Health stories in the news

Health care industry says it can control soaring costs

Representatives of doctors, drug makers, insurers and health-care unions met with President Barack Obama Monday and promised that they could control health-care costs, saving the average family of four $2,500 a year in five years and the nation $2 trillion in ten years

In a letter to the President, six industry leaders attending a White House meeting promised:

We will do our part to achieve your administration’s goal of decreasing by 1.5 percentage points the annual health care spending growth rate, saving $2 trillion or more. This represents more than a 20 percent reduction in the projected growth rate.”

The signatories to the letter are the executives of the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and the Service Employees International Union.

President Obama called today’s meeting with health care industry executives “remarkable”:

“. . . it’s a meeting that might not have been held just a few years ago. The groups who are here today represent different constituencies with different sets of interests. They’ve not always seen eye to eye with each other or with our government on what needs to be done to reform health care in this country. In fact, some of these groups were among the strongest critics of past plans for comprehensive reform.

But what’s brought us all together today is a recognition that we can’t continue down the same dangerous road we’ve been traveling for so many years; that costs are out of control; and that reform is not a luxury that can be postponed, but a necessity that cannot wait. It’s a recognition that the fictional television couple, Harry and Louise, who became the iconic faces of those who opposed health care reform in the ’90s, desperately need health care reform in 2009. And so does America.”

But in his New York Times column today, economist Paul Krugman says the public should be skeptical of the industry executives’ motives:

“Remember what the rest of us call health care costs, they call income,” Krugman writes.

“What’s presumably going on here is that key interest groups have realized that health care reform is going to happen no matter what they do, and that aligning themselves with the Part of No will just deny them a seat at the table.”

To learn more

• Read the letter and President Obama’s remarks, which are posted on the White House Website.
• Read Paul Krugman’s column:Harry, Louise and Barack.

Patients are sticking with their “boutique” doctors

Despite the recession, patients are sticking with their “boutique” doctors, who for an extra annual fee provide deluxe service, Kevin Sack reports in the New York Times.

“From Seattle, where the movement began in 1996, to South Florida, where its largest concern is now based, physicians with boutique practices say they are losing far fewer patients for financial reasons than they had expected,” Sack writes.

To learn more:

• Read Sack’s article: Despite the recession, personalized health care remains in demand.

Two local business leaders want a public health insurance plan

In an op-ed piece in the Seattle Times, Susan Davis, executive director of the Rainier Valley Chamber of Commerce, and Kara Ceriello, president of the Wallingford Chamber of Commerc, call for people to demonstrate on May 30th in support of a public health plan to compete with private insurance plans.

“A public plan can drive down costs by strengthening small-business bargaining power, spreading risk and using resources for health-care expenses, not CEO salaries, advertising and lobbying . . . .” they write. “The choice of a public plan is not about ideology, but common sense.”

To learn more:

• Read Davis and Ceriello’s op-ed piece: Help small businesses with public insurance plans.
• Visit the Health Care for All in 2009 demonstration Website.

Tags: Health Insurance, Health-care Reform, Healthcare Policy, Insurance, Obama

Category: Health-care Policy