Costs Of Health

As Congress begins debating President Clinton's health-care plan, young Americans are running for cover. Rather than making the tough choices today, the Clinton administration proposes passing the health-care bill on to the future.Mr. Clinton made no bones about this generational rip-off when he unveiled his plan before a joint session of Congress: ''If you are a young, single person in your 20s and you are already insured, your rates may go up,'' he said. ''But I think that's fair because when the young get older, they will benefit from it.''Don't bet on it. As it now stands, the president's health-care plan is both generationally unfair and fiscally unsound.

WASHINGTON -- The Congressional Budget Office said yesterday that neither consumers nor the federal government would get any short-term savings from proposals to overhaul the nation's health care system put forward by President Clinton as well as by Republican and moderate Democratic lawmakers.That conclusion, delivered by Robert D. Reischauer, director of the budget office, prompted expressions of frustration from members of Congress at a hearing of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health.

Since 1950, advances in health care have produced more improvement in human health around the world than in all the previous years. Thanks to immunizations, basic health care, the eradication or control of major diseases and other advancements, millions of people are living longer lives and, in many cases, more productive ones. In the developing world, life expectancy has risen from 40 years to 63 years.Not surprisingly, world population has risen dramatically, too, causing fears that the Earth will soon reach its carrying capacity.

Equalize costs of health care insuranceI would like to add my thoughts to the health care issue. I strongly feel that the playing field should be made level for all U.S. citizens as participants: employed, unemployed or retired; union or non-union; rich or poor.For many years I was self-employed and am now retired. My total income was and is taxed before any expenses for health care are paid.This policy should be the same for all U.S. citizens. This means that company-paid health benefits should be considered as income to all recipients.

For White House spin doctors, Donna Shalala's testimony that 40 percent of the American people will pay more for medical insurance under the Clinton health care plan must have been as welcome as a dose of castor oil. That the Health and Human Services secretary was being candid and merely reiterating, with minor changes, estimates presented earlier by Hillary Rodham Clinton was beside the point. Her message clearly upstaged Bill Clinton just as he came to Baltimore Thursday to begin a year-long selling job on the massive legislative proposal he had given Congress the day before.

Washington. -- It is late at night, and we are talking about health care the way Americans do, in personal stories that begin with words like, ''my mother'' or ''my friend'' or ''I.'' This time we are talking about the end of life. How it often ends. How we would choose it to end.In the last months we have borne witness to two deaths, two technological grand finales to good humane lives. Two men we know went out of life in full medical regalia -- tubes and respirators galore -- like some horrifying fireworks display of What Medicine Can Do, Circa 1993.

Viewed in its best light, President Bush's belated entry into the health care debate offers assurance that the nation within the next few years will finally do something about this over-arching problem. By acknowledging that the present system is in "crisis" and by asserting society's obligation to provide health care to its most disadvantaged citizens, Mr. Bush has given what the American Medical Association calls an "aura of inevitability" to what we have termed "the issue of the decade."

ANNAPOLIS -- The House of Delegates unanimously passed a bill yesterday to help small companies with the rising costs of health care.If it passes the Senate, the measure, known as "small group market reform," is likely to become the broadest health care reform effort to pass the General Assembly this year.House Bill 374 was sponsored by the entire Economic Matters Committee. Its chairman, Del. Casper R. Taylor Jr., D-Allegany, has conceded that the legislature will not be able to enact a fundamental reform this year that provides universal access to health care.

Health EconomicsEditor: There has been much criticism lately about how the U.S. is the only developed country that does not guarantee basic health care for each of its citizens. Having our government provide health services for us would be one of the worst things that could happen to this great nation.It is common knowledge that the government cannot afford the astronomical cost of a federal health care program. But even if we could afford it, such a program would do more harm than good to the socioeconomic condition of America.

A modest platform of legislation aimed at curbing the rising costs of health care in Maryland was announced yesterday by the Maryland Chamber of Commerce and the state AFL-CIO, two strange bedfellows created by politics.The agenda of the group, called the Baltimore Area Labor-Management Committee, includes a proposal to create a minimum-benefits package for employers who can't afford the full array of state-mandated benefits; a bill that would require physicians to disclose their financial interest in facilities to which they refer patients; and a study to decide whether to regulate the fees charged by hospital-based specialists, such as anesthesiologists.

The election is less than a week away. Health care remains a key issue for most Americans, with the declining economy serving to underscore how important it is that the next president get health care right. Considerable ink and blog space have been devoted to explicating the details and expected outcomes of Sen. Barack Obama's and Sen. John McCain's health care plans. Armed with analyses from health economists, both campaigns are peppering last-minute speeches and ads with specific figures about how much money their health care plans would save you and how much their plans would cost.

In this presidential election year, health care reform is once again attracting significant attention. Polls show that health care access and cost are two of the primary domestic concerns of voters of all persuasions. Unfortunately, all of the major candidates' proposals depend, in one form or another, on continuing the most problematic aspect of our current health care system: employer-based health coverage. The involvement of employers in providing health coverage, almost unique to the United States, is an artifact of a moment in history.

Betty Ashbrook and a helpful friend recently lugged a twin bed down from an upstairs guest room into Ashbrook's dining area, making that the 64-year-old woman's new bedroom. She did so not because she was having trouble navigating the stairs, but because she was struggling to pay her rapidly rising heating bills, the most recent of which was more than $200 - a quarter of her monthly income. "I can't afford these gas bills like this," said Ashbrook, a widow. "So I brought my bed down on the first floor, so that I can pretty much live on one floor.

IT SOUNDS logical that patients with health insurance would be less likely to seek unnecessary tests and treatment if they had to bear some of the cost - had "some skin in the game," as Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee put it the other day. In fact, co-pays and deductibles work well in employer-sponsored plans for middle-income workers to discourage overuse of specialists and frequent trips to the doctor's office. Erecting such barriers in Medicaid, though, as the National Governors Association recommends, would likely cost more than it would save.

OPEN ENROLLMENT is here again, the time when many workers are called upon to wade through thick information packets and expected to choose a health care plan. It's not easy reading. Doctors and hospitals are called providers. Terms like co-payments, co-insurance and deductibles are another way of the employer saying, "That's what comes out of your pocket." The decision can be difficult. It requires workers to predict their own health care needs for the next year, and that of any family member covered under the plan.

For White House spin doctors, Donna Shalala's testimony that 40 percent of the American people will pay more for medical insurance under the Clinton health care plan must have been as welcome as a dose of castor oil. That the Health and Human Services secretary was being candid and merely reiterating, with minor changes, estimates presented earlier by Hillary Rodham Clinton was beside the point. Her message clearly upstaged Bill Clinton just as he came to Baltimore Thursday to begin a year-long selling job on the massive legislative proposal he had given Congress the day before.

As Congress begins debating President Clinton's health-care plan, young Americans are running for cover. Rather than making the tough choices today, the Clinton administration proposes passing the health-care bill on to the future.Mr. Clinton made no bones about this generational rip-off when he unveiled his plan before a joint session of Congress: ''If you are a young, single person in your 20s and you are already insured, your rates may go up,'' he said. ''But I think that's fair because when the young get older, they will benefit from it.''Don't bet on it. As it now stands, the president's health-care plan is both generationally unfair and fiscally unsound.

Since 1950, advances in health care have produced more improvement in human health around the world than in all the previous years. Thanks to immunizations, basic health care, the eradication or control of major diseases and other advancements, millions of people are living longer lives and, in many cases, more productive ones. In the developing world, life expectancy has risen from 40 years to 63 years.Not surprisingly, world population has risen dramatically, too, causing fears that the Earth will soon reach its carrying capacity.

Equalize costs of health care insuranceI would like to add my thoughts to the health care issue. I strongly feel that the playing field should be made level for all U.S. citizens as participants: employed, unemployed or retired; union or non-union; rich or poor.For many years I was self-employed and am now retired. My total income was and is taxed before any expenses for health care are paid.This policy should be the same for all U.S. citizens. This means that company-paid health benefits should be considered as income to all recipients.

WASHINGTON -- The Congressional Budget Office said yesterday that neither consumers nor the federal government would get any short-term savings from proposals to overhaul the nation's health care system put forward by President Clinton as well as by Republican and moderate Democratic lawmakers.That conclusion, delivered by Robert D. Reischauer, director of the budget office, prompted expressions of frustration from members of Congress at a hearing of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health.