Our Health Policy Matters

A relatively modest Medicare proposal put forward by President Obama in his 2014 budget may help to rekindle the debate about how we pay for long term care services in the coming years.  But where will we draw the line about our own responsibilities and those of the government? This is because the President’s proposal is simple and easy to understand, and it will affect nearly all of us sooner or later. He has asked for a $100 Medicare co-pay, starting in 2017, for five or more home care visits that are not preceded by a stay in an institution, according to a story this week in Kaiser Health News .  KHN added that “home care is one of the few areas in Medicare that does not have cost sharing.” So should it? While there is cost-sharing throughout most of the Medicare program – hospital deductibles, nursing home benefits, drug payments, and physician co-pays, for example – home health care has always been something of a special case. A century ago, home c...

A relatively modest Medicare proposal put forward by President Obama in his 2014 budget may help to rekindle the debate about how we pay for long term care services in the coming years.  But where will we draw the line about our own responsibilities and those of the government? This is because the President’s proposal is simple and easy to understand, and it will affect nearly all of us sooner or later. He has asked for a $100 Medicare co-pay, starting in 2017, for five or more home care visits that are not preceded by a stay in an institution, according to a story this week in Kaiser Health News .  KHN added that “home care is one of the few areas in Medicare that does not have cost sharing.” So should it? While there is cost-sharing throughout most of the Medicare program – hospital deductibles, nursing home benefits, drug payments, and physician co-pays, for example – home health care has always been something of a special case. A century ago, home c...

Note: After the Supreme Court releases its ruling on the Affordable Care Act, OHPM will be publishing analysis and commentary on what the decision means for key subgroups of the population.  Come back to this site early and often for writing that will cut through the noise!  Just before he was forced out of his job as a senior Florida public health official – joining thousands of his colleagues across the country who have recently met the same fate – Daniel Parker commented that “we are victims of a false portrayal of public services as waste .” He is so right. Source: CMS Data, Health Affairs, June 2012 (online) Last year, we spent over $86 billion on public health services. That may seem like a big number.  But it represents only 3% of our nation’s total health spending.  For that 3%, we have doubled our life expectancy over the last century.  We’ve immunized our children, improved the quality of our food and water, and gotten dangero...

Note: After the Supreme Court releases its ruling on the Affordable Care Act, OHPM will be publishing analysis and commentary on what the decision means for key subgroups of the population.  Come back to this site early and often for writing that will cut through the noise!  Just before he was forced out of his job as a senior Florida public health official – joining thousands of his colleagues across the country who have recently met the same fate – Daniel Parker commented that “we are victims of a false portrayal of public services as waste .” He is so right. Source: CMS Data, Health Affairs, June 2012 (online) Last year, we spent over $86 billion on public health services. That may seem like a big number.  But it represents only 3% of our nation’s total health spending.  For that 3%, we have doubled our life expectancy over the last century.  We’ve immunized our children, improved the quality of our food and water, and gotten dangero...