Health Care

On Thursday, the day the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare, a 47-year-old Baltimore woman went to the drugstore, and pulled out her debit card to pay for a prescription refill. But she didn't have enough money in the account to cover the $425 charge. So she asked the pharmacist and staff for a favor. "I asked them to break up the prescription to give me one-third," says the woman, who would not allow her name to be published because she didn't want to disclose her medical conditions.

Days after voting again to repeal President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, congressional Republicans have tapped Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland to deliver their weekly address. “As a physician for nearly thirty years who helped mothers and their new babies get through childbirth, I have seen what is good and what is bad about America's health care system, and ObamaCare makes our system worse,” said the Baltimore County Republican, an obstetric anesthesiologist.  “Instead of lowering costs like Washington Democrats promised, ObamaCare is leading insurance companies all over the country to raise their rates by double and triple digits.” House Republicans voted this week for the third time to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act. They have held 37 votes since they took the majority in 2011 to repeal the law in full or in part.

Up to half of sexually active young people will get a sexually transmitted disease by the time they are 25, yet many don't seek testing because it may be difficult, costly or embarrassing. Public health officials nationally and in particularly affected cities like Baltimore, however, say they've found a method that seems to address the major hurdles — a website that supplies free in-home testing kits for three of the most commonly reported STDs. "The highest prevalence is in young adults, and we knew we had to reach these kids," said Charlotte A. Gaydos, a professor of infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

The health care industry - doctors, hospitals, medical facilities and pharmaceuticals - will do this country in and only the rich will survive ("Costs vary for same treatment," May 9). It does not make sense for hospitals to charge varying and outrageous prices for the same procedures. No wonder Medicare is in trouble. When doctors take the Hippocratic Oath, they vow to do no harm, but these outrageous prices seem like a defeat for the oath. lola J. Massey, Owings Mills Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

Of 348 Evening Sun readers and other callers to SUNDIAL yesterday, 271, or 77 percent believed that there should be guaranteed health care for everyone in the United States, and 77, or 22 percent disagreed.The American Medical Association has endorsed reforming the nation's health-care system to guarantee health care for everyone. The AMA suggested that government and business working together might supply health insurance for all."It's Your Call" represents a sampling of opinions from certain segments of the community, but it is not balanced demographically, as a scientific public opinion poll would be.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer last week handed the president of Johns Hopkins University an enormous task: writing the rules for revamping much of Maryland's health-care industry. Yet if anyone is up to this assignment, it is William C. Richardson.Dr. Richardson not only focused on health-services management for his MBA and doctorate, he has studied and written extensively on medical care for the poor, health maintenance organizations and the cost-effectiveness of primary-care network models.

It's virtually a given these days that the uppermost personal concern of the vast majority of Americans, other than the obvious one of earning a regular paycheck, is affordable health care. Only the wealthiest can escape the haunting fear that a single family illness, even a common one like cancer, can in a matter of weeks turn relative economic security into a life doomed to penury.In retrospect it's easy to see what happened: Thirty years ago, a tacit compact was reached that government would pay for the health care of the poor (through Medicaid)

From: Beverly B. ByronU.S. Congress6th DistrictWashingtonI would like to thank all of those who attended the health-care town meeting in Hagerstown on Jan. 14.The turnout of some 200 people last week as compared to the very few who attended my four health-care forums in 1990 impressively demonstrates that health care has taken its place on our national agenda.Nearly 250 members of Congress held town meetings that night to hear from their constituents on where we go from here on health care.

When it comes to finding an answer to the nation's health-care problem, Maryland is indeed "America in miniature." The same three-prolonged debate taking place in Congress is also being argued in Annapolis' State House. And like their counterparts in Washington, Maryland legislators are far from reaching a consensus.Still, the three days of public hearings in the House Economic Matters Committee last week proved an eye-opener for a number of lawmakers and made it clear that only one of the three plans discussed has any chance of advancing in this legislative session.

Health-care costs are spiraling upward again, driven by catastrophic illness claims and the mushrooming use of mental health and substance abuse services. Corporate medical bills soared 21.6 percent last year: The average company spends more than a quarter of its net earnings on health care. If the cost curve continues on this course, medical benefits will rise to intolerable levels -- an estimated $22,000 per worker by the year 2000.Cost containment, the magic bullet of the '80s, hasn't worked.

Have you ever just messed up? I'm not talking about leaving your coffee on the roof of your car. I mean a major, life-altering mistake. Think fiscal cliff-level personal disaster. Now imagine paying for the mistake with jail time - then continuing to pay for the rest of your life by being shut out of every new opportunity to reestablish yourself. That's the life of Marylanders with prior misdemeanor convictions right now, and the General Assembly appears to want them to keep living their nightmares, while taxpayers foot the bill.

On April 17, State Senators Joe Getty, R-Baltimore and Carroll counties, and Ed Kasemeyer, D-Baltimore and Howard counties, shared anecdotes and answered questions from about 50 McDaniel College students who had gathered in a lecture room at Hill Hall for the occasion. The senators had visited the campus for a presentation, ““So What Just Happened: A Report from Annapolis,” as a courtesy to long standing McDaniel political science professor, Dr. Herb Smith - who is frequently sought-out by statewide and national media outlets for his insights into Maryland politics.

What kind of a novel, communistic idea is it to allow sick people with pre-existing conditions to have health insurance ("Care First proposes 25 percent rate jump," April 25)? Previously, sick people and people with pre-existing conditions were not even allowed to buy coverage, which kept costs down and profits up. Health care in the U.S. costs at least double what it costs in any other country in the world. There are several reasons for this, but one of them is not that the U.S. has better care.

Workplace violence is a serious occupational hazard in hospitals and other health care facilities, a fact that has escaped an unsuspecting public. Nationally, nursing assistants employed by nursing homes have the highest incidence of workplace assault among all workers, according to federal data. For women who work in nursing homes, social services and hospitals, the likelihood of being harmed on the job is like that of women working the late-night shift in convenience stores. To draw attention to these and other hidden risks, the Alliance Against Workplace Violence has designated April as Workplace Violence Awareness Month.

Blaming the cost to implement health care reform, the state's largest health insurer has proposed eye-popping rate increases to state regulators for individuals and small businesses. CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield wants to raise rates an average of 25 percent on those who buy coverage individually. Chet Burrell, the insurer's CEO, said the increase was needed to cover the cost of more sick people who will be joining the insurance rolls under health care reform. People with pre-existing conditions were denied coverage prior to health care reform, keeping insurance costs down.

The talk in Washington and among opinion leaders around the country's budget issues today centers on "balance" and "responsibility. " Many conservatives declare that these terms mean that there should be no new revenue, only spending cuts to programs such as Social Security and Medicare. They also propose to reduc cost of living adjustments for all Social Security recipients, a group of Americans who have seen traditional pensions eliminated and savings devastated by the Great Recession - and who rely more and more on our Social Security system, into which they paid during their entire working lives.

The health-care delivery industries are given a respite. Last autumn, until the Clinton health-care bill failed, they were up in arms, guarding their interests from harm. Now the storm has departed as rapidly as it came.Since the conservative Republican congressional victory in November, health care has gone off the screen. The Republicans are talking about which programs to abolish, not what to create.Don't be fooled. The health-care issue is not dead. Small bits of it are wriggling. The rest is dormant -- a virus festering unseen, liable to erupt at some unexpected time.

The word is that health reform died last year because private industry is reforming itself.If only it were true.What's really happening is far more alarming as several trends in health care track across a grid like roaring locomotives on a collision course. Even Speaker Newt Gingrich admitted as much in a speech to the National Hospital Association. Insisting ''we need to rethink our health system,'' Mr. Gingrich warned that current cost trends will result in a ''financial crash.''Yet Republicans continue to behave -- in the words of Bob Dole last spring -- as if ''there is no health-care crisis.

A doctor might ask for a patient's family disease history, or exercise or smoking habits, but whether they have trouble getting food onto the table or paying energy bills is unlikely to appear on any clinic questionnaire. Those sorts of factors could have just as much, if not more, of an impact on a person's everyday health, argue the founders of a startup out of the Johns Hopkins University. Their company, Healthify, is giving clinics that serve largely low-income populations the means to gather and use that information.

The Baltimore County police union says county officials have ignored a ruling by the state's highest court to reimburse some 400 retired Police Department employees for overpaid insurance premiums. A Maryland Court of Appeals decision in November required the county to reimburse the employees for wrongful deductions, but in a motion filed Friday in county Circuit Court, the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 4, says it hasn't happened. The union estimates the county owes retirees $572,887.10 through May 2011.