Our Health Policy Matters

In November, 2012, a fourteen-year-old Utah boy named David Q. Phan committed suicide by shooting himself on a pedestrian bridge near his junior high school.  It was reported that he had been the victim of bullying. In June, 2013, the New York Times published a story about three students who committed suicide at East Hampton High School during the past three years.  All three students were Hispanic. Sam Harris, who is half-Native American and half-African American, has written a first-person account of his own experience with mental illness that has been published on SAMHSA’s “Promote Acceptance” web site.   In his account, he reports that he lived for years with symptoms of mental illness without seeking help in part because he believed that he would be stigmatized by “going to the white man” for help. And in a case which has attracted recent national attention in the aftermath of the Zimmerman verdict, 32-year-old Marissa Alexander – an African American and a past

There was some surprisingly good news this month about the cost of insurance under Obamacare.  It will be cheaper than expected.  But it remains to be seen – will cheaper insurance satisfy Obamacare doubters on either the left or the right? I doubt it, but first let’s take a look at the details. A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal warned of health insurance sticker shock when the Obamacare insurance exchanges open for business in another ten weeks.  There could be an up-to-50 percent increase in health insurance premiums, the Journal warned. But a report this month from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) brought a surprise.  Based on data from the first eleven states reporting actual premium numbers, ASPE now says that insurance costs for Obamacare “silver” plans for individuals will be 18 percent lower than originally projected by CBO. Premiums for the least expensive plan

On August 7, 2012, Allen Daniel Hicks, Sr., died of a stroke.  The Hillsborough County FL resident was 51 years old.  At the time of his death, he was coaching Little Leaguers. It is a tragedy to lose someone so young to a stroke, but it is not uncommon.  And race matters with strokes. According to the Office of Minority Health at the Department of Health and Human Services , African Americans are 60 percent more likely to have a stroke than their white counterparts.  And African American men like Mr. Hicks are also 60 percent more likely to die from a stroke than are white men. But Allen Hicks’s death was especially tragic because the circumstances surrounding it eerily echo those surrounding the death of a young black woman named Anna Brown a year earlier and 1000 miles away. Both died from blood clots.  Mr. Hicks’ was in his brain; Ms. Brown’s was in her lungs.  Both died young and left children behind.  Both suffered from pain and paralysis before they died.  An

You shouldn’t have to worry about anything during vacation season. So this column is my vacation gift to you. It is about all the health policy matters we seem to worry about the least.  I have written close to 150 columns.  If you look down the right side of the page, you will find links to the ten most-read ones.  The subjects won’t surprise you – fairness in mental health treatment, Obamacare and private insurance, and cursed football players lead the way. But do you ever wonder about the columns with the fewest readers? Based solely and unscientifically on my numbers, here are a half dozen or so health policy matters we seem to care about the least. Long Term Care.  Are you worried about continuing high unemployment rates, taxes on small businesses, or another stock market crash ruining your family’s financial security?   If so, you should redirect that worry.  Because US Trust CEO Keith Banks called long term care costs “the biggest risk to family wealt

In fewer than 100 days, the Obamacare insurance exchanges will be open for business.  Fifteen states will be running their own exchanges.  Thirty-five will be relying on the federal exchange. Vangent, which is running the federal call center, is preparing for 200,000 calls per day between now and the first of October . The federal government has also re-tooled its site, www.healthcare.gov , to provide up-to-date information about the exchanges. These are parts of a massive consumer education campaign, which is badly needed.  Because as of two months ago – three years after its enactment and a year after the Supreme Court affirmed almost all of it – according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 42 percent of Americans did not even know that Obamacare was the law of the land. Obamacare is and will remain the law of the land.  And here ten things you need to know today as you prepare for it to take full effect. One, if you are part of a family of four and your hou