Our Health Policy Matters

Last week, I shared four of the top policy stories of the year that told us something about how health policy has been trending over the past decade or more.  This week, I’m offering four more to close out the year that tell us a little about where health policy is going in the future. 4.  Connecticut Employees Choose Health .  Back in the early days of managed care, when HMOs were not yet a four-letter word and they emphasized wellness as much as health care cost containment, they proved to be popular with members.  In August, the State of Connecticut revived the concept, giving its employees the choice of a lower cost health insurance plan that emphasized wellness or their traditional comprehensive plan.  It expected 50% to choose the new wellness plan.  But the state got a big surprise.  When the dust settled in October, 97% had opted for the wellness plan.  This will cost the state much more in the first year, but will also produce more than the $100 million in health care co

Public policy attacks on public health and mental health, intrusions in doctor/patient privacy, the continuing fight over the Affordable Care Act, and our collective loss of faith in private health insurance were among the top health policy story lines of 2011. This year, eight stories make my short list.  Not all of these stories made big headlines during the year.  But they have had, or will have, an outsized impact on our lives. I’ll begin the countdown this week with four that capture and continue some of the major trends of the recent past.   Next week, I’ll offer four more that hint at where health policy may go in the future. 8.  The Shooting of a Congresswoman .  In January, the first big health policy story of the year was about violence and mental illness – the horrible wounding of a member of Congress, and the murder of several people around her.  As the media struggled to make sense of this, it raised once again the relationship between mental illness and vi

Except for summertime humidity, the Florida and Connecticut “climates” don’t have a lot in common.  For example, Connecticut has one of the best climates for health and health care, while Florida’s is in the bottom half.  On the other hand, Florida has one of the best business tax climates, while Connecticut’s is near the rear. Their political climates are also polar opposites.  Florida’s governor is a Republican, and its Legislature is overwhelmingly Republican.  Connecticut’s governor is a Democrat, and its legislature is overwhelmingly Democratic. And the difference in their policy climates is reflected in the way they handled their 2011 budget crises.  Connecticut raised taxes and cut spending, while Florida just cut spending.  As a result, Connecticut’s budget now balanced.  Florida, meanwhile, extended its crisis by another year.  And its Governor has just proposed cutting $2 billion from health services alone in his proposed new budget. But for two states wit

If there were an award given for the worst health policy exaggeration of 2011, it might well go to Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and a chorus of others who call the Affordable Care Act “a government takeover of health care.” They make this charge to capture votes from a constituency that fears what life would be like if we had “socialized medicine.”  The problem with the rhetoric is this.  It isn't true.  If you look at who pays the bill, the United States already has socialized medicine. We just get less for our money than practically anyone else in the world. According new data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) , no other country spends close to what our government alone does on health care.  Right now, the total government share of our annual per capita health care bill is around $6,000, or over 70% of the total .  Norway is next most expensive, but its total per capita bill is $5,352.  The government share is $4