HHS had a health care summit while Obama had his
Congressmen and the President have a health care meeting
President Obama has initiated a health care summit with Democrats and Republicans from Congress at the Blair House in order to create a bipartisan consensus on what is supposed to be done about health care reform. Some Republicans have been receptive, others combative.Two issues come to the fore – the health care system needs to change, and the U.S. Government cannot afford to begin picking up the tab. The most common cause of bankruptcy is medical bills, and it is also one of the things that routinely sends people running for payday loans.
McCain and Obama trade barbs
Some of the quotes from the proceedings, from MSNBC, indicate verbal sparring between Sen. John McCain (R – AZ) and Obama.
“Let me just make this point, John, because we’re not campaigning anymore. The election is over.” — Obama
“I’m reminded of that every day.” – McCain
Republicans strongly contend that market solutions are the better course, which seems to be consensus in other circles. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal upholds that contention, and two of the authors of the piece are professors of Business and Stanford and Columbia. As it stands now, the government is spending out of control, with Social Security Medicare/Medicaid dangerously close to insolvency, to say nothing of foreign policy.(Don’t we have two wars going on at the same time.) The Senate and the House are currently exploring the possibility of lifting the monopoly exemption that health insurance companies currently enjoy.
The HHS was holding a meeting too
On Wednesday, The Department of Health and Human Services brought a selection of health insurance CEOs to a meeting, as per this article from ABC News.HHS head Karen Sebulius had the CEOs of 5 major insurance companies come to hearing about the cause of higher costs.CEOS were given a hiding about compensation of executives, such as lavish bonuses and vacations, like WellPoint, Inc. spending $ 37 million in 2007 and 2008 on retreats for executives. Rates increased almost 40% for some subscribers.
The rate increase was attributed to already rising cost and irrespective of executive compensation.Increases in costs were attributed to younger policy holders dropping coverage, and leaving policy holders that were older and sicker, and the increased cost of care for the elderly forced insurance companies to raise rates to stay viable as a business.Anthem Blue Cross, a division of WellPoint Inc. claimed to lose $ 10 million or more only in California last year.That aside, a company that can afford to spend $ 30 million on executive retreats doesn’t need a cash advance from it’s customers.
How to pick what to do for the sick
It would appear that the Washington strategy is to throw money at the problem, instead of dealing with the causes of the rising costs. Thus far, few if any, news outlets have covered the cause of increased costs of health care. It could be attributable to increased insurance and tort claims, or perhaps medical records and insurance filings, but it would appear that the underlying disease should be diagnosed before treating the symptoms.
