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- Maryland /
Regional
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- National /
International
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Durbin: US already paying 'hidden' health taxes
(Washington Post)
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Trims to Medicare, Medicaid Are Proposed to Help Fund Reform
(Washington
Post)
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UK reports
its first swine flu death
(Washington Post)
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- Opinion
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Overburdened E.R.’s
(New York
Times Letter to
the Editor)
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- Maryland /
Regional
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- National / International
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Durbin: US already paying 'hidden' health taxes
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- Associated Press
- Washington Post
- Sunday, June 14, 2009
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- WASHINGTON -- A top Democratic lawmaker says Americans
are already paying a "hidden tax" to provide health care for
the uninsured.
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- The Illinois Democrat who is his party's No. 2 official
in the Senate, Sen. Dick Durbin, says that there is a $1,000
surcharge in health care premiums to cover people who
receive treatment in emergency rooms.
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- Durbin says President Barack Obama's plan to overhaul
the health system would reduce premiums and add more people
to health care rolls. That, he says, would have a net effect
of lowering the costs.
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- Durbin says Obama's plan would allow those with
insurance to keep their plan if they like it. Nothing would
change, he says, unless individuals choose to switch.
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- Durbin appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation."
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- © 2009 The Associated Press.
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-
Trims to Medicare, Medicaid Are Proposed to Help Fund Reform
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- By Lori Montgomery and Scott Wilson
- Washington Post
- Sunday, June 14, 2009
-
- President Obama yesterday outlined measures to trim
spending on federal health programs for the elderly and the
poor by an additional $313 billion over the next decade,
bringing his total proposed savings close to the amount
necessary to cover the cost of his signature health-care
plan, a top adviser said.
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- In his weekly radio address, Obama proposed limiting the
growth of Medicare fee-for-service payments, taking
hospitals and other health-care providers at their word that
they will reduce costs. He also proposed cutting subsidies
to hospitals that treat uninsured patients on the theory
that such payments will decline as more people are covered
through his plan.
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- The president also called for reducing payments to drug
companies that serve Medicare recipients. Advisers declined
to release details, saying the idea is still under
discussion.
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- "These savings underscore the fact that securing
quality, affordable health care for the American people is
tied directly to insisting upon fiscal responsibility,"
Obama said. "And these savings are rooted in the same
principle that must guide our broader approach to reform: We
will fix what's broken, while building upon what works."
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- Obama and his senior advisers have identified rising
health-care costs as the biggest long-term drag on the
federal budget, mainly because of the sharply escalating
costs of the Medicare and Medicaid programs. He has said
that reining in health-care costs is the key to reducing the
deficit and has vowed that his plans for reform will require
no additional borrowing.
-
- The radio address capped a week during which Obama
emphasized in and away from Washington the importance of
health-care reform. He held a town hall forum in Green Bay,
Wis., on Thursday, and he asked that this fall,
congressional leaders send him legislation extending health
insurance to the 47 million Americans without it. As he said
in his radio message yesterday, "I know some question
whether we can afford to act this year. But the unmistakable
truth is that it would be irresponsible to not act."
-
- His offer of new spending cuts comes against a backdrop
of public concern over the nation's fiscal health and
long-term spending plans that even he has acknowledged would
lead to "unsustainable" deficits. His 10-year budget would
shrink the $1.3 trillion annual deficit left by the Bush
administration before allowing it to widen again in its
final years.
-
- By requiring cuts in federal payments to health
providers, the measures would go a long way toward ensuring
that innovations produce savings for the federal government
and restrain runaway growth in spending on Medicare and
Medicaid.
-
- Congressional budget analysts agree that the approach
will save money, and the Senate Finance Committee has
included two of Obama's biggest money-saving ideas on a list
of financing strategies.
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- "We are examining a wide range of options as we work
with the president to craft bipartisan legislation that can
become law this year," Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the
Finance Committee chairman, said yesterday in a statement.
He applauded Obama's "commitment to our shared goals of
lowering health care costs and ensuring quality, affordable
care for all Americans."
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- But many lawmakers are not enthusiastic about slashing
payments to hospitals and other providers without clear
evidence that the cuts will not hurt patients back home.
Even small cuts on the Senate Finance Committee list have
provoked widespread grumbling.
-
- Aides in the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means
committees, whose members are working to draft health reform
financing plans, said yesterday that Obama's new proposals
would "raise some hackles" and spur "some pushback."
-
- The cuts Obama proposed yesterday would bring the total
savings he has identified to pay for health-care reform to
$950 billion, an amount that may still not be enough to
cover the full cost of reform. Some outside analysts have
said that Congress may have to spend $1.5 trillion or more
over the next decade to extend coverage to all Americans.
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- "These savings will come from common-sense changes,"
Obama said. "For example, if more Americans are insured, we
can cut payments that help hospitals treat patients without
health insurance. If the drugmakers pay their fair share, we
can cut government spending on prescription drugs."
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- Lawmakers have yet to finalize details of the reform
plans moving through Congress, much less submit them to
congressional budget analysts for a cost assessment. White
House budget director Peter Orszag said $950 billion is "in
the ballpark" of the plans under consideration.
Congressional sources confirmed that, saying lawmakers are
looking at plans that would cost about $1 trillion over the
next decade, with the annual cost ramping up to about $150
billion by 2019.
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- In February, Obama's budget request set aside $635
billion for health-care reform, about half in cuts to
Medicare and Medicaid and half in new taxes. Orszag called
the additional savings Obama outlined yesterday an
"unprecedented" effort to "put down in such clarity how
reform will be financed."
-
- Orszag said the cuts proposed yesterday would save the
government money in the short term and "spur productivity in
a way that does not exist under current law." They would
also save Medicare patients money -- as much as $43 billion
in reduced premiums for prescription drug coverage over the
next 10 years.
-
- After weeks of loud demands for Obama to cut spending,
Republicans reacted cautiously to the proposal. House
Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said, "There is no
doubt that Medicare and Medicaid need reform, but serious
changes should not be rushed through Congress as part of a
new government-run program that will raise taxes and make
health care more expensive, costing middle-class families
even more."
-
- Tomorrow, Obama is scheduled to speak in Chicago to the
American Medical Association, a trade organization wary of
the president's reform plans.
-
- Another interest group, AARP, said yesterday that it
"agrees that there are ways we can eliminate wasteful
spending and inefficiencies from Medicare -- such as
reducing preventable hospital readmissions or overpayments
to drug companies -- that will actually improve care and
strengthen the program." The organization, known formerly as
the American Association of Retired Persons, has 40 million
members.
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- "We want to make certain that any Medicare savings
proposals will reduce beneficiaries' premiums and
deductibles so that our members realize real savings in
their own out of pocket spending, which has been increasing
at a rapid rate," David Sloane, the group's senior vice
president for government relations and advocacy, said in a
statement. "At the same time, we also believe that some of
these savings should be reinvested in filling the gaps in
Medicare coverage."
-
- Copyright 2009 Washington Post.
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-
UK reports
its first swine flu death
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- Associated Press
- By Danica Kirka
- Washington Post
- Sunday, June 14, 2009
-
- LONDON -- A person with underlying health conditions
died of swine flu in Scotland on Sunday - the first reported
death from the illness outside the Americas, health
officials said.
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- Britain has been harder hit by the virus - known as
H1N1- than elsewhere in Europe. Earlier Sunday, Britain had
reported another 61 cases of swine flu, bringing the U.K.
total to 1,226 cases.
-
- "Tragic though today's death is, I would like to
emphasize that the vast majority of those who have H1N1 are
suffering from relatively mild symptoms, " Scottish Health
Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said. "I would reiterate that the
risk to the general public remains low and we can all play
our part in slowing the spread of the virus by following
simple hygiene procedures."
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- Now that swine flu has officially been declared to be a
pandemic, or global outbreak, health authorities expect to
see more cases and deaths worldwide. The World Health
Organization said last week that the virus has not become
any more lethal, but is now unstoppable.
-
- So far, swine flu appears to be a relatively mild virus,
and most people who get it do not need treatment to get
better. About half the people who have died from swine flu
have had other health conditions including pregnancy,
obesity, diabetes, or asthma.
-
- "The patient had underlying health conditions," the
government statement announcing the death said, without
saying what they were.
-
- Scotland's government said the patient was one of 10
people being treated for the influenza at a hospital. The
statement did not identify the patient or the hospital.
-
- It was the first death from the H1N1 strain of influenza
reported outside the Americas, according to the World Health
Organization in Geneva or the European Centers for Disease
Control in Stockholm, which both keep tabs on confirmed
cases of swine flu around the world.
-
- The latest WHO report, released on Friday, said 74
countries have reported 29,669 cases of swine flu, including
145 deaths. Fatalities had occurred in eight countries in
the Americas: Mexico, the United States, Canada, Chile,
Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Guatemala.
-
- Last week, the WHO declared the flu a pandemic. WHO said
it expected further cases - and deaths - to occur as the
pandemic plays out over the next few years.
-
- Hugh Pennington, a bacteriologist at Aberdeen
University, said the underlying conditions are likely to
have been a "significant factor" in the death because it
raises the odds the patient will have difficulties.
-
- "It makes it more likely that they will get the serious
form of the virus in the first place," he said. "If your
lungs are already only working at half capacity when the
virus kicks in and takes half of what is left, you will be
left teetering on the edge."
-
- Pennington said that while the death was unfortunate, it
was "quite unremarkable" given the number of reported cases
and compared favorably to ordinary seasonal flu.
-
- ---
- Associated Press Writers Maria Cheng in London and
Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this story.
-
- © 2009 The Associated Press.
-
- Opinion
-
Overburdened E.R.’s
-
- New York Times Letter to the Editor
- Sunday, June 14, 2009
-
- To the Editor:
-
- Re “Avian Flu Fears Said to Help U.S. Prepare for Swine
Flu” (news article, June 5):
-
- The question policy makers and the public should be
asking is this: If our emergency rooms were overwhelmed by
the “worried well” fearing they had H1N1, what would happen
during a more deadly outbreak of disease?
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- And it wasn’t just the uninsured. It was everyone,
especially those with family doctors who actually protected
their offices by sending flu cases to emergency rooms.
-
- Our emergency rooms are on the brink of collapse right
now, and yet no discussion of health care reform seems to
acknowledge that. If we do nothing now to shore up the
nation’s emergency medical care system, the next pandemic
could show us what catastrophe really looks like.
-
- Nicholas Jouriles
- President, American College
- of Emergency Physicians
- Washington, June 11, 2009
-
- Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company.
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