Health Plan

Anne Arundel Health Department officials briefed the County Council last night on its possible role if the Clinton health care reform plan is approved and provided an update on the numbers of AIDS cases in its biannual report.County Health Officer Frances B. Phillips told the council that some services the department now provides will not be offered if the Clinton plan is approved "because every county resident would be fully insured and get these services in a private clinic."Those services include well-baby clinics, family planning, pregnancy services, preventive dental treatment, immunizations and outpatient mental health and addictions treatment.

WASHINGTON -- Some of the Clinton administration's top economic officials told President Clinton on Thursday that they had serious questions about the cost and scope of the ambitious plan for health care being developed by Hillary Rodham Clinton, people who attended the meeting said yesterday.As Mr. Clinton nears crucial decisions on his health plan, his top advisers remain deeply divided on a question at the core of the proposal: how generous to make the standard package of medical benefits that would be guaranteed to all Americans.

WASHINGTON -- Facing a tough fight over the health care reform legislation he'll present tomorrow, President Clinton is making last-minute changes to ease congressional concerns about costs, regulation and other issues.To save money, Mr. Clinton is considering phasing in some benefits over a longer period of time and limiting future federal subsidies for low-income people. To address fears that he would impose government controls on the health care system, he is cutting back the proposed state regulation of competition.

In an attempt to stem a double-digit rise in health insurance costs, Anne Arundel County is devising its own managed-care health plan for its employees.Anne Arundel would become the second county in the state with a self-insured health plan -- Prince Georges is the other -- and the first that includes the children of welfare recipients on its roles.Switching some 11,000 children whose parents receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children from Medicaid to the county program will provide them with better, more efficient and cheaper health-care services, county officials said.

WASHINGTON -- Administration officials have disclosed that President Clinton's health plan would require some state and local governments to pay more than private employers pay for employees' health insurance.Private employers would not have to contribute more than 7.9 percent of their payrolls. But no such limit would apply to public employers, the administration officials said.The president's decision to exempt state and local governments from that limit alienates some of his natural allies, including public employee unions, which strongly supported him in the 1992 campaign and have pleaded for a ceiling on their health insurance costs.

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Rodham Clinton lashed out in NTC unusually harsh language at the health insurance industry yesterday as the Clinton administration tried to stem the erosion of public support for its health care reform plan.Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the president's wife accused health insurers of lying to the American people in television commercials that feature a worried couple at the kitchen table trying to understand the president's proposal.

Tens of thousands of Marylanders set to enroll in health plans over the next few weeks have a useful measure: health regulators' second annual report card comparing the 13 major HMOs operating in the state.Consumers can check the report card, issued yesterday, to see how well the plans did on scheduling appointments, giving checkups for new moms, even how much doctors listen to patients.For the second year, smaller, local health plans tended to get higher marks than national insurers with larger, but loose, doctor networks.

Maryland took the first step yesterday toward making health insurance more affordable as a state task force unveiled a package of standard health benefits that insurers would be required to offer small businesses at an average cost of $3,080 per worker.The package, presented to the state Health Care Access and Care Commission, is aimed at reducing the number of uninsured Marylanders, estimated at 600,000.The plan would spread the cost of insurance over the entire pool of people being insured.

WASHINGTON -- Armed with pirated copies of President Clinton's confidential health care reform plan, critics are taking early shots at his sweeping proposal for restructuring the nation's health system.The 239-page document outlines new federal and state regulatory powers over the financing of health care, the benefits people receive and those who provide the benefits: doctors, hospitals and insurers.A new National Health Board would sit atop the system. State governments and regional "health alliances" -- insurance purchasing organizations -- would exercise considerable authority, dictating terms to insurers, doctors and hospitals, according to the document, a copy of which was obtained by The Sun.White House officials had hoped to limit circulation of the document so that they could control release of information about the plan -- and build support for it -- in the days leading up to the president's formal announcement Sept.