The WonkLine: April 28, 2009
The WonkLine: April 28, 2009
Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 10 a.m. roundup of the latest news about health care, the economy, national security and climate policy. This is what we’re reading. Tell us what you found in the comments section below, and subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, you can now follow The Wonk Room on Twitter.
National Security
New Zealand and Israel have confirmed cases of swine flu, which has killed up to 149 people in Mexico and which threatens to become a pandemic. The World Health Organization has raised its alert level to phase 4, indicating a significantly increased risk of pandemic.
Five members of the United States Congress -– Donna Edwards (D-MD), Keith Ellison (D-MN), John Lewis (D-GA), Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) –- “were among a group of people arrested Monday in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, DC during a protest against the violence in Darfur.”
The BBC reports that Pakistan has launched air strikes against suspected Taliban hideouts in Buner district, less than 67 miles from the capital, Islamabad.
Economy
FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said in a speech yesterday “that her agency should have broader powers to take over and close a variety of financial institutions,” and that too big to fail is “a 25-year old idea that ought to be tossed into the dustbin.”
The Washington Post reports that “once a symbol of capitalist might and U.S. industrial prowess, General Motors would be half owned by the Treasury under a new sweeping plan” to save the company.
TARP watchdog Elizabeth Warren said that “the adverse scenario used to test the health of the 19 largest U.S. banks is ‘disturbingly close‘ to current economic conditions, sparking a concern that there might need to be a second stress test.”
Health Care
Ken Terry points out that “despite raising its premiums by up to 11 percent and instituting premiums in areas of the country where Humana formerly had none, its Medicare Advantage enrollment increased to nearly 1.47 million members as of March 31, up 16 percent from a year ago and 2 percent since the end of 2008.”
How do we solve the primary doc shortage? Joe Paduda, the New America Foundation, and Tim Foley have some suggestions.
A new Commonwealth Fund survey finds that “health care leaders believe the U.S. must rein in the growth of health spending, and most believe it is possible to keep the share of gross domestic product (GDP) now spent on health care steady over the next 10 years.”
Climate
Although Interior Secretary Ken Salazar made it clear he “likes coal,” the Interior Department “said on Monday it will try to overturn a Bush administration rule that made it easier for coal mining companies to dump mountaintop debris into valley streams.”
As Arctic carbon dioxide levels are growing at an “unprecedented rate,” an “area of an Antarctic ice shelf almost the size of New York City has broken into icebergs this month.”
Speaking about the Waxman-Markey clean energy bill, Rep. Gene Green (D-TX) called for free pollution permits to petroleum refiners and Rep. G. K. Butterfield called for free pollution permits to electric distribution companies. These companies have given more than $375,000 to energy committee members in the first three months of 2009.
7 Responses to “The WonkLine: April 28, 2009”
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A decade ago health care leaders thought enough money was in the system. It needed redistribution within a system with different priorities.
The number of uninsured grew by over 10 million during that time.
April 28th, 2009 at 12:04 pmGeithner said the stress test was intended to give people confidence in the system. That likely means a powder puff analysis. That the assumptions aren’t clear is not a surprise to me. It’s odd that Elizabeth Warren doesn’t have access to the criteria/model.
April 28th, 2009 at 12:10 pmPremium increases of 11 percent? I predicted health insurance rates would soar to make up for investment losses. It should be more than Humana.
April 28th, 2009 at 12:11 pmUnlike WellPoint and United, both of which reported big drops in commercial enrollment in the first quarter, Humana’s nongovernmental membership fell only 4 percent during the period. But the insurer predicted that enrollment would decrease further, mainly because of an expected decline in small-employer business.
April 28th, 2009 at 12:13 pmWellPoint lost 500,000 members while United saw 900,000 drop coverage.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124038527644142693.html
April 28th, 2009 at 12:17 pmPhysician shortages can be be addressed by adjusting medicare reimbursement rates, and stop the Graduate Medicare Education program’s practice of paying medical schools to limit the number of physicians they enroll. That subsidy-to-not-produce is a relic of a long-past M.D. glut.
P.S. Thanks for preview! (So much for that excuse….)
April 28th, 2009 at 12:43 pmThere are 300,000 primary physicians in active practice. If each had responsibility for 1000 patients, all 300 million U.S. residents would have full access to primary care. At the overall average annual visit rate for primary care — 3.3 visits per year per person — a primary doctor working 200 days a year, 8 hours a day, would have an average of 29 minutes for each patient visit, as compared to 5 or 10 minutes in most cases today. If each primary physician had an income of $230,000 — 75% of the median income of specialist physicians according to the AMA — and had a generous overhead of 100% of their salary, the total cost for one primary doctor would be $460,000 per year. 1000 patients would have to pay $460 each per year for full primary care coverage, or slightly over $38 per month per person.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:04 amEveryone should think hard about these financial facts, long and hard enough to figure out what is wrong with the current structure, and how to fix it fast. The problem is not insurers; it is specialist physicians who dictate the level of demand for the services that they provide. Get it?