Today’s health headlines – August 28th

Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about new polling insights regarding the presidential campaign and Medicare, as well as what might become of the House of Representatives.

The Washington Post’s Wonk Blog: The Republican Plan To Overhaul Health Care

The 2008 Republican party platform on Medicare and Medicaid was pretty vanilla. It called for minor tweaks to the program that just about any health wonk could get behind, things like better coordination between doctors and more vigilance against fraud. The whole section came in at about 200 words. Politico has obtained a draft of the 2012 proposal and, for health care, four years has meant a sea change. The Republican party now throws its weight behind a complete restructuring of both entitlement programs (Kliff, 8/27).

The New York Times’ The Caucus: Boehner Sees GOP Victory, But Not Necessarily A Mandate On Medicare

At a lunch with reporters, Mr. Boehner said that the nation’s dire fiscal position, driven by health care spending, would confront Washington next year “regardless of who wins the election.” But he was cautious about predicting a mandate for the House Republican plan to end the government guarantee for Medicare, replacing the program with fixed contributions that older Americans would use to buy private health insurance or pay into the government plan (Weisman, 8/27).

Politico: NRCC: No More Dem Medicare Ads

If Republicans are right, Democrats are going to stop the Medicare ad war within two weeks. That was the prediction National Republican Congressional Committee Executive Director Guy Harrison made Monday at a briefing with reporters at the Republican National Convention (Haberkorn, 8/27).

The Washington Post: Some Texas Counties Want Medicaid Dollars

This is not shaping up as a dream week for Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Monday morning headlines state the obvious: He won’t be playing a major role at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Meanwhile back home, there’s a small-scale mutiny afoot as some larger counties are openly resisting Perry’s pushback against President Obama’s plan to expand Medicaid as part of health care reform (Stahl, 8/27).

 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.