Our Health Policy Matters

A different kind of climate change was in the news this week, as Gallup reported that the percentage of people who are uninsured declined rapidly from 17.1 percent to 15.9 percent in just three months. That is a pretty substantial drop, and one that began when people started signing up for Obamacare. According to Gallup and others, it translates into an additional 3 million people who now have health insurance, consistent with the numbers of people signing up for Affordable Care Act coverage. That’s good news for Obamacare – perhaps.  One of the more interesting – and sometimes frustrating – things about health policy is that like climate change it unfolds slowly over time, and so it is often difficult to see the change in climate while it is happening. For one thing, there are always other variables.  For example, the unemployment rate has also gone down during this period, from 7.2 percent last October to 6.7 percent today . It is possible that some o...

A different kind of climate change was in the news this week, as Gallup reported that the percentage of people who are uninsured declined rapidly from 17.1 percent to 15.9 percent in just three months. That is a pretty substantial drop, and one that began when people started signing up for Obamacare. According to Gallup and others, it translates into an additional 3 million people who now have health insurance, consistent with the numbers of people signing up for Affordable Care Act coverage. That’s good news for Obamacare – perhaps.  One of the more interesting – and sometimes frustrating – things about health policy is that like climate change it unfolds slowly over time, and so it is often difficult to see the change in climate while it is happening. For one thing, there are always other variables.  For example, the unemployment rate has also gone down during this period, from 7.2 percent last October to 6.7 percent today . It is possible that some o...

We hear so often that the Republicans have offered no alternatives to Obamacare that we think it must be true.  It isn’t.  They presented at least two alternatives to the Affordable Care Act in 2009.  And neither would be better than what we have today.  One would have had all the Obamacare implementation problems.  And the other would have insured no more than a thimbleful of people.  The first was called the Patients’ Choice Act, offered by Paul Ryan.  The other was called the Affordable Health Care Act for America, offered by John Boehner. Elements of the Ryan plan , which was introduced in the spring of 2009, will sound very familiar to you: “The federal government partners with states to create State Health Insurance Exchanges.” These exchanges became a core component of Obamacare, and would look exactly like the exchanges in place today. “The Exchange would require all participating insurers to offer coverage to any...

We hear so often that the Republicans have offered no alternatives to Obamacare that we think it must be true.  It isn’t.  They presented at least two alternatives to the Affordable Care Act in 2009.  And neither would be better than what we have today.  One would have had all the Obamacare implementation problems.  And the other would have insured no more than a thimbleful of people.  The first was called the Patients’ Choice Act, offered by Paul Ryan.  The other was called the Affordable Health Care Act for America, offered by John Boehner. Elements of the Ryan plan , which was introduced in the spring of 2009, will sound very familiar to you: “The federal government partners with states to create State Health Insurance Exchanges.” These exchanges became a core component of Obamacare, and would look exactly like the exchanges in place today. “The Exchange would require all participating insurers to offer coverage to any...

The latest Obamacare navigator “compromise” may calm one small battle in Florida.  But it won’t end the war on Obamacare being waged by hypocritical public officials around the country. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the Congressional effort to undermine the Obamacare navigation program in its entirety.  A House Committee has ordered nonprofits winning navigation grants to produce reams of material, and promises to punish those that have failed to comply.  Source: US Census Bureau Navigators will assist people in applying for public or private insurance to pay for their health care.   Navigators are not a new concept, created by Obamacare.  They are as old as Marco Rubio, and Obamacare is not the first federal initiative ever to fund them.  In fact, I implemented the policy of the Nixon Administration as a VISTA paralegal 35 years ago, navigating underinsured elders to the Medicaid program. So we know that navigators can be ...

The latest Obamacare navigator “compromise” may calm one small battle in Florida.  But it won’t end the war on Obamacare being waged by hypocritical public officials around the country. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the Congressional effort to undermine the Obamacare navigation program in its entirety.  A House Committee has ordered nonprofits winning navigation grants to produce reams of material, and promises to punish those that have failed to comply.  Source: US Census Bureau Navigators will assist people in applying for public or private insurance to pay for their health care.   Navigators are not a new concept, created by Obamacare.  They are as old as Marco Rubio, and Obamacare is not the first federal initiative ever to fund them.  In fact, I implemented the policy of the Nixon Administration as a VISTA paralegal 35 years ago, navigating underinsured elders to the Medicaid program. So we know that navigators can be ...

The reasons that 25 states chose not to participate in creating a new health exchange aren’t exactly the ones they’ve been claiming – that Obamacare is too complicated, too anti-consumer, or too politically unpopular.  The truth is that they have never done a very good job of protecting the health and well-being of their people – especially their children – and they were not ready to start now. Now that all fifty states have decided whether or not they will at least participate in running their own health insurance exchanges as allowed by the Affordable Care Act (you can see the updated information about what each state decided on my state rankings page ), a clear picture is emerging of what distinguished the states choosing to participate from those refusing to do so. On the whole, when compared to one another, the 25 states that have chosen to participate in running their exchanges (17 by themselves, 8 in partnership with the federal government)do a much better jo...

The reasons that 25 states chose not to participate in creating a new health exchange aren’t exactly the ones they’ve been claiming – that Obamacare is too complicated, too anti-consumer, or too politically unpopular.  The truth is that they have never done a very good job of protecting the health and well-being of their people – especially their children – and they were not ready to start now. Now that all fifty states have decided whether or not they will at least participate in running their own health insurance exchanges as allowed by the Affordable Care Act (you can see the updated information about what each state decided on my state rankings page ), a clear picture is emerging of what distinguished the states choosing to participate from those refusing to do so. On the whole, when compared to one another, the 25 states that have chosen to participate in running their exchanges (17 by themselves, 8 in partnership with the federal government)do a much better jo...

President Reagan gave his first speech on the AIDS epidemic almost twenty-five years ago on May 31, 1987.  This was after 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS, 20,849 had died, and over a quarter of a million had been infected with HIV. For years, he had been criticized for ignoring and underfunding the worst public health crisis of the late 20 th century.   So he began his speech with a joke: “A charity committee approaches the wealthiest man in town for a contribution.  ‘Our book shows that you haven’t contributed any money this year,’ they tell him.  ‘Does your book also show that I have an infirm mother and a disabled brother?’ he replies.  ‘Why no,’ they say, ‘we didn’t know that.’ ‘Well, I don’t give them any money.  Why should I give any to you?’” The bad joke was an inadvertent punctuation mark on a presidency too fondly remembered by both republicans and democrats today. On matters of health, Reagan took us ...

President Reagan gave his first speech on the AIDS epidemic almost twenty-five years ago on May 31, 1987.  This was after 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS, 20,849 had died, and over a quarter of a million had been infected with HIV. For years, he had been criticized for ignoring and underfunding the worst public health crisis of the late 20 th century.   So he began his speech with a joke: “A charity committee approaches the wealthiest man in town for a contribution.  ‘Our book shows that you haven’t contributed any money this year,’ they tell him.  ‘Does your book also show that I have an infirm mother and a disabled brother?’ he replies.  ‘Why no,’ they say, ‘we didn’t know that.’ ‘Well, I don’t give them any money.  Why should I give any to you?’” The bad joke was an inadvertent punctuation mark on a presidency too fondly remembered by both republicans and democrats today. On matters of health, Reagan took us ...

“States’ rights” is as popular a rallying cry as ever as we enter the early stages of the 2012 election campaign.   To advocates of states’ rights, they are code words for state innovation and initiative, unhampered by the demands of a federal government.     In their minds, we are a United States of America.   To skeptics, we are a United States of America, and states’ rights are the code words of political leaders who want to run their states as fiefdoms and answer to no higher authority.   The new 2010 uninsured numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau last week make a compelling case against the states’ rights position. In the South, where the drum roll for states’ rights beats most loudly, 19% of all people were uninsured 2010 for the entire year .   This was more than in the West, where 18% were uninsured, the Midwest, where 13% were uninsured, and the Northeast, where only 12% were uninsured. Place clearly matters where health insurance i...