospital failed in several emergency medical service procedures.

The federal investigation of the hospital began after a patient who checked out of the hospital on January 1, 2008, was found dead in the snow outside the hospital the next day. His death was caused by an accidental overdose of drugs at DECH and hypothermia.

The hospital has been plagued by other problems, including difficulty recruiting doctors and allegations of improper record keeping. Last November, records from the hospital were found washed up in the river bank - the police believe it was an inside job.

DECH has been investigated for issues with pharmacy records, clinical records, standards of care and patient safety, and it is on a conditional license.

According to the latest Rasmussen polls, the number of voters who call themselves Democrats declined 2 percent in March, and, more ominously, the margin of support for the Democrats reached its lowest point since the Iraq war started and the slump began: 1% (40% vs 39%).

This might not bode well for President Obama's reforms, in healthcare, energy, or anything else. To maintain momentum, Democrats need to hold on to or increase their majorities in the 2010 elections. Democrats voted from traditionally conservative states and districts need to show results from the stimulus package by summer 2010 so they don't get branded tax-and-spend liberals.

Paradoxically, Obama continues to enjoy wide support and his standing in the polls in continuing to hold steady or improving. Democrats need to leverage the support the new president has - and work hard to make, especially, healthcare reforms work - to hold the dominance they now enjoy.

The Food and Drug Administration will be regulating tobacco and tobacco products, according to legislation passed by the House of Representatives on Thursday. The bill will now move to the Senate for approval, and should become law by the end of this year.

This means the FDA will have the authority to regulate the contents of tobacco products, make their ingredients public, prohibit flavoring, require larger warning labels and strictly control or prohibit marketing campaigns, especially those geared toward children.

Tobacco and tobacco products are the leading cause of preventable death in the United States - more than 400,000 people die every year because of illnesses caused or complicated by the use of tobacco.

Stimulus money has helped North Country HealthCare open new clinics to help the underinsured and the uninsured in Lake Hasavu City and Kingman, AZ. The federally qualified private non-profit healthcare organization already has 10 clinics across Arizona.

North Country HealthCare requires its patients to pay on a sliding scale based on their overall income and the number of family members. Nobody is turned away. People who make more than $35,000 a year don't qualify for its services. But the company accepts most existing healthcare providers like Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, United Healthcare, and Medicare, and people who can pay help cover the costs for those who are not able to pay.

Rick Swanson, the director of marketing and development, said the company has received $449,000 from the President's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding.

Health care costs are the cause of half of all bankruptcies in the US.

If you are uninsured, one serious illness or injury in your family can mean financial ruin.

Almost one-third of Americans under the age of 65, or 86.7 million people, went without insurance for at least a month in 2007 and 2008. This is much more than the official census figure of 45.7 million which is just the number of people who were uninsured for a complete year.

The WHO ranks the US 37th among industrialized nations in health care. While Americans with insurance can get the best medical care in the world, the poor and the uninsured suffer because they are not able to pay for health care.

President Obama said on Monday that fixing the healthcare problem was not just a moral but also a fiscal imperative now.

As he nominated Kathleen Sebelius as his Health Secretary, he noted that healthcare costs led to a bankruptcy every 30 seconds in America, and it could lead to 1.5 million Americans losing their homes by the end of this year.

Every democratic president in the past has tried to reform American healthcare, but few have been able to go beyond surface changes. America actually has one of the best healthcare systems in the world - for those Americans who can afford to pay for it. The largely private system leaves almost 46 million Americans without health insurance, and this, in present America, means without healthcare.