Universal Health

IN 1993, President Clinton proposed a plan for universal health insurance. In beating it back, opponents smoothly assured the public that they supported the idea in principle, they just wanted to package it in a better way.Here's what you get for listening to smoothies:No serious interest anymore in guaranteeing all Americans access to medical care. A congressional majority -- mostly Republicans but including some Democrats -- strangled the Clinton plan, then walked away.A proposal for gradually raising the Medicare age to 67. That would push many future retirees, 65 to 66, into the ranks of the uninsured.

In the new issue of Rolling Stone , pop star Katy Perry joined many other celebrities in providing her analysis of political issues of our country.  According to the article, which you can view here , Perry revealed she's "recently undergone a political awakening" and now sees America as too focused on money and fame instead of people's wellness.  "I think we are largely in desperate need of revolutionary change in the way our...

The dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health endorsed a state bill yesterday that would force businesses to offer health insurance to their employees or pay toward a fund for the uninsured. Bloomberg School of Public Health Dean Alfred Sommer said later, It is extraordinarily embarrassing for me, personally, to go to almost any meeting in the world where there are people from other developed market economies because we are the only country which does not guarantee access to health care.

Thanks to Wall Street bonuses and government bailouts, the size of the federal debt, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and other recent scandals, U.S. politicians have learned to express outrage as reflexively as some of us say "ouch" even before the doctor inserts the needle. Just watch the cable networks or read the blogosphere: It pays to be angry these days, and the less rational the better. But sometimes knee-jerk populist indignation comes off as, well, knee-jerk populist indignation.

Maryland Citizens Health Initiative is refueling for the next phase of its campaign for universal health insurance in the state with the announcement yesterday that it is receiving a three-year, $250,000-a-year grant. The money comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a health-focused grant-maker in New Jersey. It is part of a $15 million, 12-state effort called Consumer Voices for Coverage. "The purpose of this program is to strengthen advocacy efforts in states to expand health coverage," said Lori Grubstein, program officer for the foundation.

WHILE Sen. Harris Wofford was roaring to victory in Pennsylvania, fueled by middle-class worries over health insurance, Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan was presiding over a summit conference of the health-care establishment. Consumer groups were excluded from the session of leaders of big insurance companies, doctors' organizations and hospital executives.Sullivan emerged from this session with the perfect symbol of the administration's vacuous health policy -- a proposed universal health-care credit card with only one flaw: It doesn't provide any health coverage.

Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative announced yesterday that it had met its goal of getting more then 2,000 community, religious, business and labor groups to endorse its principles of affordable quality health care for all Marylanders. Formed two years ago, the group has sought to build support for the concept of universal health coverage and to develop a plan to accomplish it. Supporting groups range from the Business and Professional Women of Garrett County to the Worcester County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

ANNAPOLIS -- A House committee considered a bill yesterday that would practically ban the private health insurance industry from Maryland, put doctors on a strict annual budget and create a Canadian-style "universal" system.It was the first of three hearings in the House to examine the major health-care reform plans before the legislature this year. Most observers give those bills slim chance of becoming law this year, but supporters of the Canadian system think momentum for such a plan is building.

A fraud and conspiracy complaint has been dismissed against a Columbia medical technology company with ties to Novatek International Inc., the bankrupt Columbia firm under Securities and Exchange Commission investigation for stock fraud.The Feb. 4 ruling by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James T. Schneider dismissed the civil complaint against Universal Health Watch Inc. and two former Novatek officers now living in Florida, Rudolphe Baboun Sr., once a director, and Larry Schone, a one-time secretary.

State health and insurance officials disclosed yesterday plans to sell the health care business at the center of the failed bribery case against former state Sen. Larry Young to a Prince George's County physicians group, which apparently forfeited its corporate charter last year. In a joint announcement that gave scant details, Insurance Commissioner Steven B. Larsen and Health Secretary Dr. Georges C. Benjamin said PrimeHealth Corp. in Lanham will be sold to Universal Health Plan. The sale is subject to the negotiation of a final sales agreement and approval of that agreement by a Baltimore City Circuit judge.

C urrent medical practice is enormously expensive, often without clear long-term benefits. A few examples: •End-of-life care at New York University averaged $105,000 per patient in the last two years of life, without evident improvement in mortality rates. Costs at other centers were nearly as high, also without evident benefits. •Studies document that providing intensive care to infants born at 22-23 weeks resulted in more than 1,700 extra days in intensive care, with fewer than 20 percent of the infants surviving - only 3 percent without profound impairment.

It's the elephant in the room that the health reform committees haven't decided whether to take on. Yet Congress must address the dysfunctional federal tax subsidy for health insurance if it is serious about eliminating excessive health insurance and health care costs, extending health care coverage to most of the 46 million uninsured Americans, and paying for it in a fair and sensible way. What should be a slam dunk, at least for Democrats, has been...

The current debate on health care reform has primarily focused on two overarching goals: how to increase access to care by assuring that health coverage is available to all; and how to best control rapidly rising health care costs. Much of the discussion in Washington has been theoretical. Our experience is real-world. Every single day, we implement a universal health and wellness program that can inform both aspects of the debate. The Healthy Howard health plan, launched in January of this year, is our health and wellness plan to cover the uninsured of Howard County - a jurisdiction of well over 270,000 people.

Despite a slower-than-expected start, Howard County's attempt to provide universal medical care to its residents offers some important lessons for those who would remake the nation's health care system on a much broader scale. At least one member of the County Council is questioning whether to allocate a planned $500,000 to the Healthy Howard initiative in light of its so-far lackluster enrollment - just 200 of the county's 20,000 uninsured have signed up so far. But the enrollment doesn't tell the whole story.

Universal health care is the real solution The Baltimore Sun's three-part series "In Their Debt" (Dec. 21-Dec. 23) was more compelling when it pointed to the failings of the current health care financing model than when it questioned the efficacy of Maryland's unique "all-payer" hospital rate-setting model. While we spend far more than any other country on health care, about 46 million people in this country (including 800,000 in Maryland) have no health insurance and millions more have inadequate insurance.

Health care advocates plan to unveil today an ambitious $15.5 billion proposal for universal health care in Maryland that would increase payroll taxes to pay for coverage for low-income residents and create a quasi-governmental insurance pool. The Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative, with health policy experts from the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, crafted the proposal. The groups plan to build a coalition of labor unions, faith groups and community organizations.

Maryland insurance officials are asking a Circuit Court judge to approve a plan to sell embattled HMO PrimeHealth Corp. to a physicians group for $2 million, but they refuse to disclose whether it was the highest bid. The plan to sell PrimeHealth to Universal Health Plan Inc. of Lanham was filed yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court by attorneys for state Insurance Commissioner Steven B. Larsen. Before Larsen's plan was filed yesterday, attorneys for the original owners of PrimeHealth filed a motion seeking an injunction to block the sale, contending that the state seizure of the health care company in fall 1998 was unjustified.

The company picked by state officials to take over the operations of a troubled health maintenance organization has been sued three times recently, and some of its shareholders have borrowed heavily to make the purchase. Universal Health Plan of Lanham was picked by the Maryland Insurance Administration this month to take over the operations of PrimeHealth, an HMO serving more than 15,500 patients, many in the Baltimore area. But at least two groups are stepping up efforts to challenge the state's proposed sale.

Published in 1995, William Bridges' JobShift lingers today around No. 400,000 on Amazon's sales list. The book's central idea deserves more attention than that. Mr. Bridges argues that the "job" - a defined set of responsibilities that remains constant and is fulfilled by one or more people over time - is disappearing right in front of us. Work is being reorganized without jobs. Employees are being let go, then engaged as consultants. A major bank projects that only 19 percent of its work force will be considered permanent full-time employees.