Obama Health Budget: It’s A Boat Load Of Money, But Good Health Reform Demands Even More
Obama Health Budget: It’s A Boat Load Of Money, But Good Health Reform Demands Even More
Details are slowly leaking about the health care provisions in Obama’s budget and so far, the news sounds promising. The administration plans to set aside $634 billion over 10 years for reforming the health care system, lower costs and expand coverage.
Because this is a budget proposal, we have some details on where the money is coming from, but we don’t really know how that money will be spent. The basic idea is this: cut-back on the waste in our health care system, improve the efficiency of Medicare and Medicaid and then re-invest that money back into the fund (for health care reform).
Where will the $634 billion come from? The administration wants to limit “the tax break on itemized deductions for families with incomes above $250,000″ and strip approximately $300 billion from both Medicare and Medicaid, without cutting benefits.
They believe that there is enough waste in the health system to finance at least part of the down payment for reform:
- Eliminate Medicare Advantage overpayments and modernize the competitive bidding process.
- Drug companies would be required to increase the rebate they now provide for medications sold to Medicaid.
- Competition in generic medications (move forward with creating a generic version of biologic drugs)
- Bundle payments for post-hospital providers.
Overall, the fund is a good start, but it’s certainly not enough to reach universal coverage. Still, the Obama administration has learned from the mistakes of past reform efforts. Unlike the Clinton strategy, which didn’t include any money for health reform in the budget, and left Congress to digest a 700+ page health plan, Obama and Congress will fill in the details of reform.
They’ll decide how to spend the fund and divide the pie between preventive care, managed care, reimbursement reform, etc. This leaves a lot of room for compromise, but in working out the details of reform, progressive principles of true universality and affordability must remain intact.
4 Responses to “Obama Health Budget: It’s A Boat Load Of Money, But Good Health Reform Demands Even More”
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I wish Obama would take a look at the HCFA plan because I think it’s a good transition to public healthcare. Health Care for America is put together by the political scientist Jacob Hacker with the support of the Economic Policy Institute. I’d suggest reading Thinking Big for a better summary of the plan, but the basic idea is that employers pay money into a public fund, enough to cover their workers. The public fund has quality coverage for all, including preventive care. Workers choose to either keep insurance, choose a different private plan, or join a public health insurance plan without a private insurer middleman, and pick healthcare providers and doctors. Employers choose, if it’s too much to provide coverage as good law requires they can enroll their workers in the public plan at a modest cost. HCFA and Medicare would function as a single nationwide insurance pool covering close to half the population.Either the public plan attracts most Americans, and our system gradually evolves into single-payer or because the floor prevents a race to the bottom, the public-private competition raises the bar on care and efficiency, improving quality and cutting costs, even in the private insurance plans. The standards would be kept by a strong government watchdog (Biden! :)
February 25th, 2009 at 8:21 pmIs the CBO still scoring Stark’s universal coverage bill and H.R. 676 “Medicare for All” as net positives amortized? There’s a huge pile of cash in simply eliminating the emergency room visits followed by hospitalization terms of people who would not have had them with preventative visits and care which they avoided because of copays, deductibles, and no coverage (not in that order.)
February 25th, 2009 at 10:03 pmObama budget creates $633 billion health reform reserve fund. $316 billion comes from savings proposals including proposals that may impact Medicare providers. See Medicare Update weblog’s post at http://tinyurl.com/ch8g9u
February 26th, 2009 at 2:10 pmMy husband had a heart attack on April 20, 2008 and six months later his medical was taken away from him. The company made him and three other guys that have pacemakers retire due to the fact that the pacemaker they say is a liability. They made them retire and go on disability and promised them the retirement package which included continued heath insurance on November 1,2008 my husband was informed that his medical insurance was no longer being paid for by the company. My husband is on Social Security now but he isn’t elligible for medicare until he is on it for 24 months. I am so afraid my husband is going to work himself up so bad that he will have another heart attack. The cobra the company offered would cost me and my husband 1200.00 but between us we only get 2800.oo because we are both on Social Security. I am desperate as to what can be done to help us with our medical. Three other men are in the same perdictament as we are. I am so afraid that my husband will have another heart attack because of all the stress.
February 26th, 2009 at 10:58 pmthank you