AmericanHealthPlan.org

Health care reform is fantastically messy. No matter how bad and cruel the current U.S. system, it won't be tossed out for something sleek and efficient. The latest carrier of that message is surgeon and writer Atul Gawande, in a can't-stop-reading essay in the New Yorker, "Getting From There to Here." It's bad news for full-blown single-payer healthcare. But as Consumer Watchdog's Jamie Court argues persuasively in an OpEd in the Los Angeles Times, it's all the more reason to allow anyone to buy into Medicare--the familiar and comfortable choice.

It wasn't a big shock to me when AARP announced that it would be "investigating" deceptively marketed "health insurance" carrying the AARP brand, in response to a U.S. Senate investigation. AARP may technically be a nonprofit, but it also aggressively and profitably markets commercial services that appear at first to be an AARP benefit. AARP's "insurance,", from partner company United Health, is just a capped flat payment for certain medical services. Anyone who fell seriously ill wouldn't be "covered" and would be left deeply in medical debt. So why should we trust AARP's self-proclaimed role in national health reform?

It's a tough year for health care reformers in California, especially since a year ago it still seemed like a plan for universal health care was possible. At a meeting this week of statewide health care advocates (in Tahoe--tough duty, eh?), the discussion is focused on stopping wholesale cuts in health care for children, low-income families and the disabled--all of which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger...

Both president-elect Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain backed electronic medical records during their campaign. Computerizing patient data, which could increase efficiency and cut costs, is part of every major federal health reform proposal. But what are the rules for this data? An extortion threat reported today, involving up to 50...

A pair of great newspaper stories this week measures the health care crisis better--and way more readably--than any spreadsheet or white paper. I sure hope the next president has read them. One, in the New York Times, offers the news that women pay 20% to upwards of 40% more for identical health care insurance, even when the policy doesn't cover maternity care. The other, in the Los Angeles Times, is the story of a middle-class truck driver essentially sentenced to death by private insurers, then failed by the state's own health care safety net.

The X Prize Foundation, the folks who awarded millions for the first private space flight and would give $10 million for a commercial 100-mpg car,  announced today that its next big prize will be aimed at health care. And the designer of the prize qualifications will be... WellPoint, the for-profit parent of Blue Cross, a corporation that has done so much to make health insurance in America unaffordable and often unavailable. Do you want WellPoint designing its own ideal for "efficient" health care? No? Then read on and click the link below to tell X Prize what you think of the idea, or propose a better one.

It's no surprise that a new report by the Economic Policy Institute shows that Americans continue to lose employer-provided health care. It's down from 68.3% of all U.S. residents in 2000 to 62.9% in 2007, with government-subsidized care, not private insurance, picking up most of the loss. But deep into the report, the Sacramento Bee's Dan Walters discovered that California, ever the U.S. trendsetter, is even worse off:

When the U.S. financial bailout package was first being debated in Congress, Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas denounced it as a "slippery slope to socialism." Today, the federal Treasury is going so far as to buy a public stake in some banks, which is at least a partial nationalization. The White House is cooperating closely with European leaders on financial policy--something unthinkable by this White House as little as a month ago. The realization that free market failures won't be cured with even freer markets will also make a difference in the coming health reform debate.

The idea of handing even more power over our health care to private insurance companies is getting a dead-fish aroma. First, here's a column from economic writer Paul Krugman that takes apart, brick by brick, Sen. John McCain's idea of moving responsibility for buying insurance from employers to individuals and families. The headline says it all: "Health Care Destruction." And the Wall Street Journal reports today that McCain would pay for his health plan's individual tax credits by cutting $1.3 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid. Still, McCain stands by this radical free-market idea.

It's great to see more analysis of the health proposals of Senator McCain and Senator Obama because when the financial meltdown  comes off the front page, we're all going to be left with less employer health care, less affordable health care and less available insurance. Today's offering from the Commonwealth Fund goes well beyond the recent Kaiser Foundation comparison, actually judging the effectiveness of proposals by Sens. McCain and Obama. Both plans start with the current private insurance system.

The U.S. economic meltdown will deliver more ugliness to Americans in the coming months, including a speeded-up loss of health insurance as jobs disappear and employers cut back their employee benefits. So even if health care isn't top of the agenda right now, it'll be back, in worse shape than ever. There's nothing like an accurate side-by-side rundown to help us sort out the health care reform proposals of Senators McCain and Obama, and here's a link to a clear, detailed comparison, fresh from the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation. Read on for some interpretation of what both are proposing.

If our government ends up deregulating health care nationally (even in mire of the financial meltdown), middle class families will be plain out of luck on getting health insurance. Here's why:

A national survey of employer health benefits released today finds that the average premium cost for a family of four has risen to $12,680 dollars, a 5% increase from last year. More employees are being pushed...

Patients in America find that there is notoriously little public information about the quality of their hospitals, doctors and medical care. We can't even get hospital-specific information on the greatest hospital danger, which is drug-resistant infections. Doctors? You can look up a "completed" malpractice case, but the majority of such charges settle earlier, and never see the light of day. A few paid services purport to offer more, but actually just collect from the few public sources and individual consumer "reviews". Enter Angie's List, a paid subscription service built around consumer assessments of handymen, contractors, decorators and the like.

How'd you like to train an Internet camera on your medicine cabinet, and just let the world see what drugs you're taking? Blood pressure medication? Statins? An AIDS drug cocktail? Tamoxifen to prevent a recurrence of cancer? Today's Washington Post tells us that electronic databases of prescription drug usage are already open to health insurers--and the risk that the...

I was looking point by point yesterday at the broad proposals of the new "Health Care for America" network, and wondering why they seem so empty, more loophole than plan. What the group says will matter,  because its members include major unions (the ones that have allied with employers on health care issues) as well as some top Democrats. What HCFA says will influence national health reform. All of my doubts crystallized today, reading a piece on Huffington Post by California Nurses Association leader Rose Ann De Moro. She nails Health Care for America for saying it opposes profiteering insurance companies, then offering a plan that lets insurers control our health future.

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Even in modern politics, $40 million is enough to get elected officials' attention. So today's announcement of a labor/Democratic/disease-group coalition pledging at least $40 million, and the voice of Elizabeth Edwards, to "quality, affordable" U.S. health care will influence November election campaigns. Coincidentally, there's some current buzz among health wonks over the Netherlands' switch to a sort-of-private "choice" system, providing universal care through mandatory private insurance. No one should confuse the Dutch system with any of the U.S. proposals for mandatory insurance.