Looking to build pressure on moderate Democrats, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it will begin airing new TV ads in seven states and on national cable television attacking the emerging legislation, including a government-run insurance option. Read more....
Employers struggling with the steady rise of health insurance costs – which in 2009 increased 5 percent to an average of $13,375 for family coverage -- are passing on more of the expense to their workers through higher deductibles and co-payments, according to survey released today. Since 1999, health insurance premiums have soared 131 percent -- more than triple the rise in workers' wages and four times the overall inflation rate, the report said.
Paul Fronstin, senior research associate at the Employee Benefit Research Institute, said that "employers see raising deductibles as the easiest way to control costs." The higher deductibles are one reason why premiums have been going up more slowly in recent years. "It’s a crude instrument, but it does the job," he said. Read it all at Kaiser Health News
Rising health care costs are the single biggest economic concern facing American businesses, according to a survey of business leaders released today by Business Forward.
Nearly 90% of those polled cite health care costs as a major concern, more than cite taxes, government regulation, labor costs or energy costs.
Without reform, 86% of those polled believe that health care costs will continue to rise in the next five years, and 55% believe it will go up "a lot." If costs continue to rise as expected, nearly 9 out of 10 business leaders expect to raise their employees' deductibles and copayments. Nearly 8 out of 10 expect to cut benefits. And nearly one in three expects to lay off employees. The survey also indicates that the surge in interest among business leaders during the 2008 campaigns is likely to continue -- and it could have a big impact on Washington. One in three business leaders became more involved in the 2008 campaign than in previous campaigns, and nearly nine out of ten of those leaders expect to be even more involved in future campaigns.
Business Forward is a new organization dedicated to building business support for policies that promote America's economic competitiveness, particularly those that relate to health care, energy, the environment and education. Business Forward briefs business leaders on key issues, holds conferences and press events, issues policy briefings and engages in other public advocacy initiatives. Read it all
Accelerating health-care premiums and sharp revenue shortfalls due to the recession are forcing some small companies to choose between dropping health insurance or laying off workers -- or staying in business at all. Read More at WSJ.com:
"Companies are getting walloped by higher than expected costs just when they can least afford it. Employers had figured on a 6% hike in health care this year, but it now looks as if the increase will be closer to 7.5%. The spike is due to employees making more trips to the doctor and dentist and undergoing more exams, tests and treatment, a common occurrence in a recession. It’s driven by stress related illnesses and by workers worried that they’d better race to use their benefits while they still have them." Read More... - Kiplinger.com
Those opposing health care reform are usually insurance industry CEOs and sales brokers, because they are the make-work middlemen pocketing the cash. Unfortunately, many non-insurance executives can’t see the forest through the trees. Their business “partners” from the insurance sector are dipping into their health care wallets, in some cases to make up for losses in other areas like Katrina and the stock market. It is a total waste.
The smartest thing we could do -- both as a nation and business community -- is to switch to a single-payer Medicare-for-all system of health care. As a Medicare patient and former CEO, I think it’s great. I get sick, I get care and the caregiver gets paid. I go to the same private hospital and physician I have for years; they just send the bill to Medicare instead. I just don't deal with the insurance company.
Every U.S. citizen should have this level of care, including politicians. If they want anything outside of the norm, like cosmetic surgery, they can pay for it on the outside the old-fashioned, free-market way, with cash dollars.
A Medicare-for-all system would not only save consumers $400 billion per year; it would save every U.S. corporation $6,500 per employee per year in health care premiums. How’s that for a bailout? But this one isn’t going to just the bankers.
Ask the Big Three how important that is. They now manufacture more cars in Canada because they only pay $800 per employee. And 80 percent of Canadians prefer their health care system to ours, even with their wait times. But since we spend twice what they do, wait times will not be an issue.
So the government has done some pretty stupid things and they’ll continue doing stupid things on health care because the insurance industry has given congress $46 million in campaign contributions. What else would you expect them to do? Money talks!
That insurance bureaucracy is draining 31 percent of health care costs, money that should instead be spent on physicians, nurses and hospitals.
Unless the business community steps in and demands a single payer fix we are doomed for years of the same. Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold must pressure Sen. Max Baucus and the Finance Committee to put single-payer on the table, and they must be encouraged to co-sign Sen. Bernie Sanders’ SB703 (the senate version of HR676). Only then can our economy turn around the way it should.
Read More - BizTimes:
Uniform Velocity
As the pinch is being felt throughout the economy our company is also getting squeezed. Our situation is not as bad as some, but we are taking some measures such as furlough time to reduce payroll and energy saving evaluations to decrease energy costs. Unfortunately, there is an aspect that is out of management’s direct control and it is an area where people across the nation feel the pinch, Health Insurance.
 This year, at open enrollment, our costs are increasing ever so slightly. Approximately an additional fifteen dollars for a family plan per pay period, but this is not the painful or shocking aspect. It was expected, with state of the financial system in the United States, that costs would go up. It was not expected that after management shopped our group plan around and kept payer costs as close as possible to current rates, our deductible would triple. This increase will bring the amount to a level that will put much preventive medicine and specialist care out of reach for many of the blue collar workers employed at the facility. Naturally, the new plan was quite shocker to everyone enrolled.
So what is the solution? Bite the bullet and incur the cost. Forgo important medical treatment that may be preventative, or highly needed because you lack the funding?
Much derision is piled upon ’single payer healthcare’ as socialized, or communist medicine. But, I will admit my agreement with the current presidential administration, looming much larger than the banking crisis and more impactful on our lives are the ballooning healthcare costs. Something must be done, and the opponents may balk at ‘paying for the welfare moms to have more babies’, but the truth is, no matter the system there will always be cheats and the good of the whole must be considered.
If the nation does not get a leash on this elephant in the room there will be a much larger impending financial crisis facing this nation and its citizens.
Sacramento Business Journal:: About 3.7 million working-age adults have already lost insurance due to the recession and 500,000 more will become uninsured over the next four years if there are no changes in health policy — even if the economy recovers, according to a new report by researchers at University of California Berkeley.
Growing numbers of uninsured will mean higher costs for financially strapped cities and states, decreased productivity and earnings, and higher costs for employers and individuals who do have coverage, concludes Ken Jacobs, primary author and chair of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.
About 500,000 working-age Californians have lost insurance since the recession began a little over a year ago, for a total of about 6 million uninsured. An additional 100,000 will lose insurance by the end of 2012 without health care reform, even if the economy bounces back to pre-recession levels, he said.
Total numbers will be higher because the estimates do not include children or the elderly. The report uses data from the March supplement for the Current Population Survey conducted by the Census Bureau.
Released as Congress debates health-care reform initiatives in President Obama’s proposed federal budget, the report documents what could happen if significant policy changes fail.
If the auto industry or other significant segments of the U.S. economy go down, the landscape will be much worse, Jacobs said.
Time to bring this back from 2005:
"The Canadian plan has been a significant advantage for investing in Canada," says GM Canada spokesman David Patterson, noting that in the United States, GM spends $1,400 per car on health benefits. Indeed, with the provinces sharing 75 percent of the cost of Canadian healthcare, it’s no surprise that GM, Ford and Chrysler have all been shifting car production across the border at such a rate that the name "Motor City" should belong to Windsor, not Detroit.
Just two years ago, GM Canada’s CEO Michael Grimaldi sent a letter co-signed by Canadian Autoworkers Union president Buzz Hargrave to a Crown Commission considering reforms of Canada’s 35-year-old national health program that said, "The public healthcare system significantly reduces total labour costs for automobile manufacturing firms, compared to their cost of equivalent private insurance services purchased by U.S.-based automakers." That letter also said it was "vitally important that the publicly funded healthcare system be preserved and renewed, on the existing principles of universality, accessibility, portability, comprehensiveness and public administration," and went on to call not just for preservation but for an “updated range of services." CEOs of the Canadian units of Ford and DaimlerChrysler wrote similar encomiums endorsing the national health system." How can the same corporations that in Canada recognize the bottom-line logic of a national health system be so opposed to the idea here? Good question. And the answer is.... One answer is ideology. The notion of having the government take over an industry that represents about 15 percent of the U.S. economy gives U.S. executives the willies. But in backing insurance company interests, GM runs counter to both its own business interests and the sentiments of many customers. Wonder if GM U.S wishes they had made a different choice now.
The report from the Business Roundtable, which represents CEOs of major companies, says America's health care system has become a liability in a global economy. Americans spend $2.4 trillion a year on health care. The Business Roundtable report says Americans in 2006 spent $1,928 per capita on health care, at least two-and-a-half times more per person than any other advanced country.
The United States is 23 points behind five leading economic competitors: Canada, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and France. The five nations cover all their citizens, and though their systems differ, in each country the government plays a much larger role than in the U.S.
The cost-benefit disparity is even wider _ 46 points _ when the U.S. is compared with emerging competitors: China, Brazil and India.
Other countries spend less on health care and their workers are relatively healthier, the report said. So you have to ask how they logically reach this conclusion: The CEOs of the Business Roundtable believe health care for U.S. workers and their families should stay in private hands, with a government-funded safety net for low-income people. Oh yeah, they are asking people like the CEO of the insurance company Cigna what he thinks. Protect profit at all costs is how. Fools.
Koch is the second largest private company in the United States.
"Although it is both a top campaign contributor and spends millions on direct lobbying, Koch's chief political influence tool is a web of interconnected, right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups funded by foundations controlled and supported by the two Koch brothers.
Among those groups are some of the country's most prominent conservative and libertarian voices including the Cato Institute, the Reason Foundation, Citizens for a Sound Economy and the Federalist Society. All regularly beat the drum in official Washington for the causes the Koch's hold dear-minimal government, deregulation, and free market economics." See also: http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb06?_KOCH_INDUSTRIES_
Health Insurance Company CEO Salaries from 2005 and the total from the previous 5 Years. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to have true Universal Health CARE when CEOs like these are involved.
* United Health Group
CEO: William W McGuire
2005: 124.8 mil
5-year: 342 mil
* Aetna
CEO: John Rowe
2005: 22.1 mil
5-year:57.8 mil
* Cigna
CEO: H. Edward Hanway
2005:13.3 mil
5-year:62.8 mil
* McKesson
CEO: John Hammergen
2005: 13.4 mil
5-year:31.2 mil
* WellPoint
CEO: Larry Glasscock
2005: 23 mil
5-year: 46.8 mil"
More from a blog comment at sideshoe.me.uk: The health insurance companies have played a major role in our current healthcare crisis. They make huge profits and their CEOs make millions, while the rest of us are denied care.
ANNUAL COMPENSATION OF HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY EXECUTIVES (2006 and 2007 figures):
• Ronald A. Williams, Chair/ CEO, Aetna Inc., $23,045,834
• H. Edward Hanway, Chair/ CEO, Cigna Corp, $30.16 million
• David B. Snow, Jr, Chair/ CEO, Medco Health, $21.76 million
• Michael B. MCallister, CEO, Humana Inc, $20.06 million
• Stephen J. Hemsley, CEO, UnitedHealth Group, $13,164,529
• Angela F. Braly, President/ CEO, Wellpoint, $9,094,771
• Dale B. Wolf, CEO, Coventry Health Care, $20.86 million
• Jay M. Gellert, President/ CEO, Health Net, $16.65 million
• William C. Van Faasen, Chairman, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3 million plus $16.4 million in retirement benefits
• Charlie Baker, President/ CEO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, $1.5 million
• James Roosevelt, Jr., CEO, Tufts Associated Health Plans, $1.3 million
• Cleve L. Killingsworth, President/CEO Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3.6 million
• Raymond McCaskey, CEO, Health Care Service Corp (Blue Cross Blue Shield), $10.3 million
• Daniel P. McCartney, CEO, Healthcare Services Group, Inc, $ 1,061,513
• Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555
• Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825
• Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751
• Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555
• Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825
• Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751
This executive compensation could be used to provide quality healthcare for millions of Americans! We need to get the insurance companies and their lobbyists OUT of healthcare. NON-PROFIT, SINGLE-PAYER IS THE ONLY OPTION. If you want to learn more, go to: http://www.insurancecompanyrules.org/learn_more/the_roster/The solution? The United States National Health Insurance Act, H.R. 676. You can read about it here: http://www.healthcare-now.org/hr-676/Tell Max Baucus he must put single-payer reform on the table: http://www.change.org/ideas/
The truth is that U.S. auto firms are being battered by a global economic collapse that has undermined car sales everywhere, leading to demands for government bailouts in every country where cars are made. But the even greater truth is that U.S. firms have been hit harder than many of their competitors by stalling car sales.
That's because it costs more to make cars in the United States. Even though U.S. autoworkers have accepted pay cuts and efficiency schemes that mean they make less than autoworkers in many other countries, the enormous expense imposed by this country's for-profit health care system places an extreme burden on firms that manufacture vehicles in the U.S. How extreme? It is estimated that health care costs add as much as $1,400 to the cost of a car made in an American plant.
So a new bailout, without a serious focus on health care reform, is at best a temporary fix, as three Democratic House members from the hard-hit manufacturing states of Ohio and Michigan explain in a new letter to GM CEO Richard Wagoner, Jr.
"Divided We Fail" presented itself as a broad coalition of diverse interests that could come together and agree on health care reform. But it isn't a broad coalition. It is a coalition that primarily represents business interests - big business through the Business Roundtable, and small business through the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).
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